SpaceClaim 2009 SP2. Release Notes

Transcription

1 SpaceClaim 2009 SP2 Release Notes

2 Table of contents General... 3 SpaceClaim 2009 SP2 Highlights... 3 Print... 4 Groups... 4 Object, document, component properties... 4 Structure tree... 4 Select... 6 Designing and editing... 6 Pull General... 6 Blend... 8 Sweep... 9 Rounds... 9 Chamfers Holes and slots Move Patterns Fill Replace Tweak faces Intersect tools Insert tools Sketch Detailing General Detailing Dimension Display Colors and settings Sheet metal Prepare tools Repair Adjust Define Page 1

3 Measure tools Importing and exporting General ACIS AutoCAD ANSYS Hypershot SpaceClaim API V5 - Final Commands Design Bodies Spot Welds... 1 Modeler Bodies... 1 Application... 1 Other API enhancements Page 2

4 General SpaceClaim 2009 SP2 Highlights SpaceClaim 2009 SP2 contains many customer enhancements and bug fixes. Significant highlights include: Modeling Surfacing Editing with the new Tweak Face tool set: o Ability to edit faces using their control points, control curves, and blend curves, including tools to add control curves and quickly select control points for editing o The Edit as Blend tool has been redesigned to better integrate with other new surface editing capabilities o Ability to edit the original sweep trajectories used to create swept surfaces Ability to create swept blends, which are lofted surfaces created between two faces while swept along any number of trajectories Creation and detection of chamfers defined by two setbacks Full Pull is enabled when pulling edges and faces, terminating and the next surface in the direction of the pull arrow Interoperability Improved HyperShot integration includes the ability to visualize, set, and store HyperShot materials and textures from within SpaceClaim and then transfer those to HyperShot Improved ANSYS integration, including material properties, spot welds, and support for ANSYS 12-Workbench 2 User Interface and Detailing The color selection menu offers more default choices and is now customizable o Numerous customer-requested detailing and dimensioning enhancements, including dimensioning for angular holes midlines, and bolt circles Prepare* The new Extend tool automatically detects and fixes areas that need to be extended to meet each other The new Spot Weld tool creates spot welds, which are also available via the API Many enhancements to Midsurface, Stitch, volume extract and other tools Sheet Metal* Sheet metal supports creation and unfolding of water-tight corners Most regular modeling operations can be performed in the flattened or the bent state and automatically propagate to the other state. API* API v5 is released, including the ability to customize the application menu and customize default settings. * Features only available in SpaceClaim Engineer Page 3

5 Print You can now change the print quality for shaded objects in the Print Settings dialog, as shown below. Change the dots per inch in the Resolution setting; the setting must be supported by your printer. Groups You can now change the order of groups in the Groups panel. This is important because groups are changed from top to bottom when the change is initiated in an external application. You can now right-click a group in the Groups panel and select Replace Group to replace it with your current selection. Previously you had to delete a group and recreate it, to have this functionality. Object, document, component properties The system automatically changes the Body Type property of a solid to Surface or a surface to Solid, along with that name change in the structure tree, unless the solid or surface has been explicitly named by the user. In that case, the user-set name is maintained, if there is a one-toone correspondence between the entities. o This property is treated as if it was set by the user for imported models and is always preserved. o Now the property is changed when you delete a face from a solid, changing it to a surface. o These rules are followed when you move objects into a component by right-clicking and selecting Move Each to New Component. Structure tree New component names are now highlighted and editable immediately after you right-click an object and select Move to New Component or New Component. This follows the Windows file Explorer paradigm for creating new files and folders. If you select Move Each to New Component, the components are not highlighted. You can no longer click twice to rename an assembly condition in the Structure tree. Previously, if you clicked twice (slow double-click), it appeared you could rename an assembly condition, but the name reverted to its assigned name. Page 4

6 You can right-click a subassembly and select Make Independent. The independent status is propagated up through the structure as far as needed to differentiate the subassembly from peer assemblies, and names are changed accordingly. o o o o Make Independent is not propagated down through the structure. Make Independent now works for external components. After you make a subassembly independent, the structure tree shows the changes immediately. Previously, you had to collapse and expand the node to see your change in the structure. For instance: The structure of a design with copied subassemblies is shown below. Copies of the wheelaxleassembly subassembly (highlighted) exist in both suspension assemblies: o When we make the highlighted subassembly independent, the subassembly names are changed. Recall that the name of a component is the text that is not in the parentheses. The change affects wheelaxleassembly and its parent (note the 2 appended to the name in the image below): You can now make an instance of a copied component independent when that instance is in a subassembly and not in the same parent assembly. You can now add a document property to multiple components by selecting them, then rightclicking in the Structure tree and selecting Add Document Property. These properties can then be shown in BOM tables. Page 5

