3D Systems releases enhanced reverse engineering software for AM
May 19, 2020
3D Systems, Rock Hill, South Carolina, USA, has announced two new versions of its Geomagic® Design X™ and Geomagic Wrap® software, which include first-to-market capabilities that are said to streamline workflows and offer digital tools to achieve greater precision. These enhancements to its reverse engineering solutions have been developed to help manufacturers maintain a competitive advantage by accelerating product development cycles, enabling faster time to market.
3D Systems explains that its Geomagic Design X software combines robust 3D scan processing and complete CAD design functionality to achieve faster, more accurate and reliable reverse engineering than is possible with other methods. Using the software’s newest features, engineers are expected to benefit from streamlined modelling workflows as well as expanded modelling pathways for complex, revolved parts.
Geomagic Design X 2020 will be released in late May 2020. The upgrade offers the following new features:
- The newest Geomagic Design X release includes an Unroll/Reroll function that enables a new modelling workflow to tackle these complex, revolved parts. Revolved parts with features have historically been very cumbersome to model as CAD software is using a two-dimensional environment to create three-dimensional, rotating parts with multi-axis features. The process often requires a great deal of trial-and re-work to get to a final part – often sacrificing precision. Using a comprehensive suite of mesh processing tools, an engineer using Geomagic Design X can now unroll the mesh to automatically extract a 2D sketch, make the modifications needed, and then reroll the sketch for additional engineering. This feature reduces the need for multiple rounds of trial and re-work, dramatically improving part precision, efficiency and downstream usability
- The new Selective Surfacing features in Geomagic Design X 2020 simplify the hybrid modelling process, providing easy workflows for traditionally difficult parts with both organic and prismatic features. Topology optimised parts and castings with precision features present unique challenges for repatriating a generative mesh or 3D scan into CAD with intelligence. Selective Surfacing combines fast organic surfacing with high precision feature modelling methods. This results in accelerated productivity while providing greater downstream CAD re-usability, and maintaining control over model accuracy
- Since its inception, 3D Systems states that it has taken a customer-centric approach to innovation – collaborating with its customers to understand their application needs and developing solutions to address them. The company is further accelerating this approach by releasing a framework for early feature and capability preview. Through this framework, Geomagic Design X customers on-maintenance will be invited more efficiently into the R&D process – providing early access to innovations and the ability to share feedback. Additionally, this new plugin structure will enable 3D Systems to quickly gather customer support requests – and in many cases, more efficiently deliver support for customers’ needs. Shortly following the general release of Geomagic Design X 2020, on-maintenance customers will be invited to visit the company’s new support site and get access to the first Add-in pack delivered through this framework.
Geomagic Wrap 2021 provides a toolset to transform 3D scan data and imported files into 3D models for immediate use in downstream engineering applications across a variety of industries.
General availability of Geomagic Wrap 2021 is planned for late July 2020, and will include the following features:
- Geomagic Wrap includes scripting automation said to enable engineers to work more efficiently. It includes a new scripting editor that allows engineers to customise their workflow for their unique applications. The editor uses Python – an open-source, widely-used programming language with which many engineers are familiar – to interact with the custom Geomagic Wrap accessible features. This has enabled a much simpler experience with new tools such as ‘autocomplete’ and ‘contextual highlighting’ that accelerate the design of accurate, 3D surfaced models. These new features are complemented by enhanced API Documentation that will be live-hosted on the company’s support site providing customers access to continuously updated documentation
- It also includes new texture manipulation tools to streamline workflows involving colour and texture scans. When an engineer scans an object that includes colours, logos or other complex visual elements in a scan-to-web workflow or digital asset creation, an additional software program is generally required to edit and retouch these files prior to manipulating the surface textures. The latest release includes a more robust set of texture map manipulation tools to deal with complex geometries directly within Geomagic Wrap. Having these advanced capabilities included in the same program streamlines the workflow – enabling creation of higher quality and more logical texture maps for improved downstream usability – helping improve efficiencies and reduce design time
- A new HD Mesh Construction method provides a powerful way to construct 3D data from point clouds. This can be a particularly challenging operation when dealing with a scan that is missing information, or for those that result in large data sets. HD Mesh Construction is designed to overcome these challenges, enabling engineers to create watertight meshes
“3D Systems has the broadest reverse engineering software portfolio in the industry, which includes a variety of best-in-class products,” stated Radhika Krishnan, Executive Vice President, Software, Healthcare & Digitization, 3D Systems. “Our Geomagic software combines robust 3D scan processing with CAD design functionality to help manufacturers expedite the product development cycle.”
Krishnan continued, “With the new features we are introducing today, designers and manufacturers who have incorporated our reverse engineering products into their end-to-end workflow will be able to achieve unmatched speed and accuracy. We are committed to continuing this calibre of innovation which is enabling our customers to improve productivity, lower Total Cost of Operation (TCO), and maintain competitive advantage.”