Released May 2009

Siemens PLM Software announces the latest release of the D-Cubed 3D Dimensional Constraint Manager (3D DCM), a software component that positions parts in assemblies, simulates their kinematic motion, and parametrically controls the configuration of 3D sketches and the shape of parts. New enhancements specific to version 40.0 are listed below. A full product description can be found here.

Functional enhancement: spline curve constraints

A growing number of customers use the 3D DCM for parametric 3D sketching, especially in support of spline curve and surface design and 3D routing applications. Two key improvements in this area have been made in this latest release:

• Equal curvature vector constraint:The capability to specify that a certain location on two curves must have an equal curvature magnitude was introduced in the 3D DCM several years ago. The newly introduced equal curvature vector constraint supports greater continuity between curves.
• Update tangent magnitude during an evaluation: The capability to specify the magnitude of the tangency at specific positions on a curve, most commonly at the ends, is important in many curve design situations. For interpolating 3D DCM splines this latest release enables an application to update the tangent magnitude during a solving cycle, typically in response to feedback from changes in the position of the interpolation points as the solving proceeds. One example of where this can be used is to automatically maintain aesthetically pleasing tangent magnitudes during updates to the shape of the curves in a model.

Functional enhancement: new diagnostic information for over-defined models

The 3D DCM has always been able to identify the constraints that over-define a model. The challenge for the application developer, or the user, is knowing which constraints to remove in order to produce a well-defined model. Version 40 includes two enhancements to the diagnostic information to help application developers and users with this issue.

For a range of over-defined scenarios the 3D DCM can now identify regions, either interacting or non-interacting, that are each separately over-defined. Furthermore the 3D DCM can now describe the nature of each of these over-defined regions. For example, if a particular system of constraints implies that a pair of planes must be coplanar, yet a distance dimension has also been added between them, the 3D DCM is able to describe this conflict, helping to locate and resolve the problem.

Performance and integration enhancements: thread-safety

An optional thread-safe version of the 3D DCM was made available with version 39 to enable multiple instances of the 3D DCM to run on parallel processors. However, each thread-safe instance of the 3D DCM had slightly worse performance compared with the non-thread-safe version. In this release, the necessary changes have been made to eliminate this performance disadvantage, enabling the thread-safe version to be the standard version.

Furthermore, version 39 only supported thread-safety on PCs running Windows®. This new release is thread-safe on our full range of supported operating systems, including Unix, Linux and Apple platforms.

About the D-Cubed 3D DCM

First released in 1995, the 3D DCM is used in most major CAD applications and is widely acknowledged as the leading 3D geometric constraint solving technology. It provides a genuinely three-dimensional, variational (non-sequential) approach to solving a broad range of dimension and constraint schemes. It is the foundation of the latest interactive approaches to assembly part positioning and kinematic simulation, 3D sketching and direct (non-history based) part shape modification.

About Siemens PLM Components; Parasolid and D-Cubed

PLM Components are software tools that support innovation and promote interoperability in CAD, CAM, CAE and PLM applications. Siemens PLM Software develops these components, uses them throughout its own applications and licenses them to independent software vendors and end-user organizations. PLM Components include the Parasolid and D-Cubed products, widely used technologies that provide 3D part and assembly modeling, editing and interoperability, 2D/3D parametric sketching, motion simulation, collision detection, clearance measurement and visualization functionality. Applications include mechanical CAD, CAM, CAE, mold design, sheet metal, AEC, GIS, structural, plant and ship design, CMM, reverse engineering and sales configuration. For more information, please visit www.siemens.com/plm/open

Contact

Jim Thorpe

Siemens PLM Software (D-Cubed Components)

Tel: +44-1223-722655

jim.thorpe@siemens.com