Design

Siemens Releases Parasolid v27.1

Today Siemens PLM announces the release of v27.1 of its Parasolid 3D solid modeling kernel. Parasolid is the foundation of Siemens PLM’s NX and Solid Edge products and is also licensed to many independent software vendors (ISVs) who develop hundreds of Parasolid-based applications in the product design and analysis market space.

Parasolid v27.1 delivers numerous enhancements to support efficiency and effectiveness in complex modeling workflows. These enhancements enable application developers to deliver step changes in productivity to end users.

Parasolid provides high-level geometric functionality that can be most productively and robustly achieved at the kernel modeler level, which allows application developers to focus on their customers’ other requirements.

Other improvements in Parasolid v27.1 include blending, surfacing, modeling support and platform support. These enhancements are in addition to numerous improvements targeted at specific industries and workflows.

Parasolid is the 3D solid modeling component software used as the foundation of Siemens PLM’s NX and Solid Edge products.
Parasolid is the 3D solid modeling component software used as the foundation of Siemens PLM’s NX and Solid Edge products.

Let’s take a look at each area in which the product delivers enhancements.

Blending

Parasolid v27.1 provides extended control over the shape of blends. This extended control enables end users to get the exact shape required for functional or aesthetic purposes, which demonstrates the use of blending as a complex modeling technique beyond its historical role of simply rounding off model edges.

Blending enhancements allow you to:

* More easily control the profile of G2 face blends by providing constant depth and skew values
* Define variable radius edge blend parameters over a chain of edges – in addition to edge by edge – to give a smoother result

The left image shows a chain of variable radius edge blends defined edge by edge with the same parameters. The right image shows a chain of variable radius edge blends created in one operation with the same parameters.
The left image shows a chain of variable radius edge blends defined edge by edge with the same parameters. The right image shows a chain of variable radius edge blends created in one operation with the same parameters.

Surfacing

Parasolid v27.1 enhancements give more flexibility to reach the desired design results within an operation, which eliminates multiple operations.

The surfacing enhancements allow you to:

* Replace sharp mitred corners created by sweeping a profile along a sharp non-G1 path with rounded corners
* Align parameterization of extruded surfaces with the extrude direction
* Optimize parameterization of the new face when replacing a set of faces with a single face
* Sweep a profile along a path with the option to extend the path beyond one or more faces used to lock the profile
* Sweep a solid tool along a path and specify that a face or set of faces of the tool are unimportant to the result and that their precise sweep should be replaced by a simpler capping surface

On the left is a traditional sweep of a tool body along a path. On the right, the red faces of the tool body are specified as unimportant to the result so their precise sweep is simplified to the red capping surface.
On the left is a traditional sweep of a tool body along a path. On the right, the red faces of the tool body are specified as unimportant to the result so their precise sweep is simplified to the red capping surface.

Modeling Support

Parasolid v27.1 includes changes to existing functionality to assist detailed modeling in fewer steps. Parasolid v27.1 modeling support enhancements allow you to:

* Imprint a set of curves that are coincident with a face as a group, which improves performance and robustness
* Imprint a curve onto faces of a body with greater influence by controlling how to imprint onto hidden faces

Platform Support

In response to customer requests, Parasolid v27.1 and Bodyshop v27.1 for Microsoft Windows are now compliant with the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle, which is a set of standards designed to reduce incidences of security vulnerabilities in software. This is a precautionary platform security enhancement as there are no reports of security vulnerabilities in these libraries.