Structure systems are a crucial part of many design projects. However, designing structure systems is challenging, whether you’re designing a fabricated structure with bolted connections, a welded structure, a machine frame, furniture, or anything in between.
Typically, to design a structure system, CAD users first need to sketch a profile and extrude or sweep it to create each individual member. Next comes trimming all the places where the members intersect using cut extrude. And finally, when the design is complete, the cut list for manufacturing needs to be manually created.
The new 3D Structure Creator role on the 3DEXPERIENCE® platform provides tools to automate the design of manufacturing-ready structures. Let’s take a closer look.
Focused Design Environment
Improve design productivity by using an interface tailored to 3D structure design. All toolbars, context menus, and features that appear in the software’s interface are specific to structure design, making for a clean, uncluttered work environment.
3D Structure Creator enables you to:
- Freely create structure members based on any sketch entities, model edges, or curves.
- Select structure section profiles from a library of standard types and sizes or create your own.
- Rapidly perform trim operations at corners and endpoints to create precise, manufacturable designs.
- Design with unique structure members by creating custom structure section profiles based on a common profile shape or user-defined 2D sketch.
- Streamline structure design workflows with automated functionality for adding plates, gussets, and end caps.
- Add detail to structure designs by adding cutouts to structure members.
- Visualize an accurate representation of your final product with fully customizable graphics, realistic materials, and ambiance environments.
- Speed design to manufacturing with automated cut lists.
- And much more.
Design Assistant
Add a new level of productivity to your structure design projects with the addition of machine learning algorithms to 3D Structure Creator in R2021xFD06. When picking edges or sketch entities as references for structure members, the Selection Helper offers additional selections based on the current model and selections that you have made in the past. If you agree with the recommendation, a simple click of a button enables the Selection Helper to pick all suggested edges automatically. Additionally, you can toggle factors to refine suggestions made by the Selection Helper.
Cloud-based Application
3D Structure Creator on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform enables you to work entirely in a web browser. Secure cloud-based data management and collaboration tools powered by the platform provide the ability to view, create, or modify designs as a team from any web-enabled device.
Creating structure members, plates, gussets, and end caps; performing corner trimming; and generating a cut list is simple and intuitive. Structure systems are automatically sorted into feature sets. Member properties can be modified at any point in the design to incorporate design feedback. And everyone in your organization has instant access to the latest design data on the platform.
If you make simple fabricated structures, wood frames or furniture, space frames, machine bed frames, structures built from extruded aluminum, or create complex shape structures, then you may want to check out 3D Structure Creator.
Originally posted in the SOLIDWORKS Blog.