D-Cubed Unveils Revolutionary Technology for Assembly Design and Motion Simulation

September 2001 - D-Cubed announces the first release of its latest component, the Assembly Engineering Manager (AEM). The AEM is designed to be fully integrated at the core of a CAD system, or any other geometric modelling application. It provides real-time simulation of the physical behaviour of assemblies and mechanisms, validating the form and function of a virtual prototype as it is being assembled. This reduces assembly design errors at a much earlier stage in the product development process than has previously been possible.

Current assembly simulation processes take little or no account of the physical properties of the parts in the assembly or the forces that act upon them, factors which have a critical influence on the behaviour of objects in the real world. The AEM enables an application to simulate the realistic behaviour of solid parts in an assembly according to their mass and centre of gravity and the effect of forces acting upon them. Forces are input by the end-user as they drag the part around the assembly and are also an integral part of the simulation through such elements as springs and gravity. As parts move they interact through fully 3D contact constraints, pushing each other around and then disconnecting automatically at the appropriate time.

The AEM enables a wide range of novel assembly configurations to be analysed. For example, fully 3D gear systems can be automatically modelled through the direct contact of gear teeth rather than simplistically coupling angular variables. Production machinery can be simulated, where machine elements contact, re-position and disconnect from the parts being manufactured. AVI based videos of the AEM in action can be seen at http://www.d-cubed.co.uk/prod_aem_intro.htm

D-Cubed believes that there is no equivalent to the AEM on the market at present. Its unique advantages include:

• Integration into the core of a CAD system, or any other geometry based application. The AEM is not a third party analysis module. 
• Proprietary 3D constraint/force solving technology that enables the simulation process to be fully interactive, in contrast to the traditional batch job / post-processing approach of a mechanism simulation system. 
• Real-time computation of collisions, clearance and touching conditions on full solid models, not just faceted approximations. 
• Fully 3-dimensional contact constraints automatically added and removed between solid parts containing any permutation of geometry types, not limited to simplistic representations that must be specified in advance of the simulation. 
• An interactive, fully automated approach that is accessible to every end-user, requiring no specialist expertise in the mechanism simulation field. 

The Assembly Engineering Manager is D-Cubed�s latest addition to a suite of component technologies that have enhanced the capabilities of CAD systems world-wide since 1990. The 3D DCM component enables a CAD system to define the positions of parts in assemblies through a comprehensive range of geometric constraints. The more recent Collision Detection Manager is used to detect collisions and to measure part clearances in such assemblies. The AEM builds on these technologies, leveraging physical laws to pioneer novel techniques for efficient product definition and verification at the earliest stage of the design cycle.

About D-Cubed Ltd.

Founded in 1989 in Cambridge, England, D-Cubed provides software components and technical consulting services to the CAD/CAM/CAE application development industry in all areas of geometric, solid and variational/parametric modelling. Most of the world�s leading CAD vendors have adopted one or more of D-Cubed�s widely respected component technologies for integration into their end-user applications. We have never developed, and do not intend to develop, our own end-user applications. This focus avoids any competitive conflicts of interest with our customers. 

http://www.d-cubed.co.uk 

 

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