Increasing Productivity for Application Developers and End Users
Latest Version of PLM Industry's Leading Modeling Kernel Adds Enhancements to Multi-Core Processing, Modeling, Blending, Data Import and Repair
PLANO, Texas, October 18, 2010 - Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division and a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, today announced the latest release of Parasolid® software, its PLM industry-leading 3D geometric modeling component. Parasolid Version 23.0 (V23) delivers a wide variety of enhancements which reflect Siemens PLM Software's continuing emphasis on increasing productivity by supporting complex processes throughout the entire product development process.
"The impressive success and widespread adoption of Parasolid throughout the world is a testament not only to its ability to deliver world-class functionality for product design, analysis and manufacturing, but also its focus on making application developers more efficient so they can concentrate their efforts on adding value to their own software solutions," said Joan Hirsch, vice president of Product Design Solutions, Siemens PLM Software. "With Parasolid V23, we have maintained that balanced approach with enhancements that address the needs of both developer and end user."
"Thread-Safe" Parasolid
Parasolid has extended its support for multi-core processor hardware to enable applications based on Parasolid to take full advantage of their significant performance advantage over single-core processors. Parasolid V23 is now fully thread-safe, enabling applications to have several threads running on different processors, with each calling any Parasolid function simultaneously. This is possible due to optimized thread, session, and memory management as well as error reporting capabilities in Parasolid V23 that free the application developer from the need to coordinate the multi-thread function calls. As a result, applications based on Parasolid can benefit from multi-core processing speed with less time spent in application development.
Face Deformation
A new face deformation operation enables highly sophisticated shape changes to digital models based on either design requirements or simulations of shape changes that occur due to real-world situations such as deflection under load or distortion during temperature cycles. Any set of faces in a model can be selected for deformation as defined by a mathematical function provided by the application. This new capability is particularly powerful because the deformation preserves and adjusts existing features, such as offsets and blends, and the deformation may also be applied simultaneously with other model edits.
Blending
In response to the needs of product designers who need to create and modify complex geometry with maximum productivity and flexibility, Parasolid V23 introduces more sophisticated blending techniques and controls that extend the software's already impressive range of blending capabilities into the domain of complex modeling.
New options are now available to provide more refined control over the shape of chord width blends - blends that create a uniform, aesthetically pleasing shape and are particularly useful when working with high-quality curved surfaces. Variable chord width face blends provide new methods of defining the chord width and ratio of face blends as being constant or variable according to application-provided functions. Chord width face blends, both constant and variable, are also enhanced with the ability to now have disc cross sections in addition to existing rolling ball cross sections.
Edge Blends can now be defined to be trimmed (i.e. terminated) at a specific edge or face, providing more immediate, localized and robust control of complex blend interactions.
Data Import and Repair
As the geometric modeling component - or kernel - of choice in many of the world's leading CAD, CAM and CAE applications, Parasolid is often required to work with imported data from other systems that require various levels of geometry and topology repair. Parasolid V23 includes several new functions to enhance data import and repair.
A new function enables Parasolid to analyze the topological structure of a model and repair ambiguities, thereby producing data that often meets the rigorous requirements of a fully consistent boundary-representation (b-rep) model, while maintaining the intent of the original data. For example, Parasolid can now detect and repair topological clashes between shells where two faces from different shells share a common edge, greatly reducing model repair time.
Parasolid can now automatically detect and repair surfaces that are ill-defined and unstable because they contain ''degeneracies'' which may go unnoticed in less accurate and less rigorous modelers.
A new option to the model checking function in Parasolid improves the productivity in working with imported data by automatically requesting more detailed reporting including new fault codes.
Neutral Sheet Modeling
Parasolid V23 includes further enhancements to the rapid development of neutral sheet modeling technology, targeted at the computer-aided engineering analysis (CAE) market. Performing these operations at the kernel modeler level has significant advantages of performance, model consistency and functional robustness over implementing them at the application level. New Parasolid functions are provided for detecting and optionally repairing overlapping neutral faces - even those that may occur in apparently simple configurations - in a fraction of the time it would take to perform this task manually. Neutral sheet faces may now also be shared between more than one pair of model faces for improved performance and reduced model size.
Sweeping
New controls have been added to the sweeping operation and restrictions have been removed to make it quicker and easier to achieve the desired shape in a single operation. A sweep can now be locked to face normals where the sweep path lies on a set of faces. Continuity restrictions on sweep paths have been lifted to allow visibly smooth paths where guides, multiple profiles, scale, or twist laws are also supplied. Sweeps can now also be performed between multiple profiles, each having multiple loops to create disjoint bodies.
About Siemens PLM Components; Parasolid and D-Cubed
PLM Components are software tools that support innovation and promote interoperability in CAD, CAM, CAE and PLM applications. Siemens PLM Software develops these components, uses them throughout its own applications and licenses them to independent software vendors and end-user organizations. PLM Components include the Parasolid and D-Cubed™ software products, widely used technologies that provide 3D part and assembly modeling, editing and interoperability, 2D/3D parametric sketching, motion simulation, collision detection, clearance measurement and visualization functionality. Applications include mechanical CAD, CAM, CAE, mold design, sheet metal, AEC, GIS, structural, plant and ship design, CMM, reverse engineering and sales configuration. For more information, please visit www.siemens.com/plm/open.
About Siemens PLM Software
Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division, is a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services with 6.7 million licensed seats and 63,000 customers worldwide. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Siemens PLM Software works collaboratively with companies to deliver open solutions that help them turn more ideas into successful products. For more information on Siemens PLM Software products and services, visit www.siemens.com/plm.
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