CAD Exchanger 3.4.0 Updates 3D View and Measurements

CADEX announces a new version 3.4, which features multiple improvements in graphical user interface, 3D view, software development kit and several individual converters.

CAD Exchanger GUI

The company  now added a context menu on the right mouse click. With the help of the context menu users can now show, hide, zoom selected objects, open their properties and more.

Various companies can use PMI in different ways. It is common to include text describing the technical specification of the product, Geometrical Dimensions and Tolerances (GD&T), materials, accompanying information related to authors, time and costs estimations and so forth. Many CAD systems support PMI creation.

In previous versions hiding an object would totally turn it off and remove from the scene. The new release introduces an option of a “ghost view” when hidden objects remain on the scene but displayed with semitransparency (what makes them look like ghosts). This behavior greatly improves convenience when working with complex assemblies with multiple nested parts and subassemblies. The user may choose between the new ghost and the old style views.

When working with B-Rep representations in 3D view, users can now activate a selection mode either per entire “body” or per individual “face”. The switch is located in the display menu.

Up to now, working with files containing polygonal representations (e.g. imported from STL, VRML, OBJ and often from JT) was limited to exploring a product structure (assemblies and parts). Version 3.4 now enables deeper navigation inside the part to see individual triangulation sets, changing their colors, computing bounding box and so on.

Version 3.4 introduces measurement of radii of analytical surfaces (cylinders, cones, spheres, torii).

Moreover, CAD Exchanger will now automatically recognize analytical surfaces among NURBS or generic surfaces of revolution encoded by sending CAD systems.

Two approaches to measure an angle are supported. The first uses two planar surfaces and measures the angle between them, second takes three input vertices.

In addition to C++ inquiries, the company receives requests on C# and Java. Working with its prospect users, the company streamlined support for these programming languages and to simplify integration of CAD Exchanger SDK in their C# and Java apps.

Improvements include more convenient API access, streamlined packaging of C# and Java libraries, updated examples and documentation, improved C# interoperability across.NET Framework and Windows versions and various other items.

The update includes easy-to-use API for productive development. Version 3.4 delivers new API to support manipulation of geometrical primitives (translation, rotation, mirroring, etc), curve and surface evaluation (values, derivatives, normals, etc), bottom-up B-Rep creation (from vertex to solid), conversion from analytical to NURBS representation and other enhancements.

CAD Exchanger SDK 3.4 introduces a Qt/QML-based 3D viewer that demonstrates how 3D models can be visualized in QML applications even without any users’ visualization code.

Some highlights of individual converters:

• IGES: a new file parser implemented as part of the new version V2 introduced this year;
• STEP: colors now supported when reading/writing facetted_brep’s (which map to/from polygonal representations);
• OBJ: enhanced export of assemblies by assigning individual names to parts to improve interoperability with third-party OBJ readers; and
• Rhino: added an option to ignore p-curves in the case of inconsistent 3D/2D curve representations created by a sending CAD system.

Lastly, the company introduces CAD Exchanger Cloud. It recently launched a limited private invitation-based Beta program. It will deliver cloud-focused features to facilitate collaboration and data access.

For more info, visit CADEX.

Sources: Press materials received from the company.