7 Select Selections are now previewed when you box-select in the design window. The types of objects selected are determined by the Selection Filter in the status bar. When you draw a box from left to right, the box appears as a solid line to indicate that everything enclosed within the box is selected. When you draw a box from right to left, the box appears as a dashed line and anything the box crosses is selected (this has not changed). While in the Select tool, you can now hold the Alt and Ctrl keys (and the double-click loops function) to select more curves for the secondary selection set, without losing the original primary selection set of curves. The All named selections option has been removed from the Selection panel and replaced with Named Selections group type in the Groups panel. Box-select no longer selects faces that are parallel to the screen but on the back side of the model, eliminating accidental selections. Designing and editing Pull General You can now scale solids/bodies asymmetrically, in a single direction using an Origin axis, or edges and a point together. Further details can be found in the help under Scale a solid asymmetrically. The Pull tool Full Pull option now extends edges to their nearest neighbor in the following cases: o Edges of cylinders: o When the neighboring face has a coincident gap: o When the next surface is on the same plane as the selected surface: Page 6

8 You can now rotate the edge of a surface with the Add option, and the original surface is no longer cut where the rotation overlaps it. Instead, more surface material is created as shown on the right. You can now pull a linear edge to a circular edge using the Up To tool guide. You can see how this worked before and how it works now in the images below. Original part: Before: Now: When you pull an edge to another edge using the Up To tool guide, the resulting edges are now merged. You can now pull a circular edge to another circular edge with the Extrude Edge option and the Up To tool guide, as shown on the right. You can now use the Up to tool guide to offset a surface edge to an inner cylindrical face, and when it becomes a closed surface the body turns into a solid as shown below. An icon for No Merge has been added to the mini-toolbar for the Pull tool, as shown on the right. This option pulls without merging into other objects even when the object pulled intersects with an existing object. You can now Pull with the Cut option and the Up To tool guide, and the operation will succeed in more cases. You can now save a ruler dimension (in the Groups panel) based on the dimension of the cylinder s radius. Simply create a group when the cylindrical face is selected in the Pull tool, and a Ruler-Dimension-type group is created. You can now click on a cylinder dimension to change its value when you use the Pull tool. You can now pull layout curves that are in an inactive component. The new surface will be created in the active component. Previously, you could only pull curves that were in the active component. You can now revolve a surface while holding the Ctrl key with the Pull tool and the surface is copied instead of extruded. The influence of neighboring faces is taken into account to trim or extend the edges of the copied face, when appropriate. You can now pivot an edge with the Pull tool and hold the Shift key to snap the moving edge to existing geometry. Page 7

9 When you pivot an edge, the Pull handle that you dragged remains active so you can pull multiple times without clicking on an arrow again You can now rotate objects that cross the rotation axis, as shown on the right. You can now pull edges on multiple protrusions or solids at the same time when you use the Pivot, Copy edge, or Extrude option. The Extrude option is shown on the right. You can now pull edges and faces of different components with the Up To tool guide at the same time. When you pull with the Copy edge option, the edge is now copied to only one face. Blend This tool has been advanced to give the user more blending (lofting) functions to allow for more creative types of geometry creation during the conceptual design phase. You can now create swept blends. You can blend with more than one profile and more than one trajectory, which creates a swept blend. Swept blends are created the same as other blends but with the Swept blend option selected. o The image below shows a swept blend with a grid displayed on the result so you can clearly see the curvature of the surface. o o With regular (non-swept) blends, guide curves only affect the blending of segments of the profile to which they are attached. With swept blends, the whole profile is swept along the guide curve. All of the faces created by the blend are bent to follow the guide curve. Without the Swept blend option selected, only the faces touching the guide curve are affected by the guide. Swept blends are different from sweep. A single sweep is always created from a single profile. With swept blends, two or more profiles are always required. Because a sweep only has a single profile, you have limited control over the orientation and angle of the end cap of the sweep; it is always determined by sweeping the profile along the trajectory. When you create a swept blend, you can specify the end cap explicitly at whatever orientation (and shape) you desire. Page 8

