The design goals of reducing weight and material usage are not just for aerospace and automotive applications, although this trend gained prominence through these industries. These goals can apply to all designs, especially if you choose to use additive manufacturing processes for the build.
The recently announced updated software program from solidThinking, Inc., solidThinking Inspire 2014, not only helps you reduce excess material and weight, it includes features that let you investigate structurally efficient concepts quickly and easily. You can investigate more design scenarios before final design. These features include geometry simplification tools, linear static analysis, concentrated mass parts, and smoothing options including the ability to export solid geometry.
According to Program Manager for solidThinking Inspire, Andy Bartels, “we focused on enhancing the concept development process by proposing designs that can be rapidly iterated and easily exported to the user’s preferred computer-aided design (CAD) tool.”
Other tools include push-pull faces and Booleans with linear static and normal modes analysis, and concentrated mass parts. The software works on Mac and Windows platforms.
More details are available on the solidThinking Inspire 2014 landing page, which features a collection of new videos, including a tour of the user interface, a comprehensive overview of the latest features added for 2014, and an overview of how the software fits into the product design process. In addition, customers may access tutorials created specifically for the solidThinking Inspire 2014 release, product demos and an interactive infographic.
Earlier this year, solidThinking released solidThinking Evolve® 2014. Evolve allows industrial designers to develop forms faster, using either a Windows PC or Mac. Evolve captures an initial sketch, then allows exploration of styling alternatives and the visualization of products with high quality renderings generated in real time. It combines both the modeling freedom of organic surfaces and the control of parametric solids with its ConstructionTree history feature. Evolve releases designers from the constraints of engineering-oriented CAD tools, while allowing the export of digital models required by others in the product development process.
solidThinking is a wholly owned subsidiary of Troy, Mich. (USA)-based Altar.
solidthinking.com
Altair
www.altair.com.
