Experiment and Explore More What-if’s with New Motion Simulation Features

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Design is everything. Ensuring your designs will work in the real world is priceless. With that being said, it’s important to take the time to test not only for fit and function, but to have the capacity to explore various iterations to ensure your products can be designed to their fullest potential so you can provide the best experience possible for your customers. And why not save a few bucks and reduce your carbon footprint at your organization by making more informed decisions driven by your simulations.

When it comes to testing motion simulations, we’ve got just the tool- 3D Motion Creator, a fully-browser based solution for running kinematic and dynamic motion tests on assemblies, that runs on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, so you have the added benefits of data management and collaboration capabilities.

In this blog, I want to let you in on what’s new in the latest update. I say “update” versus “release,” because what’s great about the browser-based roles in the 3DEXPERIENCE Works portfolio is that there are new features and enhancements launched throughout the year, so you don’t have to wait for an annual release.

In the February update, R2024x Functional Delivery (FD) 01, you can expect the following: (and more!)

  • Understand the behavior of mechanisms better with the ability to explicitly assess the minimum distance between bodies or parts using probes.
  • Reach a zero-defect prototype by visually identifying interferences between components during motion simulations along the entire design process with the Interference Probe command.
  • Expand your what-if scenarios and design experiments with support for parameters and formulas.

Let’s explore what’s new more in depth, so you can start exploring more what-ifs.

Parameters and Formulas – experiment and perform more what-if scenarios without having to edit motion elements.

In the R2024x FD01 update you can create parameters and formulas to define motion elements and easily access and change their values.

You can set up a formula to drive the value for a function, attribute or motion driver, for example. And instead of editing the function of the motion element, you can double click on the parameter you created to change the value and play with more scenarios.

 

Minimum Distance Probe – get visual feedback when comparing two components.

You will now see an animation when comparing the minimum distance between two groups of components during the simulation. Once you set up the Minimum Distance Probe, you can easily assess the distance between two groups of bodies, for example List 1 of the printer bed and List 2, the printer extruder as pictured below.

Interference Probe Animation and 3D View – gain more feedback earlier in your design on potential interferences and clashes.

Similarly, if you recall in the last update we introduced the Interference Probe command, which enables you to quickly identify potential issues between moving parts by selecting two or more components and running the probe to see if they might collide and at what point in time. You will now see the interference probe simulation in action as well.

In addition, clashing bodies will be highlighted in blue when you are viewing the interference in the Motion Manager preview. And you will also see the mesh density.

 

Swept Volume and Geometric Trace – get more control and accuracy of geometry positioning.

You can now choose whether to store the resulting geometry from the Swept Volume and Geometric Trace results. For instance, for Swept Volume, you can choose the positioning and reference of the output geometry. It should be positioned such that it gets positioned by the selected geometry feature. And the new parameter, “Target product” is a product and indicates where the swept needs to be exported.

The same options also apply to the Geometric Trace feature. See the example below.

That is a glimpse of what’s new. Comments, questions, concerns? Drop a note in the comments section below and get with your local reseller for a full demo.

Stay up to date and learn about more 3DEXPERIENCE Works solutions available to you now at: https://SOLIDWORKS.com/xWhatsNew

Michael PEREZ

Michael PEREZ

Michael Perez is a Senior Product Manager with more than 15 years of experience in design and simulation software: SOLIDWORKS, CATIA and SIMULIA from Dassault Systems, in multiple industries such as industrial equipment, automotive and architecture, engineering and constructions industries. Michael is considered as a 3DEXPERIENCE Platform expert and is part of the SOLIDWORKS Product Management team, in charge of 3DEXPERIENCE Works portfolio.