10 You can now create Ruled Section blends. Blend Profile Regular Blend Ruled Section Blend Sweep Sweeps can now vary the sketch entities (or edges) along the sweep trajectory. The trajectories can be thought of as guides that make continual changes to the profiles as if they had been dragged while in Sketch mode. Tangency and other types of relationships are maintained. o Previously, the profile was not always preserved along the sweep. Lines may have been changed into splines. You can see an example in the middle image below. o Now when you sweep using more than two trajectories and Scale Sections is turned off, the profile lines and curves will follow the trajectories individually and constraints are preserved. You can see an example in the image below on the right. When you sweep a planar profile, the swept surface will have planar ends even if one or more of the profile lines can be swept farther than the others. The extent (or length) of a sweep is now limited by the shortest trajectory. Previously, the extent was limited by the X trajectory only. Rounds Rounded edges are no longer removed (creating simplified edges) when you Pull while holding Ctrl and drag a face to make a copy. Existing boundary rounds are treated exactly like other neighboring geometry when you copy a face by holding Ctrl. When you add a control point to a variable radius round, the control point no longer disappears when you release the mouse button. Previously, the new control point disappeared under certain circumstances. Page 9

11 Chamfers Chamfers now have two setback distance values so you can change the angle of a chamfered face. You will now see Pull handles for the offset and both setback distances. o Pull the center handle to offset the planar face. This offsets the face, moving both edges of the chamfer. The offset amount is displayed as a dimension. o Pull one of the side handles to change one of the setback distances of the chamfer. The chamfer will change its angle accordingly. o Face properties have two new Setback fields for chamfered faces. The setback properties for a chamfer now display Same as first if you haven t changed either setback distance. You can no longer convert a chamfer to a round if you change the setback distance of one or both edges. You can still remove the chamfer by selecting the Chamfer button, and round the edge with the Round button. You can hold Shift to snap to an edge while pulling an existing chamfer on a cylinder, as shown on the right. You can hold the Shift key while pulling one side of a chamfer to snap its setback distance to an existing edge. When you use the Up To tool guide to make a chamfer the same as an existing chamfer, the setback distances are changed. Holes and slots When you pull a hole into a slot using a trajectory on an angled face, the slot is now extended so it fully intersects with the part, as shown on the right. You can now pull a hole into a slot along an elliptical trajectory. You can now create trajectory-driven slots with Full Pull or Both Sides when they do not start at the end of the trajectory. The slot no longer has a planar end on one side. When you pull a hole into a slot, coaxial holes are no longer also pulled into slots. Previously, all coaxial holes would be pulled into a slot if you selected and pulled one of the holes. Page 10

12 Move When you move a cylindrical protrusion across a stepped object, the cylinder is no longer broken into separated surfaces, as shown on the right. Chamfered faces no longer lose their ID when they are restored after Move, so they keep their layer membership, display state, color, name, and annotations. Anchor references for rotational ruler dimensions with the Move tool are now previewed like linear ruler dimensions. Patterns Fill You can now move a rotational pattern by selecting the new center axis of the pattern, as shown on the right. When you right-click a pattern member and click Select > All Pattern Members, then move them with the move tool, the central axis now moves along with the pattern. The Patch blend option is now automatically selected when you hold the Alt key or use the Select Guide Curves tool guide to select a reference curve. Many cases of Fill with secondary references only work when this option is chosen, so this should save much user frustration at forgetting to set the option. To access this tool enter Fill without any geometry selected. You can now fill gaps in edges with neighboring circular or elliptical edges. Previously, the edges could be simplified into a straight edge, but not simplified again into neighboring circular edges, as shown on the right. You can now fill a complex edge loop that includes an intersecting internal edge, as shown below. When you fill large rounds on a small cylindrical hole, the hole is no longer removed, as shown on the right. When you use the Fill tool to simplify an edge of a surface, the edge is no longer split at the locations of the original vertices. This used to require a secondary Prepare > Merge edges, or Filling the vertex locations on the edge. You can now simplify an edge on a curved surface with Fill, as shown on the right. Page 11

