CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

3 March 2009

Product News

VX 2009 Delivers Fully Expandable CAD/CAM with Built-In Learning

VX Corporation unveiled VX 2009 in its worldwide reseller conference. VX is inviting CAD/CAM users to try this fully expandable CAD/CAM product that has a built-in 3D learning system, Show-n-Tell™. These integrated 3D Books allow users to learn CAD/CAM at their own pace, on their own schedule. This fully expandable approach allows users to grow the software as their needs change while having instant access to learning tools.

Show-N-Tell™ Built-In Learning Cuts Training Costs and Shortens the Learning Curve

Show-n-Tell™, launched in September 2008, now includes an additional 10 new 3D tutorial books for healing, mold & die design, and 2-3 axis machining which are available in several languages. In addition to nearly eliminating training costs, Show-n-Tell™ tutorials make it easier to adapt to VX applications. To top it off, on-line chat and web meeting help is available in conjunction with Show-n-Tell™. The authoring tools have been enhanced to make it easier for users to create design review and assembly instruction documents directly in VX. New 3D ballooning and text tools allow users to choose font, color and border style and lock balloons to screen locations or directly to their model. These new text tools enhance the on-screen instructions in the 3D tutorials, improving the overall learning experience.

Expandable CAD/CAM Grows to Meet Your Needs

The release of VX Innovator and the new 3D Machinist products rounds out the product line making VX a fully expandable product. Users can start in at any point and add functionality to meet their growth needs. For instance, even customers on a small budget can get started with VX Innovator and grow into advanced surfacing, digital model reconstruction, and mold & die design and machining. This means they can meet their expanding design and manufacturing needs as their business grows. Customers will also be glad to learn that VX Innovator has floating-license support. VX Innovator is the perfect tool for product and mechanism design, detailing, design review, and quoting.

Ease-Of-Use and Reliability Increase Design Productivity

VX 2009 also introduces new interface enhancements and improved reliability. Users can now enjoy better predictability, the ability to constrain lines and arc/circles tangent to splines, and new options for 2D linkages with the newly added D-Cubed 2D constraint manager in VX sketcher.

Patterning in VX 2009 has been upgraded with a new dynamic preview option which now shows the result, so changes can be made more quickly and on-the-fly.

The VX Overdrive™ engine has been revved up to handle more extreme geometry conditions. For example, the draft command supports changes in draft angle that can cause complete faces to be removed. The simplify command now supports more complex cases and can now clean up shape intersections. Filleting continues to be improved, handling even more fillet cases than the previous releases.

It is now even easier for users to add purchased parts to assemblies from their common suppliers. All VX 2009 products include a direct interface to the TraceParts™ and CADRegister™ libraries with complete bill-of-material support. TraceParts™ in particular lets users insert parts from thousands of suppliers directly into a VX assembly from over the internet, without requiring a separate download. It’s nearly the same as having the library reside on your local system.

The combination of the improvements and enhancements contributes to a shortened learning curve and increased design productivity.

2D Detailing is Still Important for Communication

VX 2009 speeds 2D drawing creation with improved editing of section and detail views. Users have total control over formatting of BOM, hole and electrode tables and their associative balloon layouts. Balloons can be rapidly organized with automatic or manual sorting. Manual edits are retained even when details are regenerated. The new "balloon dimension" stretches the border to match the text length. Automatic drawing layouts have improved view scaling, so less manual interaction is required.

CAM Enhancements Lead to Increase Performance and Expanded Capability

New thumbnail images for each CAM parameter help explain settings, so that changes to machining operations are more easily understood and are especially helpful for new users or those who are upgrading from legacy CAM products.

The VX QuickMill™ high-speed milling engine found in 3D Machinist and the End-to-End products has been refined for better performance and reliability. QuickMill users will appreciate a 20-30% improvement in overall calculation times, particularly noticeable when machining huge complex parts.

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