Full details, including video demonstrations, are on the Learning Zone – www.delcam.tv/ps2016/lz/en
At this year's TCT Show + Personalize, Delcam will demonstrate a series of enhancements to its PowerSHAPE Pro software for modelling and reverse engineering that will help users to complete complex designs more quickly and more easily.
In the 2016 release, a combination of new, more efficient, code and the extension of multi-threaded calculations to many commonly-used tasks will make PowerSHAPE Pro 2016 significantly faster than any previous version. By offering a combination of solid, surface and direct modelling, together with reverse engineering, PowerSHAPE Pro provides the most comprehensive range of design techniques available in a single CAD program. Having all the different technologies in the same package reduces the need to transfer data between multiple programs and so streamlines any modelling-for-manufacture projects that require both reverse-engineering and CAD functionality.
Full details, including video demonstrations, are on the Learning Zone – www.delcam.tv/ps2016/lz/en
PowerSHAPE Pro can connect directly to most 3D scanning hardware to capture and display scan data in real time. It has also been made possible to switch between measuring modes when using devices that offer data collection by both laser scanning and point probing. A split-screen alignment option makes it quick and easy to combine multiple scans, taken, for example, from the opposite sides of a part. The method allows accurate snapping of alignment points, ensuring that the resultant single CAD model is a good representation of the scanned object.
Reverse engineering from probed points is now possible for prismatic parts, with a new ability to identify planes, cylinders, cones and other primitives, or to create wireframe arcs and lines, directly. This approach is usually faster and can often be more accurate than using scan data to create prismatic areas of a model.
PowerSHAPE Pro also has the ability to replace regions of complex, free-form geometry with a single, shrink-wrap surface. In the new release, it has been made easier to re-orient such surfaces interactively and so place them in the most appropriate surface alignment.
Another recent option is the ability to morph a complete solid or surface model to a mesh. Morphing can be used to update a nominal CAD model to match the part as it is made in reality or to modify the surfaces of the tool so that the part can be produced in the desired shape represented by the CAD model.
PowerSHAPE Pro includes many tools to clean up reverse-engineered models to ensure that they represent the design intent accurately. For example, features that are intended to be identical, such as a series of holes, will often show small variations when recreated from scan data. In such cases, all similar items within a specified tolerance band can be selected automatically in PowerSHAPE Pro and then all adjusted together to the same precise size. Similarly, the axis direction of a group of primitives that are not aligned exactly can be brought into alignment in one operation.
Delcam will also be previewing one of its latest products, PartBuilder, a pre-processing software tool for additive manufacturing, at TCT Show.
Visit Delcam and find out more about the latest edition at TCT Show + Personalize 2015 on 30th September - 1st October at NEC, Birmingham. REGISTER FOR FREE HERE.
