CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
8 April 2008
Product News
SpaceClaim Launches SpaceClaim Professional 2008– the Natural 3D Design System – Empowering CAD Users to Design the Way They Think
SpaceClaim Corporation announced the availability of SpaceClaim Professional 2008, the most advanced version of its intuitive 3D design tool – empowering users to create and edit models faster than ever before.
This latest release represents a leap in product functionality with significant feature enhancements, and focuses on expanded uses for SpaceClaim: rapid product design, multi-CAD model re-use and design in 2D. Users who are challenged by the limitations of existing CAD tools can now design the way they think, faster than ever before, using SpaceClaim’s intuitive user interface.
Rapid Product Design
For many parts and assemblies that designers create, existing CAD production systems can get in the way. It can be difficult to collaborate on other people’s designs because of the mix of accidental and seemingly desired but inevitably complex, inter-relationships of the model. The very strengths that allow design variations to be planned can become hindrances to design explorations and conceptualizing within these systems.
With SpaceClaim Professional 2008, users interact directly with the model just as they like, making even design edits naturally, independent of how they or anyone else got the model to its current state.
Multi-CAD Model Re-use
When data is passed among multiple CAD sources and destinations (departments, systems, partners, and applications,) problems working with other groups’ designs are inevitable. This is because traditional CAD tools are not designed to work with each other’s data. Users are faced with receiving data from other systems that they cannot edit directly, and then waste their time recreating native geometry, so that they can be sure it changes correctly.
With SpaceClaim Professional 2008, designs from every major CAD system can be edited directly and used as if they had originated in SpaceClaim. This complements existing CAD production environments and is critical to most product development workflows. This rings true whether the user is analyzing the models, communicating design changes across the environment, making changes immediately and without repercussions, and all without worrying about how the model was built.
Design in 2D
While for some, building parts and products in 2D views is sufficient, many users recognize the benefits of having a 3D model, namely for mass properties, interference-checking and visualization. However current 3D tools (parametric and explicit) require a huge investment in learning to model, and as a result even simple tasks can become hopelessly complex.
With SpaceClaim Professional 2008’s conceptual simplicity, 2D users can continue to work in an environment comfortable to them, while getting the benefits of a 3D modeling tool without having to become geometry experts. The software enables the creation of an editing in “live” cross sections (both in a solid model and in the drawing space), taking advantage of SpaceClaim’s major modeling tools, notably pull, move, fill, and combine.
“Natural” Evolution Driven by the User
Learning how to navigate the user interface in CAD systems (where the complexity is visually obvious) is not the only daunting challenge for users; the procedures that must be followed are absolute since designers must adhere to a rigid set of rules or beware the result – an unchangeable model.
“Natural 3D design is the ‘natural’ evolution from the parametric feature-based programming paradigm I helped create in the 1980s,” said Danny Dean, SpaceClaim Vice President of Research and Development. “There is no question that these parametric systems are extremely powerful; however, when applied to workflows that are essentially non-parametric, or where the original design intent does not include an unforeseen modification, their limitations become evident. The capabilities in SpaceClaim Professional 2008, including live cross sections, working in concert with our simple, powerful tools – pull, move, fill, and combine – have been purposely designed to overcome these parametric pitfalls.”
Geoff Wheeler, Founder of Oak Design Services, Ltd, a beta tester for SpaceClaim Professional 2008, remarked on existing CAD systems versus his experience using SpaceClaim, “I’m tired of having my CAD system get in the way of what I’m trying to accomplish in my design tasks. With SpaceClaim I edit the model directly, as I choose, experimenting freely and getting better designs much more rapidly than ever before. SpaceClaim is the way I’ll be designing the majority of my parts in the future.”
Product Availability, Demos and Functionality
SpaceClaim Professional 2008 is available immediately and offered as a lease or perpetual license.
Product demonstration webinars will be held on April 16 and 17 at 9 am and 2 pm EDT.
View videos of SpaceClaim Professional 2008’s new functionality.
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