Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2: From Drawing Views to 3D Part. Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2's Create 3D function lets you fold 2D views in 3D space, often the first step in building solid parts from 2D drawings. Top, side, and front views folded in 3D space in Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2. By extruding sketch profiles visible in the folded views and by using profiles to trim away excess materials, you arrive at the 3D solid part. I’m guessing building a 3D solid out of a series of drawing views isn’t exactly your idea of innovation. Nevertheless, it’s the kind of grunt work that’s almost unavoidable. If the part you need exists only in archival 2D drawings, you have no choice but to rebuild the part based on the front, top, and side views. In Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2 (SE with ST2), you’ll find the Create 3D command under the Tools tab. The direct modeling tools in SE with ST2 allow you to select sketch profiles and extrude them to add depth and volume — an ideal approach for turning 2D views into 3D solids.
Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2: Heavy Metal, Light Metal. In Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2, you create flanges simply by selecting an edge and dragging the extrusion handle into the desired direction. With apologies to fans of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, I’m appropriating (or “misappropriating,” some might say) a musical term to discuss sheet-metal modeling in Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2 (SE with ST2). So no shaggy-haired dudes, no amplified guitars — just a few words about bending metal in pixels. Sheet metal work is quite unlike traditional part modeling. Instead of features and blocks, you work mostly with plates, flanges, and tabs. Compared to part modeling, sheet-metal work flow is much more predictable. You spend a lot of time drawing rectangles and turning them into tabs; you repeatedly select edges to add flanges.
In 2008, when SE with ST made its debut, it did so with one glaring omission: no dedicated sheet-metal operations. For more, watch the video demonstration below: Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2: First Encounter. Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2 challenges common assumptions about direct modeling. The cartwheel control lets you move or rotate faces and features with precision in any direction, at any angle. I’m probably going to ruffle a few feathers with this observation, but I believe it’s backed by experience, yours and mine. In general, a history-based parametric program is not ideal for concept exploration. In the design phase where you’re toying with various shapes, experimenting with numerous parameters, a CAD program’s parametric history is more a limitation than an enabler.
A feature history is like a stack of dominoes, each one sitting on top of another. So, over time, you learn to use CAD to draw with precision, to build your geometry with careful consideration. But Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology (ST) may be an exception. Years of tech reporting makes me allergic to marketing slogans. Live Rules let you maintain or suspend geometric relationships while you edit. Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2: Stress Relief. Analysis results exported from Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2 In the last few days, I acquired a taste for destruction. I blame it on Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2 (SE with ST2). After exploring part modeling, I ventured into the Simulation tab to see what kind of virtual mayhem I might cause. I’ll tell you, there’s nothing quite like watching a metal plate or a steel ring get twisted and deformed right before your eyes — in full color, in 3D, in slow motion, available for rewind (you can watch some of them in the video clip below).
Today, most mid-range and high-end mechanical modelers give you some basic analysis tools, so it’s no surprise to find them in SE with ST2, the second release of Siemens’ hybrid (parametric-direct) CAD package. Two of the most computation-intensive operations in analysis are meshing (subdividing the model into tiny chunks) and solving (calculating the effects of the applied forces, load, pressure, and temperature on your model).
Synchronous Technology, Take Two. Solid Edge’s Live Sections are editable 2D cross sections. Last week, Kris Kasprzak, director of Solid Edge marketing at Siemens PLM Software, made a stop in San Francisco to see me and Ten Links‘ editor-in-chief Roopinder Tara. Kasprzak was on a roadshow to promote the upcoming release of Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2 (SE with ST2). This marks the second release of the company’s midrange parametric CAD package outfitted with direct editing. (To use Siemens’ own description, Synchronous Technology “combines the best of constraint-driven techniques with direct modeling.”) Notable additions in the new version include: Adding FEA to SE with ST2 might be Siemens’ move to counter the addition of analysis features in Autodesk Inventor 2010.
Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2 marks the introduction of Solid Edge Simulation, a collection of FEA tools. A year after its premiere, Siemens’ Synchronous Technology continues to fuel debates about the merits of direct editing. Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 3: Visualization and Rendering. SE with ST3 gives you a set of rendering and animation tools under the Tools tab. Predefined materials tab gives you materials, environments, light studios, and backgrounds you can drag and drop into your rendering window. Editable materials make it easy for you to brighten a scene (by adjusting the intensity of light). Once CAD programs competed over the richness of features, in what I’d like to call the anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better arena.
Since most leading CAD programs are now almost neck-to-neck in modeling functions, the feature war becomes a pointless exercise, a shouting match. Many are moving into the next frontier, rendering and visualization. Autodesk Inventor, PTC Creo/Pro (previously Pro/E), and SolidWorks all give you a set of tools to produce a photo-realistic rendering of your design. Rendering functions available under Tools tab are complete with materials, light studios, circular and square bases, rooms, backdrops, and HDRI.
For more watch the video report below: Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 3: Raising the Bar on Hybrid CAD. Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 3 comes with a rendering mode for producing photo-realistic images, right from your modeling window. In this release, you can switch back and forth between Ordered mode (parametric or history-based modeling mode) and Synchronous mode (direct editing mode) -- without haveing to leave the modeling window, without having to convert the entire part. Synchronous to Ordered, or Ordered to Synchronous -- a two-way, round-trip modeling environment. In my view, the ideal hybrid CAD modeling experience is one in which you cease to make a distinction between direct editing and parametric editing.
In other words, the two modeling methods are so well integrated that you don’t think about what mode you’re in; you simply use the command that suits you as you develop your geometry. Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 3 (SE with ST3), released last month, takes a significant leap in that direction, putting pressure on its rival who are on the same hybrid quest.