Throughout the life-cycle of a product, designs can be worked on repeatedly by different engineers, sometimes by multiple departments and even by external companies. It is important to be able to quickly identify changes and inconsistencies between different CAD models and derived simulation mesh data throughout these engineering processes. CADfix provides three tools for the CAD, CAE, simulation, and advanced manufacturing sectors that will allow users to quickly and easily identify differences between CAD models and mesh data.
First, the Mesh-to-CAD comparison tool can compare a CAD model to a corresponding CAE mesh, which is critical for verifying that the mesh accurately captures CAD geometry for simulation and modeling purposes. Surface and volume meshes of different formats can be imported. For volume meshes, the skin of the solid elements is extracted for comparison to the CAD model. The comparison tool reports the maximum difference detected between the mesh and the CAD and highlights the maximum regions. When the mesh does not match the CAD geometry, for example when the mesher has ignored or removed certain edges or faces, CADfix can detect unmatched features and visually highlight them for inspection. The matching process has also been optimized to efficiently handle very large meshes, providing the user with essential quality control over their simulation mesh.
Mesh to CAD comparison showing the accuracy of the mesh
The second tool offers a new 3D CAD / CAD differentiation feature that allows users to quickly identify changes between two CAD models, for example two versions of a design process, and then create a new hybrid CAD model , merge the selected entities from each. This comparison and merge technique allows engineers to retain simplified functionality from a previous CADfix defeaturing session, whilst merging some of the new features of the latest design, dramatically reducing the time needed to prepare a updated model for analysis..
The CAD to CAD differencing tool can be used to compare and merge geometries
Finally, a 3D scan to CAD diff tool is also available to detect differences between a as-designed part and a as-manufactured part , captured from a 3D scan. STL and PLY formats are supported for importing scan data. The tool detects and highlights areas of maximum distance between scan and CAD, providing the user with valuable information about the accuracy of the fabricated part.
The Scan to CAD differencing tool highlighting regions of maximum difference
