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New MSC products, including MSC Apex Generative Design (featured in this year’s D3D 30 list by DEVELOP3D) and CAEfatigue have been made available for the first time through MSCOne, along with key software like MSC Nastran, Adams, Difimat and Simufact.

MSCOne operates on a flexible token licensing system, giving users access to any CAE software they need, but might not be able to justify with a separate license purchase.

The aim, explains MSC, is to offer designer and engineers the agility to provide immediate access to simulation tools when and where the software is needed, letting organisations maximise their return on investment, no matter the CAE budget.

This flexibility should also allow an organisation to allocate resources by distributing tokens across teams and regions, or to use on-premise computing interchangeably with cloud HPC centres.

Also announced was the launch of  MSCOneXT (MSCOne Extended Edition) which adds software from industry-leading technology partners.

MSCOne users will be able to try new products that extend and complement the capabilities of their MSC tools using tokens.

SmartUQ has joined the MSCOneXT Program to help customers solve their difficult analytics problems while reducing costs and saving thousands of hours of work.

“With SmartUQ’s integrations with MSC products, customers now have access to a powerful predictive analytics and uncertainty quantification (UQ) software tool that incorporates real world variability and probabilistic behavior into engineering and systems analyses,” shares Dr. Peter Chien, CEO and chief scientist of SmartUQ.

Model calibration and validation, Digital Twins, and Manufacturing Analytics are just a few of the advanced applications SmartUQ adds to the MSC solution set.

MSC Software COO John Janevic, explained: “Companies in every industry are turning to simulation to improve cost, quality, and innovation from R&D through to manufacturing and testing. By extending MSCOne to our technology partners, we are offering our customers a smarter way to access tools that enhance our offering to help them achieve greater innovation and productivity.

“Manufacturers have more reasons to become agile than ever before and CAE underpins many decisions.

“Through MSCOne, customers can now access our extensive simulation portfolio and e-learning wherever and whenever it is needed, so they can respond to their engineering and commercial priorities and adapt to new working practices.”

The MSCOne portfolio includes, but is not limited to:

• Structures: MSC Nastran, MSC Apex, Patran, Marc, and Dytran
• Multibody Dynamics and Systems: Adams and Easy5
• Acoustics and Fluids: Actran, scFLOW, and scSTREAM
• Durability and Fatigue: CAEfatigue
• Materials: Digimat and MaterialCenter
• Generative Design: MSC Apex Generative Design
• Metal Manufacturing: Simufact and FormingSuite
• Simulation Data Management: SimManager

For smaller organisations, the MSCOneSE (MSCOne StartEditon) might prove a more cost effective option, flexible option to access MSC’s core products and e-Learning.

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V-Ray Collection offers instant access to 15 products and services for $699 pa, including the latest versions of V-Ray and the high-res material library, VRscans, on the same machine.

Unlike past licenses, Chaos Groups states that V-Ray Collection will not require a separate render node for each product.

Individual product licenses are still available, and for students, schools and educators, the V-Ray Education Collection is also available.

Users will receive free upgrades for the life of their license, as well as 20 Chaos Cloud credits each year.

This news comes off the back of the announcement of V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max, which has added Layer Compositing and Light Mix – both of which can be found in the new V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB), which has also had a UI update.

With Light Mix, users can interactively explore different lighting scenarios without having to re-render an image.

Users can now adjust the color and intensity of any light source right away, allowing for faster iterations when designing looks and moods.

The Layer Compositor helps users post-process shots in the new VFB without needing outside applications to adjust different render elements or perform colour corrections.

“The future is all-in-one,” said Chaos Group product management VP Phillip Miller. “An artist doesn’t want to jump into extra applications, they want tools that excel at every part of the process. V-Ray 5 is a big step in that direction.”

V-Ray 5 has also added 7 features and improvements tailored to materials, including a new management system and over 500 readymade materials designed to cover most objects and spaces.

New built-in presets can help dial-in everyday options like metal, glass and plastic, as well as common hair colors, helping artists achieve photorealism much faster.

V-Ray 5’s new randomisation tools look to help users add slight variations to their materials, increasing believability across a scene.

VRayMultiSubTex colors can now be shifted by hue, saturation and gamma, while a new VRayUVWRandomizer map will adjust the offset, rotation and scale of both textures and procedural materials.

For repeating texture maps, artists now have Stochastic Texture Tiling, which automatically removes tiling artifacts.

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If you’ve got an idea, are already in the startup phase or maybe looking to get in on the ground level with hardware/software startup funding, this might be a good place to spend the day – virtually speaking, of course.

The event is an initiative to help link startups in the digital manufacturing space to investors in the industry.

