by Brad Strong | Jun 27, 2016 | Blog, CAD Performance, CAD Repair, CAD Translation, CAD Viewing, What's New
Many users of TransMagic purchase the software to simply translate from one format to another. This article points out 7 ways to improve your CAD game by digging deeper into TransMagic. View and Quote All many users need to do is open a customer CAD file and develop a quote for developing molds, tooling, machining, or some other service. Often, companies are using full CAD seats for viewing and quoting. TransMagic opens more formats and has a simpler, faster interface for viewing and quoting. Every core TransMagic product will open up 3D geometry from any major CAD system. Quickly add dimensions and notes, assign materials and generate mass properties for...
by Brad Strong | Jun 20, 2016 | Blog, CAD Comparison, CAD Translation, CAD Viewing, Polygonal Output, What's New
TransMagic Release 12 brings with it a host of new enhancements to make you more productive. Check out the video below for a 3-minute overview, or scroll down to see a highlight of new features. New formats First of all, TransMagic Release 12 supports the latest version of all major CAD formats, including CATIA, Siemens NX, Creo, Solid Edge, Solidworks, Inventor, JT, Parasolid and more. New formats include 3DXML and WebGL; 3DXML is CATIA’s visualization format, and WebGL is a powerful, lightweight format with a .HTML extension which can be viewed in any HTML5 browser. WebGL also supports MBD (Model Based Definition), used by many aerospace and automotive...
by Brad Strong | Jun 13, 2016 | Blog, CAD Comparison, CAD Translation, What's New
Validation Checking Part validation checking is similar to revision checking, but while revision checking assumes that there was a change (and seeks to find out exactly what changed between revisions), validation checking begins with the assumption that there was no significant change between two CAD models. Validation checking compares the authority part (provided by the customer) to the check part (usually generated as a result of translation by the supplier) to see if the geometry has changed beyond a given tolerance. Reasons for Validation Analysis For suppliers to perform their engineering and design tasks on the customer’s data, they often have to...
by Brad Strong | Jun 1, 2016 | Blog, CAD Performance, CAD Repair, CAD Translation, What's New
In The CAD Format Ladder Part 1 we looked at using the CAD Format Ladder to attain the end-goal for translation: high-quality geometry, a water-tight solid if possible, and PMI data if it is included. You can access The CAD Format Ladder Part 1 here. In The CAD Format Ladder Part 2, we’ll look at some specific scenarios. Native, Kernel, and Neutral Formats For clarity, we will define “Native Formats” as the format that is written by default by any given CAD system; for example, CATIA uses .CATPart and .CATProduct, and SOLIDWORKS uses .sldprt and .sldasm as their native formats. The native format is always going to contain more metadata. In addition...
by Brad Strong | May 19, 2016 | Blog, CAD Diagnostics, CAD Repair, CAD Translation, What's New
To see how fast you can repair CAD geometry, and how easily models with missing geometry can be covered with new faces using TransMagic’s MagicHeal, check out this step-by-step walkthough. The process of covering holes and stitching it all together into a watertight solid is quick and easy. Here are the steps (video example at end of this article): STEP 1 – Auto Repair Wizard Start by running the TransMagic Auto Repair Wizard, a tool which automatically validates geometry and repair functions (see figure 1). This automatic CAD repair tool runs Lite Repair which stitches surfaces together as long as the surfaces meet within a specified...
by Brad Strong | May 18, 2016 | Blog, CAD Translation, What's New
The CAD Format Ladder can help you optimize data exchange with your customer or supplier. At TransMagic we often deal with CAD file translation and repair issues. These issues can be minimized by using this rule of thumb: “When sending out CAD data, or receiving CAD data, go as high up on the format ladder as possible.” Your best results: Your best results will come from sending customers or suppliers a format that is as high up on the format ladder as they can read or open. Likewise, you’ll want them to send back data in a format that is as high up on the ladder as you can read. Why is this? Because the higher you go on the format ladder, the better quality...