13 The Tangent extension option has been removed. Now you can select tangent neighboring faces by holding the Alt key or using the Select Guide Curves tool guide. This option was removed because it is equally likely that a fill would be made with sharp edges, as tangent to its neighbors. This gives you individual control over the affects of the neighboring faces on the resulting fill. Keeping with the effect of selecting faces in the Fill tool (when the Patch option is off), the tangency of neighboring faces is ignored unless you hold Alt or click the Select Guide Curves tool guide and select them. The Fill tool now works in more cases when you select a circular edge to simplify. You can now select sketched points and solid points as Alt (edge) references in the Fill tool, to specify points in space that the filled face is supposed to pass through. You can now fill the separation between a solid and an interior void, and the void will no longer become a separate solid. In the image on the right, the cylindrical face between the exterior of the part and the void was filled. You can now use Fill to concatenate (or combine) several curves into one curve by selecting more than one shared vertex between the curves. Replace You can now use the Replace tool to replace two faces with a datum plane. You can now hold Alt and preselect multiple faces for Replace, and all of the Alt-selected faces will be used, as shown on the right. Tweak faces This is a brand new tool for SpaceClaim 2009 SP2. The Edit as Blend tool has been replaced with the new Tweak Face tool. This tool expands the functionality formerly found in Edit as Blend to also tweak surfaces similar to free form surface editing. When you select the Tweak face tool and new Face Edit tab is displayed, as shown below. The Face Edit tab has a Show Control Points icon that displays control points for a face or surface, as shown on the right. You can move the control points to adjust the curvature of a face or surface. The Face Edit tab has a Show UV Curves icon that displays UV and sweep curves, as shown in the right. You can move the points along these curves to adjust the shape of the surface. The edit as blend functionality can now be accessed by accessing the Blend Curves icons. The New Sweep Curves icon now allows you to edit the originating curves used for sweeping, and the geometry will update based on the modification of the curves. Page 12

14 You can easily select a point, then add or remove points from the selection along a curve in the U or V direction. Click the red or blue icons in the Select group shown in the image on the right. Curves that follow the U and V directions are highlighted in red and blue in the Design window. The Add Control Curve function allows you to add more control points, curves and blend sections along a surface for editing. You can box-select control points (and move them all as a single unit) in Face Edit. You can use the Move and Scale edit tools to modify the geometry based on selected Control Points, Control Curves or Blend Planes. The Show group is used to display Grid, Curvature, and Comb on the surface you are editing. These displays look like their counterparts in the Quality group on the Measure tab. You can also use the Tweak Faces tool to edit multiple faces and not just a single face. When you select a set of faces and vertices, and move them with the tools on the new surfacing Edit tab, the edges and vertices outside of the selection are fixed so they do not move as the faces are modified. The degree (or complexity) of a primitive face is automatically increased when you edit it with the Tweak Faces tool, as shown on the right. If you save a selection (in the Selection panel) that includes control points, the Face Edit tab will open when you activate that selection. Control curves and points are hidden when you hide a solid or surface. Intersect tools You can now use box-select to select solids for the Split Solid tool. The Make curves option for the Combine tool has been renamed to Imprint curves. You can now use the Combine tool with two surfaces as the cutter when the surfaces can t be merged outside of the region where they intersect the target. The two surfaces will be merged to create a cut in the target, as shown on the right. Performance has been improved when you project text to a solid and use certain fonts that previously took a long time to project. The Project to Solid tool now only extends the ends of edges when the option is selected. Previously, projected lines were extended in both directions, which sometimes overran other sections of the projected curves. You can now project the edges of surfaces onto solids, and edges are created on the solid. You can now project the edge of a cylindrical face onto a planar face. Insert tools You can now select three axes to create an axis at the center of their virtual cylinder with the Axis tool. For example, you can select any three axes of a circular pattern of round holes and create an axis at their center, as shown on the right. Page 13