As supply chains have been recently disrupted and workforces have to remain distanced, so new digital manufacturing technology becomes even more critical as manufacturers figure out how to tackle these challenges.

This event will feature pitches from top startups worldwide, as well as panels from top investment firms participating in the industry. Industry media, such as us at DEVELOP3D, are also attending.

Why? The answer, from my perspective as co-founder, is that our company was born in 2008, right smack in the middle of the last economic recession – we know how hard it is to try to build something worthwhile when it looks like everything is stacking up against you – that’s why I was keen to help Dyndrite promote its investor day.

As a result, I was also curious about why a start-up might put on an event like this – after all, surely everyone is going after the same pots of funding. The answer is found in a blog post that covers this very question:

“Luckily, there are incredible innovations already happening to solve the pressing challenges we are facing in our new operating environment. These technologies will steer the future of manufacturing as we know it. Now we are helping those entrepreneurs by providing an opportunity to pitch their solutions.

“As an enabling technology provider for both established and emerging AM companies, Dyndrite enjoys a unique, front-row seat to future products and emerging trends within digital manufacturing.

“Our daily work provides an inside view on an array of next generation hardware and software tools. This enables us to share in the excitement for the future of the industry, help where we have insight, and make meaningful introductions where it makes sense.

“Dyndrite is fortunate to also have supportive backers and an outstanding investor network in Silicon Valley. This investor network is eager for new opportunities, especially those advancing the digital manufacturing industry.

“In coming together we are providing a new venue to shine the spotlight on companies that are moving the needle in this space.

If you fancy sitting in and getting involved, you’ll need to register here.

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The 3D Printer tray orientation has seen some changes, allowing users to override the default setting that optimises the price per part when determining a tray orientation.

Users can now set the part to be printed in different orientations, for example: accounting for part strength.

Castor also looks to help the user decide which orientation to choose by displaying the support needed, how many parts can fit in the printing tray and the estimated cost of printing for each suggested orientation.

A new capability in Castor’s algorithm lets it look at data from the CAD model and automatically identify opportunities for weight reduction, based on the part’s geometry analysis.

Users are now able to set a threshold for the targeted weight reduction and for the minimum requirements for the part’s wall thickness post analysis, letting Castor scan through all the parts in a project to find opportunities for weight loss according to user requirements.

Other improvements to the latest version of Castor include new native CAD files support – with Solidworks SLDPRT and SLDASM already supported, Castor says that more than 20 additional formats are lined-up to be supported soon.

Find out more here

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While Siemens hasn’t been the quickest to make its cloud-based SaaS business moves, the company’s toolset have been using a cloud-enabled environment for a long time. The longest serving of those is probably Teamcenter.

PLM system of choice to the global multi-national, Teamcenter has along been deployed on private cloud infrastructures at some of the largest, more complex organisations in the manufacturing industry.

But what about those companies that have a requirement for a PLM system capable of handling their product complexity and complexity of organisation, but which do not have the infrastructure or indeed budget to build their own private cloud?

This is where the newly announced Teamcenter X cloud-based PLM comes into play.

“Teamcenter X offers the convenience of choosing from preconfigured engineering and business solutions that deliver immediate value, with the flexibility to add more capabilities as business needs grow,” said a Siemens spokesperson.

“Teamcenter X brings the power of the cloud to all users, to help reduce time-to-market and connect distributed, cross-disciplinary teams while improving effectiveness and efficiency at any scale.”

The idea here is that rather than running through the time and expense associated with a PLM installation, you’re choosing a pre-configured set of tools that you can use out of the box.

Sign up, configure to your needs, connect your tools to it and away you go.

The reality is that as with all things PLM, there is a highly configurable set of options.

The base level gets you document management, part revision and release control, basic BOM tools, workflow management as well as visualisation.

There are then adds on – the slide deck gave little away, but it looks like adding CAD data management is option extra), change management and part/assembly classification – then you’ve got all of those more costly aspects to build on top.

In terms of cost, this hasn’t been announced, but it’ll be interesting how Siemens are going to price this offering.

Teamcenter is a beast of a PLM system with reach into almost any part of the design, engineering, manufacturing and lifecycle management of product. You can bet your bottom dollar it’s not going to be cheap to step outside of that base level offering.

More details as they become available – probably during Siemens’ Realize Live event – which is running virtually next week

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The new feature is designed to be used at times when performance is of paramount importance, such as when a ray trace render needs to be completed quickly or when a stable frame rate is required to view VR content.

Ultra Performance Mode is available in the new ThinkPad P15, ThinkPad P17, ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 and ThinkPad P15v, which feature 10^th Gen Intel H series mobile CPUs up to 8 cores and 5.3GHz and Nvidia Quadro GPUs, up to the Quadro RTX 5000.

