Delcam PowerSHAPE Offers Extra Design for Manufacture Functions

The 2014 release of Delcam's PowerSHAPE CAD software offers a range of new functionality for the conversion of product designs into tooling designs.  The software now provides more tools to increase productivity through increased automation and improved workflow, the company says.

By offering a combination of modeling and reverse engineering functionality, PowerSHAPE provides a range of design techniques in a single CAD program. According to Delcam, having all the different technologies in the same package reduces the need to transfer data between multiple programs and so streamlines the product development process.

PowerSHAPE can already recognize a variety of solid features within imported "dumb" geometry, such as fillets, slots, bosses etc. The new Smart Feature Manager allows users to identify all these features within a solid in a single operation and so makes the analysis of the imported data easier and faster.

The software includes a set of filters so that all the features that fulfill specific criteria can be identified within the model.  For example, the Smart Feature Manager can find all the holes having the same specified diameter, or those having radii between two values.  Similarly, if a single feature is selected, all similar features can be identified with a single click.

When creating fillets, two new types of solid fillet have been added to the range of options in PowerSHAPE. Constant-width fillets create a blend based on a nominal radius when the distance between two edges remains fixed. Curvature-continuous fillets create a smooth blend between the selected edges. They have curved cross-sections, with the radius of the curve varying continuously to match the curvature of the underlying faces.

The core/cavity separation wizard in PowerSHAPE has been rewritten to make it even faster and more effective.  It divides the solid model into core and cavity pieces that can then be separated dynamically using a simple slider.

Another new addition is a "solid extrusion" tool that allows solids to be created from multiple nested curves in a single operation. Any inner curves are extracted automatically from the solids to give hollow shapes. This option is ideal for creating embossed text, such as part numbers or product names, and similar complex-shaped features, the company says.

For more information, visit Delcam.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.