15 You can now replace an image that is displayed on the face of a design. Right-click and select Replace Image. If you have rotated or resized the image, these modifications are applied to the replacement image. The No Merge icon has been added to the Options panel for the Cylinder and Sphere tools. Sketch The Trim Away and Split tools now work on 3D curves. The Create Rounded Corner tool now extends a sketch curve when you create the fillet. In the image below, the extended curve is previewed as a dashed line. Previously, you had to extend the shorter curve, and then use the tool to create a fillet. You must first select the curve you want to extend, and then select the curve you want it to be attached to. Hidden curves are no longer selected when you double- or triple-click to select a chain of tangent sketch curves. The curves folder in the Structure tree now shows points, ellipses, and polygons, as they are created. Detailing General Detailing Annotation planes now have a thinner border and are transparent. In previous versions of SpaceClaim, the interior of the plane was displayed as a semi-opaque object and you had to hide the plane on a layer if you wanted a clear view of the model under the plane. The image on the right shows the previous appearance on the left and the new appearance on the right. Dimension When detailing, you frequently want to dimension to the centers of cylinders and arcs seen from the end (where they look like circles). Now you can select the center of these circles in more cases. You can now create a dimension to the central axis of a rotational pattern, as shown on the right. Page 14

16 You can now dimension to the line formed between any two points, similar to dimensioning to a virtual sharp. You can now edit dimension extension lines, even when you can t see them. Move the mouse over the end of the arrow, where the extension line would be, and two red balls will appear. You can drag these balls to draw out the extension line, as shown on the right. Dimension extension lines for virtual sharps are now correctly trimmed to the part, as shown on the right. You can now create dimensions from a mid-plane line between two planar faces or line segments, as shown below. A dimension from a mid-plane line to an edge A dimension between two mid-plane lines You can now control the orientation of new or selected dimensions by changing the new options in the Options panel for the Dimension tool. The options affect dimensions made between two points and length dimensions when you select an edge, face, or curve. You will only see these options when you select a dimension and the Dimension tool is active, or when you create a new dimension. These options are demonstrated in the images below: A. Dimension Orientation set to Aligned B. Dimension Orientation set to Horizontal C. Dimension Orientation set to Vertical D. 1st Reference Orientation set to Horizontal, 2nd Reference Orientation set to Vertical A B C D Page 15

17 You can now create a dimension to a virtual sharp for a very small chamfer. You can now dimension one side of a chamfer setback when you dimension to a virtual sharp, as shown on the right. Dimension references (faces, edges, points, etc.) now remain highlighted while you select another dimension reference. Display Colors and settings The Color command in the Style group on the Display tab has been completely reworked, as shown on the right. The Color tool on the Display tab now shows the color or the texture of an object when you select it. The object s name is also displayed in the Properties panel. The cursor in the Color dialog it easier to see. The cursor is displayed as a crosshair, as seen in the image below. This is the dialog that opens when you select More Colors from the Color tool. The Color tool now shows the color that new objects will be and a layer icon is displayed in the tool if the color is set by the active layer, as shown on the right. You can now change the color in the Color tool when you don t have anything selected. The color will become the default for new objects, outside of the layer structure. This allows you to set the color for things you haven t created yet, without using layers and default layer colors. Page 16

18 Sheet metal You can now make watertight corners in Sheet Metal parts which can be manufactured and unfolded, which is helpful in design and manufacturing. To make a watertight corner, use the Fill tool to fill on all the interior faces of the corner relief, as shown on the right. You can change watertight corners back to corners with reliefs, as shown on the right. Select the point or common edge at the corner and click the Corner relief option in the Blend Relief Type section of the Options panel. You can change the junction types near watertight corners between Full, Partial, and No Overlap. You can now create a rip between two faces that intersect at an angle that is not 90, as shown below. You can now move holes on faces of unfolded sheet metal parts (and the change is associative to the 3D bent-up part), as shown on the right. You can now create rounds on the thickness (short) edge of a sheet metal part, as shown on the right. You can now change the radius of a rounded edge on an unfolded sheet metal part, as shown on the right, and the result will be reflected in the bent-up model. You can now fill the holes in more than one face of a flattened sheet metal part at the same time. You can now create face curves on an unfolded sheet metal part, and the curve will also be created in the 3D model, as long as the curve does not cross a bend. You can now use the Pull tool to offset multiple holes and cutouts that are not round on an unfolded sheet metal part. Page 17

