New Release of 3D Component Portfolio Delivers Data Translation and Modeling Improvements

BROOMFIELD, Colo. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — June 25, 2013 — Spatial Corp., the leading provider of 3D development components for design, manufacturing and engineering applications, today announced the R24 release of 3D ACIS Modeler, 3D InterOp, and 3D Mesh and the R2014 release of the CGM modeler and Constraint Design Solver (CDS). These updates deliver a significant step forward in the Spatial portfolio of 3D components driven by the demands of existing users and by needs in markets new to 3D modeling. Across the product portfolio, users will find new functionality, enhancements to existing capabilities, and considerable improvements in performance.

“The roadmap that drives every product release from Spatial is a result of more than just our vision. We work closely with our customers and with industry partners to understand current development needs. The solutions we deliver need to address those needs but in a way that lays the groundwork for addressing identified needs in the future,” said Jean-Marc Guillard, Chief Executive Officer for Spatial. “This update to the Spatial portfolio of products is a result of the innovation and the demand for quality and performance of our customers and partners as well as our development staff.”

3D InterOp

The R24 release of 3D InterOp, Spatial’s solution for high-quality interoperability, builds on support for graphical data and PMI (Product and Manufacturing Information). For several major data formats, 3D InterOp now provides complete associativity between boundary representation (or B-rep), tessellation, visual annotations, and semantic information. This associativity, a key requirement for high-level data reuse, enables users to interact with the graphical (human-readable) and semantic (machine-readable) PMI contained in CAD models in the same way as in the originating system.

This release of 3D InterOp includes a combination of new translation functionality to expand data sharing capabilities as well as improvements to existing translators. Enhancements include support for new file formats, expanded STEP capabilities to support graphical PMI, support for user defined attributes and materials properties, updates to version support for existing translators, and much more.

Performance improvements in 3D InterOp result from optimized import capabilities where translators for many file formats load and parse only what was requested. These optimizations result in up to a 40% improvement in CAD file import for 3D InterOp enable applications.

For more details and a complete list of enhancements in 3D InterOp, consult the  R24 Release Notes for 3D InterOp.

3D ACIS Modeler and 3D Mesh

This release includes updates to 3D ACIS Modeler, the standard for geometric modeling for over 25 years. With the R24 release of 3D ACIS Modeler, Spatial continues to refine and improve the performance and robustness of core features such as boolean operations, clash detection, local operations, and Cellular Topology. In addition, 3D ACIS Modeler extends support for CAM, EDA, and other applications with functionality to determine the 2D shadow projection of a model.

With additional multi-threading and nested parallelism support, better performance is also a highlight of this release. To simplify access to the functionality, much of the multi-threading on all platforms is transparent to the developer.

New functionality in 3D Mesh, Spatial’s fully configurable surface and volumetric meshing solution, includes local refinement controls and the introduction of Hybrid Meshes. A Hybrid Mesh, which contains both surface and volumetric elements, allows complex analyses on specific regions within a complex model.

Refer to the R24 Release Notes for 3D ACIS Modeler for a complete list of improvements.

CGM Modeler, Constraint Design Solver (CDS), and new 3DScript

The R2014 release of the Convergence Geometric Modeler (CGM) provides a host of enhancements to core capabilities as well as significant improvements in robustness and quality. Spatial continues to advance the 3D modeling abilities of CGM in response to a growing number of developers involved in next-generation applications, especially in markets such as CAM and Metrology.

In areas such as stitching and sweeping, CGM R2014 offers improved flexibility and robustness. New capabilities include the ability for Sweeping operations to allow for “contextual limits.” This allows developers to specify that an extrusion should go up to a defined piece of geometry or topology and then stop, rather than using a dimension.

With this release, Spatial introduces 3DScript, an environment which provides a scripting interface to 3D components such as CGM, 3D InterOp, or HOOPS Visualize, providing a quick way to investigate the capabilities of Spatial components. Using JavaScript, developers can use the 3DScript framework as a quick-start for their applications, for rapid prototyping, or to help investigate application issues. Users can more quickly achieve results, even with little experience with CGM or 3D modeling. 3DScript is packaged with the CGM modeler.

The Constraint Design Solver (CDS) includes improvements with the R2014 release. CDS combines a 2D and 3D solver into a single component. Based on Dassault Systèmes V5 and V6 technology, CDS enables real-time manipulation of geometric objects with direct and interactive creation and modification of constraints. CDS incorporates easy-to-implement programming interfaces, offering quick integration with geometric modeling kernels such as CGM and 3D ACIS Modeler.

“Allowing 3D application developers to leverage Dassault Systèmes technologies in the development of next-generation solutions has emerged as a strategic driver for Spatial. The deliveries of CGM and CDS are a result of that strategy. As the geometric kernel used by many Dassault Systèmes applications, such as CATIA, Simulia, and now Mechanical Conceptual from SolidWorks, CGM has proven itself as modeler for leading-edge applications. Our vision is not just to provide the access to these technologies but to ensure the success of our customers’ adoption of them,” stated Ray Bagley, Spatial Director of Product Planning and Management. “3D Script was developed to simplify the transition to CGM and accelerate application development. 3DScript provides the framework which allows developers to rapidly prototype their ideas using a light weight scripting language. Once proven out, developers can then incorporate their results into their core application. We were very encouraged by the short time to very impressive results achieved during the internal testing of 3DScript.”