CAD Software Features Flexible Surface Modeling

Delcam offers its PowerShape Pro CAD for CAM system for modeling applications in manufacturing and reverse engineering. The system contains capabilities for direct and surface modeling, and provides a comprehensive range of the design techniques available in a single CAD program. Including these functions within the same package reduces the need to transfer data between multiple programs, streamlining the product development process, the company says. The combination of fast, direct modeling with powerful and flexible surface modeling is said to make the system ideal for design for manufacture applications.

PowerShape Pro CAD for CAM features a “smart feature manager” capable of identifying all the features, such as fillets, slots and bosses, within a solid in a single operation to make the analysis of the imported data easier and faster. Multiple similar features can be found and selected using either a specific value or a range of values using the “smart feature selector,” speeding the preparation of models for manufacturing significantly, the company says.

The program is also said to quickly morph complete models into new shapes with ease, because of to its compensation option for spring-back in press tools and warpage in molded products. Users can directly alter CAD based on scan data from a sample part collected as a point cloud or as a triangle mesh, and can choose between updating the CAD model to match the as-produced item or adjusting the tooling design to produce parts matching the original CAD data.

The software's reverse engineering functionality fits lines and fillets to the cross-section based on user-selected tolerance. According to the company, the method uses the mesh as a guide instead of treating it as exact geometry, which is designed to capture the design intent, rather than ensuring a precise fit to the scan data.