For these new generation products, Lenovo told DEVELOP3D that it had to redefine what it means to be both a workstation and a ThinkPad.

Ultra Performance Mode works by relaxing restrictions on acoustics and temperature, so customers that do want to push their machines harder, will have to accept that they will run a little louder and hotter.

A traditional ThinkPad business laptop, for example, will not exceed 38dBA of fan noise under the heaviest workload, whereas the P1, P15 and P17 will go up to 44dBA when Ultra Performance Mode is enabled.

To cope with the increased demands, both the P15 and P17 feature a completely revamped thermal design.

The P15 adds 13 percent more air flow than its predecessor, the P53, as well as a 30 percent larger CPU heat sink, larger vents and a new thermal mesh to dissipate heat faster.

The Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 is one of the biggest beneficiaries. The ThinkPad P15 and P17 increase the power to this high-end GPU from 80 watts to 90 watts and 90 watts to 110 watts respectively, compared to their predecessors, the P53 and P73.

Ultra Performance Mode is controlled with the standard Windows Power Slider. By default, the system is set to “Better Performance”. Moving the slider to ‘Best Performance’ invokes Ultra Performance Mode. The feature is controlled by a setting in the BIOS.

The Lenovo ThinkPad P Series P15 and P17 boast several shared features – including a new 94WHr battery and up to 4TB of storage, along with up to 128GB DDR4 of memory and UHD Dolby Vision HDR displays.

The P15 and P17 also feature a new daughter card design for its GPUs. Previously Lenovo soldered the GPU onto the same board as the CPU, so this new modular design is said to give customers four times the number of GPU and CPU configurations than previous generations.

Lenovo’s thinnest and lightest 15” mobile workstation – the ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 – features a new anti-smudge coating – reducing fingerprint visibility – upgraded speakers, a new UHD LCD display option with a 600-nit panel and optional LTE WWAN for fast internet for remote workers. It includes a choice of 10^th Gen Intel Core CPUs up to 8 cores and 5.3GHz, and an Nvidia Quadro T1000 or T2000 GPU.

Rounding out the mobile workstation portfolio is a new addition, the ThinkPad P15v, which is designed to appeal to those with lower GPU requirements but still have a need for an 8 core CPU. It features the Nvidia Quadro P620 GPU and up to 64GB RAM.

Meanwhile, last month Lenovo announced two lightweight mobile workstations, the P14s and P15s, which feature 10^th Gen Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs with up to six cores, the Nvidia Quadro P520 GPU, and up to 48GB memory.

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One interesting experiment is The Techno Carpenter – a virtual reality environment in which the user is invited to design their own machine learning-generated chairs by communicating with their hands.

Every slight movement of the palm and finger is interpreted by the machine learning model and translated into an iteration of the chair.

“Technology is quickly becoming a vital part of the IKEA customer experience and home furnishing offer,” said Fredrik Axén, digital manager core business franchise for IKEA’s parent company Inter IKEA Systems.

“Being a values-driven brand, we focus on people and planet. As we enter a new digital era, we are also exploring new ways to create a better everyday life at home, while protecting people’s privacy.”

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Faro’s high accuracy Gage arm has been around for a good few years now, and unlike its cousins for reverse engineering, physical form capture and such things, the Gage has been focused on measurement – typically looking to replace traditional CMMs.

The idea is to provide a digital equivalent of that drawer of micrometers, callipers and other gauges we’re all familiar with.

The system is comprised of a high accurate measurement arm along with a set of software that gives you the tools you need to make the measurements you want.

The redesigned Faro Gage arm looks like a little more streamlined than its chunky predecessor, but brings you a 20 per cent longer reach (1.5m working sphere compared to 1.2m). If you’re curious about just how accurate this bad boy is? The answer is around the 0.018mm mark.

There’s a universal quick mount that “ensures compatibility with a variety of mounting options that allows it to be set it up anywhere, including on-machine.”

A simple 2-button design, 6-point articulation and built-in counterbalance deliver exceptional ease of use and claims fatigue-free operation.

Of course, key enabling this is Faro’s metrology software, including Faro’s CAM2 Probing software which provides the simple contact based measurement for the Gage.

“When it comes to measurement equipment value; accuracy, portability, speed and affordability matter,” said Faro product marketing VP Michael Carris.

“Too often machine shops rely on expensive and hard-to-use fixed CMMs that take up valuable floor space or a multitude of hand tools that slow down the process. The Gage eliminates these inefficiencies.

“As a result, inspection bottlenecks are greatly reduced, measurement accuracy is improved, and operator variability is significantly minimised.”

Carris added that the new model has been designed with small to medium companies in mind.

