CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
12 July 2004
Product News
D-Cubed-Latest Release of the CDM, Version 31.0
D-Cubed announced the latest release of its Collision Detection Manager (CDM), an interactive collision detection and clearance computation component for accurate models in assembly environments. The new enhancements include:
• The CDM has only previously detected those collisions where the colliding bodies share a common volume. This is not the case when entities are touching: such cases have previously been ignored. In this release the CDM has been extended to enable applications to detect any entities that are touching, as well as those that interpenetrate.
• When the CDM is used for interactive collision detection between moving parts, collision checks are systematically performed as the parts are moved through a series of small but discrete steps. When moving parts collide, they will generally have moved from a non-colliding state to an interpenetrating state in a single step. Applications can then request the CDM to determine the exact positions at which the two parts would touch.
The new release implements more sophisticated algorithms to speed up this calculation. The original function used a bisection algorithm that often required many steps to converge on the touching solution. The new algorithm is much more efficient, requiring very few steps without any compromise on reliability. Amongst other applications, the computation of touching solutions between colliding parts is useful for the presentation of possible face mating conditions to the end-user.
For each part in an assembly, applications can specify a box that completely encloses the part. The CDM uses such boxes to reduce the time taken to compute collisions. Generally, the more closely the box matches the part, the better the possible performance gain. In previous releases, only axis-aligned boxes were permitted. It is now possible to specify an axis-aligned box that has been transformed to enclose a part more precisely.
First released in 1999, the CDM has achieved broad market acceptance, particularly with mainstream mechanical CAD applications, including Inventor from Autodesk, Solid Edge from UGS and SolidWorks from SolidWorks Corporation.
Commonly used in conjunction with D-Cubed's 3D DCM assembly part positioning and kinematic solving component, the CDM allows designers to interact with their assembly models with a heightened sense of realism and solidity, eliminating design errors caused by interpenetrating parts.
D-Cubed is a part of the PLM Components division of UGS. They develop software components and provide technical consulting services to the CAD/CAM/CAE application development industry in all areas of geometric, solid and variational/parametric modeling.
Become a member of the CIMdata PLM Community to receive your daily PLM news and much more.
Tell us what you think of the CIMdata Newsletter. Send your feedback.
CIMdata is committed to your privacy. Your personal information will never be sold or shared outside of CIMdata without your express permission.