Faster CAD hardware & software at AutoFact show.

This past November's AutoFact show in Detroit, sponsored by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), was full of new and upgraded software packages for computer-aided design, manufacturing, and engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE).

Some of these packages, as well as brand-new hardware platforms, are said to make possible much faster generation of complex designs, particularly 3-D solid models. Several software makers introduced packages compatible with Windows NT, the latest successor to the Microsoft Windows graphical user interface. Computervision (Bedford, Mass.), Rasna Corp. (San Jose, Calif.), and Parametric Technology Corp. (Waltham, Mass.) were among those introducing CAD/CAE software for the new Microsoft operating system.

Also new at the show were factory automation software and new equipment and materials for rapid prototyping systems.

NEW CAD PRODUCTS

While most of the new mechanical design programs introduced at AutoFact were general-purpose products, one supplier debuted a software package targeted directly at the plastics market.

Computervision's new PlasticsLab software serves as an interface to a variety of third-party programs for mold filling analysis, such as Mold-flow, C-Flow, FAbest, and CAM-Mold. It allows designers to work directly from Computervision's CADDS 5 component geometry, maintaining full associativity throughout the design process. This last feature reportedly means that any engineering changes made to the CADDS 5 geometry are automatically carried through to the mold analysis. PlasticsLab automatically "collapses" a solid geometry to a "2 1/2-D" midplane model, and applies a finite-element mesh to the model before passing to the mold-analysis software.

Three software packages were introduced specifically for Macintosh computers. Intergraph's MicroStation Div. showed version 4 of its MicroStation Mac. Its 2-D and 3-D tools reportedly provide Macintosh users with more functionality than most other CAD software. Features include intelligent associative dimensioning, hot links to relational databases, true reference file sharing, network support and rendering and animation of 3-D models. The software package costs $3450 and runs on Mac SE/30s, Mac IIs and Quadra computers.

New from Alias Research Inc., Toronto, is Sketch! 1.5, a free-form illustration and design package for Macintosh PCs. It reportedly has 31 new features over its predecessor, Version 1.0.2, including the abilities to refresh and retrace the screen twice as fast; directly import any 2-D curve; cut holes in surfaces; and use IGES and RIB data formats. Price is $995.

The ninth version of CADRA-III design documentation software from Adra Systems Inc., Lowell, Mass., includes such new features as Insight, an advanced design tool that reduces the amount of construction geometry in preliminary drawings or sketches by providing the designer with automatic location of ends, origins, vertices and projected intersections. It also has improved personal computer compatibility, allowing the program to be run in the Microsoft Windows 3.1 graphical user interface; and Quick Trim, a feature that allows users to create corners, fillets or chamfers with a single on-screen selection.

Adra's other introduction at the show was CADRA-Solids, a solid modeler software package to augment design and documentation by integrating 3-D conceptualization and 2-D designing. The software is capable of creating solid geometry from a 2-D sketchpad. It also enables users to locally edit vertices, faces and edges of models simply by pulling them to the desired shape and can remove shading and hidden lines.

Hailed as a "revolutionary" new modeling process, Dynamic Modeling from Applicon Inc., Ann Arbor, Mich., is described as a comprehensive system for creating wire-frame, surface and solid models that's faster and more flexible than either parametric or variational modeling because it uses geometric principles directly rather than converting them to equations as the other processes do. This, Applicon says, allows users to evaluate many design alternatives. Using a single mouse stroke rather than the numerous keystrokes other systems require, users can pick a dimension from which to view their design, move the design, and immediately make any changes. Applicon says the system is the only technology available that identifies and provides solutions for potential design problems in models that are overconstrained.

Two new products that could speed up solid modeling are the first new products to come from the joint development and marketing agreement signed in July between Aries Technology, Lowell, Mass. and MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. (MSC), Los Angeles. Concept FEA-MSC/NASTRAN, incorporates MSC's NASTRAN finite-element analysis tool into Aries ConceptStation predictive engineering software and ConceptSolids, the Aries solid modeler. The second new offering, MSC/XLplus, lets engineers and designers create finite-element models using the automatic meshing capabilities of Aries' ConceptStation.

FASTER HARDWARE

Faster 3-D solids generation may also be provided by new hardware platforms. Hewlett-Packard Co., Palo Alto, Calif., introduced a series of 3-D solids graphics workstations said to be the world's fastest. HP Apollo 9000 Series 700 workstations are said to deliver as many as 600,000 triangles/sec (35% greater than similarly configured machines) as well as twice the wireframe performance. A fully-featured 3-D graphics workstation costs about $7795.

Sun Microsystems Computer Corp., Mountain View, Calif., debuted a new color RISC workstation said to cost less than some PCs. The SPARCclassic goes beyond most PC capabilities in that it can serve as an all-purpose machine, able to run on DOS, UNIX and MacIntosh operating systems; and it can connect to IBM mainframes, DEC VAXs, and PCs in a Novell network. Cost is about $4000, Sun says.

Also new from Sun was an accelerated graphics workstation, the SPARCclassic LX, with a 424-megabyte internal disk and ISDN, the global telephone and networking standard that will allow the merger of computer and phone functions. It costs about $8000.

FACTORY AUTOMATION

CIMplan 1.1 is the latest factory automation software from Gerber Systems Corp., South Windsor, Conn. Billed as a "multi-media graphic tool for shop-floor documentation," it grew out of customers' griping about their CIM programs' inability to provide accurate and up-to-date information to the shop floor, and customers' wishes that CIM packages be expanded to provide engineering drawings or graphic setup procedures as well as text.

NEWS DEVELOPMENTS IN RAPID PROTOTYPING

A new photosensitive polymer for stereolithography was introduced by 3-D Systems Inc., Valencia, Calif. Developed in Switzerland by Ciba-Geigy, XB 5149 polymer contains no n-vinyl pyrrolidone (NVP), a suspected carcinogen, and reportedly provides greater reproduction accuracy and higher toughness, enabling models to better endure form-and-fit testing.

Cubital America Inc., Troy, Mich., announced a program to recycle as much as 30% of the materials used with its Solider 5600 photolithography system. Cubital says it will collect and recycle excess resin, now that the resin producer, Coates Brothers in the UK, has developed a method to reuse it.

A new rapid-prototyping workstation was also introduced by Cubital at AutoFact. The Solider 5600 DFE (Data Front End) is a universal STL file manipulator that reportedly can increase the productivity of any rapid prototyping system because it allows the operator to perform prototype modifications without having to send the file back to a designer for modifications on a CAD system. Typical operations for the Solider 5600 DFE, Cubital says, include subdividing large objects, stitching cracks between surfaces, adding thickness to surfaces and eliminating redundant facets and points.