Siemens Enhances Parasolid for Complex Modeling

Geometric modeling kernels are at the core of 3D CAD (computer-aided design) software. The kernel determines how 3D shapes are created, edited and reused. Software developers often refer to it simply as the "kernel" or the code that has the mathematical logic to present an image. The choice of kernel is critical, since a simple geometrical shape can be mathematically defined and manipulated in more than one way. The ability of the kernel to calculate and store a complex shape determines the usability and productivity of a CAD software.

Siemens’ Parasolid kernel is widely used by many industry standard CAD software packages. Recently, Siemens made several enhancements in its latest release of Parasolid v27.1”. Designers, engineers and application developers need to be aware of these enhancements that will directly improve the productivity of their CAD packages. Siemens has proactively made security enhancements to Parasolid v27.1 and Bodyshop v27.1 for Microsoft Windows. Both are now compliant with the Microsoft Security Development Life-cycle, which is a set of standards designed to reduce incidences of security vulnerabilities in software.

Enhanced areas in Parasolid v27.1 include blending, surfacing, modeling support and platform support.

Blending has been improved in Parasolid v27.1, so users can easily control the profile of G2 face blends by providing constant depth and skew.

The left image shows a chain of variable radius edge blends defined edge by edge with the same parameters. The right image shows a chain of variable radius edge blends created in one operation with the same parameters giving smoother results with the new enhancements to the kernel.

The new enhancements reduce the number of operations needed to modify a surface of model. Other surfacing enhancements include: -

Replace sharp mitred corners created by sweeping a profile along a sharp non-G1 path with rounded corners
Align parameterization of extruded surfaces with the extrude direction
Optimize parameterization of the new face when replacing a set of faces with a single face
Sweep a profile along a path with the option to extend the path beyond one or more faces used to lock the profile
Sweep a solid tool along a path and specify that a face or set of faces of the tool are unimportant to the result and that their precise sweep should be replaced by a simpler capping surface

On the left is a traditional sweep of a tool body along a path. On the right, with the new enhancements the red faces of the tool body are specified as unimportant to the result, so their precise sweep is simplified to the red capping surface.

The new enhancements also streamline the modeling process by reducing the steps to get the desired result. Other modeling enhancements include: -

Imprint a set of curves that are coincident with a face as a group, which improves performance and robustness
Imprint a curve onto faces of a body with greater influence by controlling how to imprint onto hidden faces

On the left, the curve is projected onto two input faces. In the middle, the curve is projected onto two input faces, with part of the lower face hidden by the higher face. On the right, the curve is projected onto two faces with parts of the lower face hidden by the higher face and a third specified face in red.