3DCaliper is a product development tool that helps drive efficient product design by automating the analysis of 3D CAD geometry to check proper wall thickness, minimum clearances, and model variances. Wall thickness is a key design factor that impacts both the quality and manufacturability of production parts and tooling, particularly for products developed using casting, injection mold, or diecast processes.
The appropriate distance between assembly components is also essential to ensure proper fit and function.
By special distance measuring analysis, 3DCaliper is also able to find differences between two similar models, providing easy-to-use and accurate model compare analysis.
Unlike other tools, 3DCaliper supports iterative, problem-based approach - each potential problem in the model can be investigated separately and immediately fixed if needed, without loosing rest of the analysis.
Build product quality & manufacturability into design
3DCaliper allows users to address product quality and manufacturability early in the product development process, before design changes become costly and time consuming. It enables designers and manufacturers to quickly and accurately perform measurement analyses on complex CAD models, identify potential problem areas and make design modifications as needed.
Wall thickness measurements allow users to check for fill of the casting, mold or die as well as part quality. The proximity measurement functionality enables users to verify component clearances for proper design-for-assembly. Variance measurements provide an automated identification of changes between model iterations to quickly focus, and therefore speed up, downstream application rework.
Product features
- Works directly on 3D CAD models
- Easy to use analysis wizard to setup analysis criteria
- Color-coded graphics and associated tabular results
- Filtering, grouping and documentation tools available to view, verify and annotate results
- Results can be published in PDF or HTML format, or exported as native CAD features
- Operates on solid/surface/hybrid CAD models
- Accepts STEP or IGES imported CAD geometry
- English, German and Japanese user interface and documentation
Product benefits
Powerful 3D CAD geometry analysis
3DCaliper performs a measurement analysis of the CAD geometry directly on the model and eliminates the traditional need to create and work with triangulated representations, thereby saving time and providing more accurate results.
Automate part & tool design verification
Complex design geometry can be checked for wall thickness and clearances in dramatically less time than the manual checking method. Improve efficiency by eliminating the error prone and time intensive manual process of digitally cross sectioning CAD models or creating part prototypes for destructive testing.
Design-for-manufacture product development
3DCaliper addresses critical manufacturability issues early in the product development process and helps drive cost effective part and tool design decisions. 3DCaliper enables users to check complex CAD models wall thickness to avoid retooling changes and minimize material scrap.
Design for part & tool quality
Part and tool designers can test design concepts for quality criteria before the tool is cut, when the cost of change is minimal. 3DCaliper provides an automated verification of 3D CAD models that allows parts and tools to be designed for form, fit and function by providing results on key measurements.
Shorten time to market
Reduce design and manufacturing cycle times by identifying and addressing key quality and manufacturability concerns in the preliminary design stage. The significant time and cost savings further benefit companies by enabling them to capture market opportunities.
Easy to learn and use
3DCaliper takes CAD users only minutes to learn and does not require analysis experience. Little experience is necessary to interpret graphical reports showing color-coded measurement results.
Product Upgrades
Main improvements in version 3.X
- Adaptive mesh distribution (Automatic mesh generation and refinement if necessary)
- Batch mode (Ability to execute a batch file (XML), User interface to create batch file)
- Configurable color scale (Ability to define color scale, User friendly UI for creating color scale definitions)
- Select results in Pro/ENGINEER (Possibility to select result in Pro/ENGINEER window, Highlighting results in the result table)
- Export result mesh (Triangles of the results will be exported)
- Other (Support of Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3, Support of Windows 64-bit)
Improvements in version 3.1
- Reports (Integration of company logo to reports, Color scale as part of result screenshots, Separate directory for customized report templates
- Batch-Mode (Application can be closed when Batch mode ends - releasing license)
- License information (Table with detailed information about actual license usage)
- Analysis information (Username and date as part of analysis result window)
- Minimal distance display in Pro/ENGINEER (Display of result minimal distance in the note of the Pro/ENGINEER window)
- Result Mask (Possibility to hide/display results based on their minimal distance)
- Automatic surface orientation (Auto detect correct surface orientation for surface models - Inside/Outside)