“For machine shops, quality problems, imprecise measurement, scrapped parts, extended wait times and customers part rejections all contribute to unnecessary expenses that become more critical during these trying economic times.”

“The Faro Gage allows for more streamlined processes, significant waste reduction, and quick return on investment. Backed by Faro’s 40-year history of superior portable measurement experience, Gage allows more companies to benefit from lean manufacturing practices and will be employing the new industry standard in compact performance and affordability,” he concludes.

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And trust me, it’s not often that we all get excited about a new sketching tool, is it? After all, 2D sketch has been a core part of almost every 3D design system for decades.

While other methods (surface manipulation, curve networks, primitives and Boolean operations) exist, for the majority, using predominately history and feature-based, creating a 2D sketch is the starting point for almost every all modelling operations.

Consider how most sketchers work and have worked for years (if not decades): They’re essentially mimicking the technical drawing process.

You create your lines, circles and arcs to create the shape, then add dimensions to dial in the exact form you want.

Along the way, there have been key additions, such as constraints and relationships – whether added manually or inferred when sketching.

Over the years, a parametric element has also been added, allowing you to build in relationships between dimensions to drive the adaption of those sketches, both in reference to their own dimensions, but also across features in parts or, indeed, between parts or assemblies.

All good, all very clever and I’m sure something familiar to 80 per cent of DEVELOP3D’s readers.

So how does Siemens’ new sketching tool differ? The answer is both subtle and really obvious once you see it working – particularly for someone trying to write about it. So let’s do it with video.

Sketcher basics

To learn more, we’re going to work through a couple of videos, then discuss the content to gain a better idea of what Siemens’ development team has done.

Let’s start with a video that introduces the basics (voiced over by Siemens NX legend, Paul Bevan).

What did we see?

A pretty intuitive sketching and constraining workflow: Create your sketch entities as per normal, infer some of the relationships as you would in a traditional sketcher, then start to add in dimensions and such to nail things down.

Want to add a dimension to a line? Click the line. You’ll see that there’s a dimension popped into place. You’ll see the double tilde symbol next to the value. That means the system has generated that value – double click it and you can add your value.

If you want to add a relationship between two lines, select them and you’ll see an angular dimension pop into place. If it’s misaligned, drag it to where you need it.

Again, the double tilde shows you that it’s not dialled in. This is pretty standard compared to most sketching tools.

Then you get into the realm of editing those rough sketches into a more formal form. It’s at this point, of adding control to a sketch, that things are really starting to change.

In a traditional sketcher, you’d add constraints to nail down those values or relationships.

If you add a linear dimension on an edge, you’re effectively marking that as done, then move onto the others.

We’re all familiar with the ‘over constrained sketch” error message which can take moments to fix or, if you’re looking at more complex edits, 30 minutes of swearing, trying to find that one relationship that’s stopping you moving forward.

In this new sketching environment, things aren’t anywhere as near as rigid. You have flexibility in your sketches – you can break or relax relationships quickly and re-apply them where you need them. So shall we take a look at some more complex sketching workflows?

More complex sketcher edits

Let’s take a look at a slightly more advanced video with more complex design changes – and how you can make some more complex changes to the whole or just portions of a sketch.

You can see how symmetry is maintained, how portions of the sketch can be quickly adapted to suit new requirements – what’s interesting to me is that these changes are being made without heavy editing of the constraints in the sketch.

Just a quick click and they’re relaxed where needed – there’s very little delete/reapply workflow that could typify how these types of edits are made in a traditional sketching tool.

Imported Geometry

By now you should have a good grasp of how this sketcher works and what’s different. To round things out, one question that might be asked is how does this perform with imported geometry?

Whether that’s a sketch from a DXF or from legacy data, there are some slick workflows for rebuilding components intelligently, using an imported set of profiles as the basis.

In the video below, you’ll see how the system can work with imported geometry and how the new sketch solver is finding relationships that are pretty complex. We’re not just talking finding horizontal or vertical relationships, but arrayed features and more.

Final thoughts

This is probably the nerdiest post I’ve written in a long time. It might also sound trivial to discuss changes to a sketching tool in the context of 3D design in 2020. Surely, we’re done and dusted with this type of thing?

The answer is that yes, most design systems have a decent sketching environment and they’re all pretty much evolutions of how PTC started doing things with Pro/Engineer. Smarter, sure. More intelligent, absolutely. But have they made the process easier or just added a layer of complexity that we could perhaps do away with? Also, very much the case.

What Siemens has done is, on first look, quite subtle and I’m sure I’ve done a pretty poor job of explaining that subtlety.

What I can attest to is that this makes sense – huge sense – it’s super intuitive and it just works, even during the most complex of edits to a sketch.

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