19 You can now offset the faces of non-circular holes on a sheet metal part using the Pull tool. You can click an edge and select No Overlap, Partial Overlap, or Full Overlap for the Junction Type in the Sheet Metal properties panel. You can now use the Pull tool with the Up To tool guide to change the height of sheet metal walls. You can now create, edit, and move slots on an unfolded sheet metal part, and the change will be reflected in the bent-up sheet metal part. You can now change the corner relief depth in SpaceClaim Options on the Sheet Metal page. This new option is separate from the bend relief and with depth. You can now pull faces from different sheet metal bodies if they are in the same component. The component must be active. You can now use dimensions (press the spacebar and enter a number) while pulling an edge of a sheet metal part. You can now use the Fill tool on an unfolded sheet metal part and the change will be propagated to the folded part. The following tools or operations have always worked for unfolded sheet metal parts, with the change propagated to the unfolded part: o Pull side (thickness) face to extend a wall. o Create a face using sketch tools on the unfolded part and use Pull to create holes. o Pull a planar face inside a rectangular hole to change the size of the cut. o Create face curves on a single face and pull to create a hole. Prepare tools You can now use tools on the Prepare tab with Sheet Metal parts. Progress bars are now displayed while searching for areas to fix for find/fix tools on the Prepare tab. Problem areas are no longer recalculated when you undo or redo in Prepare tools that find and fix problems, such as tools in the Repair, Adjust, and Remove groups. This is a significant performance improvement for large models. You can now hold Ctrl (to toggle selection) or Shift (to add to selection) while box-selecting in all Find/Fix tools. Repair The workflow for the Stitch tool has been changed so it works like other tools on the Prepare tab. To use this tool, click Stitch on the Prepare tab, and the edges of faces that can be merged are highlighted. Click Complete to merge the faces, or click the Select Geometry tool guide to select surfaces. The Stitch tool automatically creates a solid when the merged faces form a closed surface. You can now use the Stitch tool to repair multiple surface bodies that are in separate components, as shown below. Page 18

20 You can now select a component when you use the Stitch tool. All objects in the component will be merged where adjacent faces are touching. The Missing Faces tool has a new Try both option that will attempt to fill by extending neighboring faces, and then if that doesn t work, it will attempt to fill by creating a patch. The Inexact Edges tool now succeeds in more cases. Adjust The new Extend Tool can be used to extend surfaces and merge them with nearby parts, or to extend or trim sketch curves. The tool automatically detects faces that can be extended and highlights them, as shown to the right. Click on a highlighted area to perform the extension. You can also select a surface that wasn't automatically detected and attempt to extend it. This tool only works with surface parts and sketch curves. The Small Faces tool now chooses faces of the same type when performing the replacement. Previously, the tool followed rules that allowed it to sometimes choose a face that did not seem like the logical choice. When you start the Simplify tool with faces already selected, the tool no longer searches for problem areas immediately. This allows you to explicitly select faces to simplify, which is helpful on larger models because it can be easier to Simplify a region at a time. You can no longer select edges when using the Merge Faces tool. You should use the Fill tool on the Design tab when you need to select an edge and a face to fill in a missing face. The Missing Faces and Gaps tool on the Prepare tab also perform this function. Define The new Spot Weld tool creates points on two faces that represent weld points. More information can be found in detail in the product help (F1). o Each spot weld consists of two points: one on each face that is to be welded together. Each point must lie on a face or edge. For export to ANSYS, each point must lie on a different solid or surface part. o Only those points that successfully generate mates are passed as spot welds to simulation. o If the edge offset is zero (i.e., if the points lie on the guide edges, and no mating faces are found on either side of the base face), then an attempt is made to find mating faces in the tangent direction of the Base face. This can be used to approximate seam welds. o Spot welds are updated with any changes to the guiding edges or base faces. If a guiding edge disappears, the points created along it are removed. If a mate face moves out of the search range the weld point pairs to that mate face disappear. If the mate face moves back into the range the point pairs will reappear. o When all of the points on the base face cannot find pairs, the spot weld will be marked in the tree with an error icon, showing that it is no longer valid. o Spot Welds within the model are exported to ANSYS. ANSYS Design Modeler and ANSYS Workbench recognize the weld points. Dimensions of spot weld point patterns are now displayed in the Design window. These dimensions look the same as other patterns. Page 19

