We have many ViaCAD users who also include Adobe Illustrator in their tool chest. One common use is to create text in Adobe Illustrator using their advanced text tools (kerning/tracking) and then importing into ViaCAD. Once in ViaCAD you can extrude into 3D and perform operations such as blending and chamfering. This video shows how you can share data between the two applications.
A design practice taught to me while in the aerospace industry is to use construction and reference surfaces where I would later trim these surfaces back into a final surface. This practice seems to produce smoother surfaces. For me, this practice has extended outside the aerospace industry into any shape that may involve complex surfaces. However, when you have many surfaces, the final trimming can be a bit tedious. With that in mind, I’m exploring a new multi-surface split tool inside Shark FX for V8. This tool would allow the designer to select a large number of surfaces, find all intersections, and split accordingly.
Check out the video below where I create an interesting bottle bottom using the multi-surface split tool. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please drop me an email at tim.olson@evo-soft.net.
Dragomir Ivicevic is the founder of XYZ Marine Products which is known in the marine industry for its highly rated Extreme Boat Anchor. Dragomir is also the inventor and mastermind behind the novel design approach that makes this anchor rated #1 in the industry and a preferred choice by demanding customers such as the US Navy and Oceaneering International. The Extreme Boat Anchor was designed using Shark FX.
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I’m occasionally asked by new users why some smooth objects appear to have straight edges. For example, if they zoom in on a circle they may see a collection of straight line segments making up the circle. This is because internally the circle is represented as a collection of line segments for the purpose of display. In our CAD applications, all objects are displayed as vectors or facets through hardware accelerated OpenGL drivers. Note this is only for display purposes. Everywhere else the exact equation of a circle is used such as in trimming, breaking, or LogiCursor references.
There are several ways to modify spline points with ViaCAD and Shark. This video shows two methods using the arrow key and the gripper.
Here is a tip for those of you creating custom decals for Shark FX’s photo rendering tools. In this video, Nick Johnson shows the steps to create the image and mask using PhotoShop and how to assign these images to a body within Shark FX.
Check out this tip from Nick Johnson regarding creating glowing lights with Shark FX. This tip shows you how to set the light attribute to cast volumetric shadows and to turn on fog for an atmospheric condition.
Attributes can be assigned to objects which can be gathered up to make a Bill of Material (BOM) table. In this tip, we show how to add an atribute, make a BOM, and to later change your mind to remove the attribute and update the table.
ViaCAD contains a collection of tools to edit parts without a history tree. These tools are invaluable for modifying parts where you:
Check out the video below showing these interesting tools.
Background
Our first implementation of tools to modify faces independent of features was around 1997. We had source code to the Local Operations technology from Geometric Software Solutions (GSSL). At the time this was a third party component technology on top of ACIS to perform shelling and draft operations. Later the technology was acquired by Spatial and tightly integrated into the ACIS kernel. When you hear feature free modeling hype from CAD vendors typically the underlying workhorse is “Local Operations”. If you are a software geek, click here for the Spatial docs on Local Operations. Interestingly, Local Operations is also the component name within the Parasolid kernel.
I was first introduced to ACIS in 1992 by Bruce Morgan of Spatial. 
For those of you unfamiliar with ACIS, this is the underlying modeling kernel in ViaCAD and Shark. At that time I was responsible for Lockheed’s internal CAD development group. Bruce came in with his ACIS sales hat on with the mission to get Lockheed to incorporate ACIS components into our CAD tools.
What he set into motion though was something quite different!