LEDAS moves McNeel & Associates’ Rhinoceros NURBS modeler closer to mainstream MCAD with $395 Rhino Assembly 1.0 plug-in for assembling complex mechanisms and simulating kinematics.

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Novosibirsk, Russia, November 3, 2009 – LEDAS Ltd., an independent provider of variational design tools and software development services for CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM market, today announced the availability of the first commercial version of the Rhino Assembly 1.0 plug-in for McNeel & Associates Rhinoceros software. The plug-in is a part of the Driving Dimensions product line from LEDAS aimed at making advanced MCAD technology available at an affordable price to all users of popular 3D software.

After installing LEDAS plug-in and starting Rhino, users see the Assembly toolbar that was specially designed to look like Rhino’s other built-in tools. The Assembly Manager allows users to easily navigate geometric constraints and driving dimensions, which for large assemblies can number in the thousands. The Driving dimension editor with its spin buttons easily modifies values of driving dimension parameters. The Animation panel and its slider are familiar to anyone who uses video or audio players. During kinematic animation, Rhino users can pan, rotate and zoom the model.

Since the release of the previous public beta version 0.2, the latest changes in version 1.0 include an automatic update option, a new constraints status signal, a new flip side button, the option to group parts into rigid sets, new 3D planar angles, multi-parameter animation. These and many other improvements were suggested by the more than 3,000 beta testers who downloaded Driving Dimensions plug-in for Rhino since its first beta release in June 2009.

“Rhino Assembly plug-in is the second product of the Driving Dimensions line that already includes the plug-in for Google SketchUp, the popular 3D modeling software,” explains Dmitry Ushakov, Director of Product Management, LEDAS Ltd. “We are now working on a second Rhino plug-in for history-free 3D geometry editing, while preserving design intent. We expect to deliver the first public beta before the end of 2009.”

About the Rhino Assembly Plug-In

A whitepaper How to Express Your Design Intent in Rhino. Part I: Assembly Design and Kinematic Simulation is available at ledas.com/group/white_papers, and is recommended reading for anyone wishing to efficiently model design changes in Rhino using the LEDAS Driving Dimensions product line.

The Driving Dimensions Rhino Assembly plug-in 1.0 is compatible with Rhino 4.0 SR5B and above, and has been tested with the 32-bit versions Windows XP and Vista.

A 30-day evaluation version of the Rhino Assembly plug-in can be downloaded at no charge from www.DrivingDimensions.com/Rhino, where visitors will also find detailed on-line help, text and video tutorials, and a set of sample drawings.

Commercial licenses of Rhino Assembly 1.0 may be purchased for US$395 from the Share-it! online store, accessible from www.DrivingDimensions.com/buy.

In partnership with McNeel Europe, LEDAS will present its Driving Dimensions product line for Rhino at the forthcoming EuroMold-2009 event on December 2 - 5, 2009 in Frankfurt Main, Germany.

About Design Intent

The ability to specify parametric design intent is a crucial aspect of mechanical designs. While Rhino’s familiar CAD interface, features, and commands allow users to easily work out complex 3D design problems, it lacks the ability to specify behaviors when changes occur to models. This is especially important when designing assemblies composed of movable rigid parts – such as those found in engines, excavators, and industrial robots.

Applying geometric constraints and driving dimensions establishes design intent and removes superfluous degrees of freedom of movement. Driving Dimensions’ Rhino Assembly plug-in allows users to compose mechanisms from existing rigid parts, and then to simulate the kinematics by varying the value of one or more parameters.

About Robert McNeel & Associates

Founded in 1980, McNeel is a privately-held, employee-owned company with sales and support offices and affiliates in Seattle, Boston, Miami, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Rome, Tokyo, Taipei, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, and Shanghai with more than 700 resellers, distributors, OEMs, and training centers around the world. The company’s flagship product is Rhinoceros®, accurate freeform modeling application for Windows.

About Driving Dimensions

Driving Dimensions is a set of end-user applications developed by LEDAS as plug-ins for popular 2D and 3D modeling systems. The aim is to provide advanced parameterization capabilities to users of programs such as SketchUp and Rhinoceros. Driving Dimensions are based on the Variational Direct Modeling technology, which uses history-free editing model elements, preserves design intent as expressed by explicit and implicit driving dimensions (linear, angular, radial), and geometric constraints.

Simultaneous satisfaction of geometric and dimensional constraints is achieved with LGS 2D/3D geometric constraint solvers, which have been developed by LEDAS since 2001. They are available for licensing to all CAD developers.

More information about the entire Driving Dimensions portfolio of applications can be found at www.DrivingDimensions.com.  

About LEDAS

LEDAS Ltd. is an independent software development company founded in 1999. It is based in the Novosibirsk Scientific Centre at Akademgorodok, the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science. A leader in constraint-based technologies, LEDAS is a well-known provider of computational software components for PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) solutions: geometric constraint solvers for CAD/CAM/CAE, optimization engines for project management, work scheduling and meeting planning as well as interval technologies for knowledge-based engineering and collaborative design.

The company also provides services for PLM markets: software development, consulting, reselling as well as education and training. More information about LEDAS is available at www.ledas.com.  

Driving Dimensions and LGS are trademarks of LEDAS Ltd. Any other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.