21 The Spot Weld tool s Select Mating Faces tool guide works like normal selection, where clicking on a mating face removes all previously selected faces and Ctrl+click adds a face. This tool guide does not automatically advance to the next tool guide because multiple-selection is allowed and selection of the references is not necessarily a predictable process. You can hold Alt and double-click to select additional references for the Spot Weld tool. Spot welds can cross over multiple nearby welded parts as shown to the right. You can right-click a face and select Redetect Mating Faces to find any new nearby faces for the Spot Weld function to place new spot welds on. The visibility of spot welds determined by the visibility of the body on which they are placed. Surfaces created with the Midsurface tool are now added to new folders that are named for the original solid bodies, as shown below. Each midsurface body is a separate manifold surface. This allows you to easily combine the surfaces as needed. The Midsurface tool now detects and removes small faces of midsurfaces that are created when an edge is equal to half of the part thickness. When the Midsurface tool finds missing faces because neither side can be offset, you will receive an error message in the error box that lists the faces. After the Midsurface tool creates midsurface faces, it performs an Extend operation to detect and clean up midsurfaces for notches and extendable edges. The images below show the original part, a midsurface operation done using a previous build of SpaceClaim, and the same operation done with SP2. The Midsurface tool now trims the edges of the resulting midsurfaces up to or back to the original solid body. You can now select split surfaces as the seed face with the Volume Extract tool. The Volume Extract capping method has been improved. o The cap is now generated by creating a surface from the outside faces. You can now use the Volume Extract tool to generate a volume for external components without modifying the components. Page 20

22 If an edge will be removed when you use the Volume Extract tool, that edge will flash red and you will receive a warning message. This can happen when you select a capping edge that will be removed when it is merged with the rest of the model. The highlight identifies the problem so you can pick a different edge. Spot welds and midsurface faces, with their properties, can be exported to ANSYS Measure tools You can now measure between two sketch points. The distance between the two points is displayed. You can now measure the projected area of a set of selected bodies. The area is measured from the projection of the bodies onto a plane. The projected area and estimated precision are displayed. The example on the right shows the area of all the visible bodies as projected onto the plane. To measure the projected area, 1. Click the Mass tool in the Inspect group on the Measure tab. 2. Select the bodies you want to measure. 3. Hold Alt and select the plane you want their silhouette projected on. You can also use the Select Datum Plane tool guide. Importing and exporting General When you change the default version for an export file type in the File Options dialog, the version is now used as the default in the Save As dialog. You can now specify an image size when you save a design as an image. Click the Image size button in the Save As dialog to change the image size. This can be set in pixels or as a percent of the original image size. To change the aspect ratio, drag the borders of the SpaceClaim main window, since this function uses the visible area of the screen. You can now override the units when you export JT, VRML, OBJ, XAML, IGES, Rhino, PDF and STL files. You can now save documents that only contain sketch curves to ACIS, Parasolid, CATIA, IGES, STEP, and VDA formats. You will now receive a confirmation dialog when you try to close the last window that contains the root document. For example, if you have a drawing sheet for a document open and you close the 3D document, you will get a confirmation dialog. When you double-click an.scdoc file in the file system with SpaceClaim running, the file will open in that instance of SpaceClaim (as a new tab) rather than starting a new instance of the application (a whole new SpaceClaim). You can now right-click the top level component in the Structure tree and select Open root part to open the parent document of a design that was saved after its parent was closed. This problem may exist in files that were created with previous versions of SpaceClaim. When you save a file with Save As, the default folder is now set to the location of the current document. This was a problem on Microsoft Vista. Page 21

23 ACIS You can now import an ACIS file and the name of the body will be used for components. You can change the character used to split body names in the ACIS file options dialog. When you import ACIS files, the instance name part n (body m) is now imported, but only if the body name is different from the part name. The component and body names are separated by a character which you can define in the options for ACIS files. For example, the default character is a period, so the imported name would be component.body. This way, if there were one named body wheel in one component, the name of the imported component in SC would be wheel. An instance is a copy of a body (a copied or pattered solid). You can now export documents that only contain sketch curves as ACIS binary files (.sab) or ACIS text files (.sat). When you set the Split body name by the following characters option for ACIS files, this setting is now used in the Save As dialog. If you deselect the ACIS file option Split body name by the following characters check box, then the component name of imported components and solids are the same in the Structure tree. If you deselect the ACIS file option Convert ACIS bodies to SpaceClaim components check box, then that structure is now reflected in the Structure tree. You can now select the Improve imported data option in the file Open dialog when you open an ACIS file. AutoCAD SpaceClaim now imports Proxy entities in AutoCAD DXF and DWG files when you select the OpenDWG option. Note text is no longer moved when you import and then export DWG files. Exporting to DWG and DXF formats no longer changes the color of Layer0. ANSYS SpaceClaim now integrates with ANSYS 12, Workbench 2.0. Origins are now passed to ANSYS with the SpaceClaim add-in for ANSYS. Named selections (found in the Selection panel) are now passed to ANSYS with the SpaceClaim add-in for ANSYS. Several defects have been fixed in the latest ANSYS integration. You can now transfer the active model to ANSYS, even if it has not been saved. Material properties now transfer to both ANSYS v11 and ANSYS v12. These material properties include the following: o ElectricResistivity (v11 only transfer not supported in v12) o MassDensity o PoissonsRatio o SpecificHeat o TensileUltimateStrength o TensileYieldStrength o ThermalConductivity o ThermalExpansion o YoungsModulus Page 22

24 Hypershot The Hypershot add-in has been greatly enhanced to now display the Hypershot materials and textures from within SpaceClaim as shown below. The Hypershot materials and textures are now stored with the SpaceClaim document and displayed on the SpaceClaim solids and surfaces. If you load a document containing Hypershot materials and Hypershot is not installed, the materials will be shown without texturing and as colors only. The Render tool in the Render group on the Hypershot tab now sends the model to Hypershot in perspective graphics mode and adds an optional button to send an orthographic projection (which was the previous default). You can now select the Use perspective camera option in the Save As dialog when you save BIP files. If you deselect this option, the file will be saved with an orthographic view (which was the previous default). You can now launch Hypershot when your SpaceClaim language is set to a European language. The Camera above ground option is now automatically set when you save a BIP file for Hypershot, and is based on the model s Z position in SpaceClaim. SpaceClaim API V5 - Final This version was released with SpaceClaim 2009 SP2. For further details you can access the API help found in a sub folder from within the SpaceClaim installation directory. Commands The Command.Executing event has changed. The second argument of the event handler is now a CommandExecutingEventArgs object, which has a ButtonRectangle property, which tells you the rectangle in screen space of the button that was pressed. Design Bodies Support for mid-surface bodies has been added. DesignBody.IsMidSurface tells you whether the design body is a mid-surface body. DesignFace.Thickness can then be used to get the thickness of individual faces. DesignFace now supports IHasColor. GetColor and SetColor can be used to get or set the color of an individual face. IHasColor.Master has been removed, since it is no longer always true that the master implements IHasLayer. Page 23

25 Spot Welds Support for spot welds has been added. Part.SpotWeldJoints provides a collection of SpotWeldJoint objects. Each joint has a SpotWelds property, and each SpotWeld has a WeldPoints property, which describes the two or more design faces involved, along with the location within each design face. Modeler Bodies Body.Imprint has been added, which finds the intersection between two bodies and imprints the result onto both bodies. Body.Fuse has been added, which intersects and fuses bodies into a single result. A Tracker object may be supplied to receive information about splits and merges that occurred. The resulting body may be non-manifold. Body.IsManifold can be used to see if a body is manifold or non-manifold. The arguments to Body.CreateCopy have changed. Instead of adding to caller-supplied dictionaries, the method now returns dictionaries. An overload with no arguments has also been provided for when these dictionaries are not required. Application Application.Start now has some new arguments: o There is a boolean argument to specify whether the splash screen should be shown when SpaceClaim starts up. o An ApplicationWindowState object can be supplied so that SpaceClaim can be started with a specific window location and size, and maximized state. o The path of a default user settings file can be supplied, so that SpaceClaim starts with different default users settings the first time it is run. By specifying a <menu> element in the ribbon XML returned from IRibbonExtensibility.GetCustomUI, add-ins can now add commands to the application menu. See Ribbon Customization for more information. Other API enhancements The Document.DocumentSaved static event has been added. This event is raised when a document has just been saved. The DocumentSavedEventArgs object supplied tells you the document and the path to which it was saved. Box.Diagonal has been renamed Box.Size. DimensionType.Count has been added. Copyright 2009 SpaceClaim Corporation. SpaceClaim and the SpaceClaim logo are trademarks of SpaceClaim Corporation. All other names mentioned herein are either trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.