MachineWorks to bring the latest of Polygonica Software to formnext 2017 

SHEFFIELD, UK, Nov 13, 2017 – Nearly recovered from the TCT Show and the high emotions of winning the TCT Technology Innovation Software Award, Sheffield-based leading software provider, MachineWorks, will be making its way to Frankfurt for the next edition of formnext powered by tct.

This annual exhibition for the additive manufacturing industry will be the setting for Polygonica, MachineWorks’ polygonal modelling toolkit, to be showcased.  Polygonica will have onsite demonstrations of its latest release in Hall 3.1, Stand E90, between the 14th and the 18th of November at Messe Frankfurt, Germany.

The recent Polygonica 2.1 release has added significant functionality to support local modelling operations. This includes regional offsetting where individual faces or regions of a part can be offset inwards and outwards along with interactive mesh deformation based on the new boundary-constrained fairing functionality. These sculpting workflows are also enhanced by geodesic/shortest path-selection, regional remeshing and smoothing which improve polygon distribution and surface quality prior to modelling in regions where, for example, blending is required.

Imprinting of 2D profiles and 3D curves supports engraving and embossing of text, logos and decals into parts whilst the new and extremely fast polyline to surface clipping functionality supports a variety of operations including lattice generation for complex shapes and fast rasterization for DLP-type print processes.

Convex decomposition has been added to dramatically improve collision detection performance in dynamic environments such as hybrid AM machines, CMMs and robot workcells. Feature detection has been enhanced to support detection of higher level features including planes, islands, pockets, holes and drilled holes.

Simplification algorithms have been enhanced both to improve performance and further preserve local attributes such as vertex normals. Simplification is used in a variety of worfklows ranging from reducing large STL files basedon print tolerance at the start of the print preparation pipeline to facilitating  enterprise-based viewing of large assemblies across a range of target devices including cloud, desktop, mobile. The fast simplification and defeaturing options available within Polygonica have a wide range of uses from Virtual and Augmented Reality, 3D PDF publishing and archiving and PLM/PDM through online configuration and quoting, work instructions and remote inspection in disconnected environments.

“The feedback from leading additive manufacturing providers about Polygonica’s capabilities is extremely positive and we strive to developing Polygonica further, anticipating customers’ needs”, says Fenqiang Lin, Managing Director at MachineWorks Ltd.

What’s different about Polygonica?

As opposed to stand-alone solutions, Polygonica is a software development toolkit (SDK) delivered as a set of libraries to be embedded into the customers’ products.

Leading manufacturers used to rely on external software providers to supply their customers with complete out-of-the-box software solutions for healing and print preparation. Polygonica enables OEMs to take control over their own intellectual property and strengthen the relationship with their own customers.  Hardware manufacturers are able to provide accurate healing and print preparation capabilities optimised for their machines, improving the production workflow and reducing costs of both time and materials.

As more and more 3D hardware and software manufacturer’s license Polygonica it is becoming the de-facto standard for automatic mesh-healing within the Additive Manufacturing Industry. Examples integrations include 3D Systems 3DXpert and 3DSprint, 3D Systems Cimatron/E, ANSYS Spaceclaim, Geometric OnShape STL Workbench, LimitState Fix, Renishaw ADEPT, Renishaw Dental Manufacturing System and Stratasys GrabCAD Print.

About Polygonica

Polygonica is a software tool for polygon mesh healing and modelling.

The powerful Boolean engine inside Polygonica provides manufacturers with the necessary tools to efficiently address some of the bottle necks of the additive industry. Polygonica automatically makes polygon meshes watertight accelerating the file preparation process and reducing manual intervention. Built on MachineWorks’ core engines, Polygonica’s unique 3D Boolean technology takes advantage of 23 years of development providing automatic, fast and robust operations. Other algorithms in Polygonica allow solid healing, remeshing, simplification, offsetting and point cloud manipulation.

Polygonica has a wide range of applications such as CAE/CFD/FEA analysis, CAD/CAM, additive manufacturing where there is a requirement to repair defective models for accurate printing, rapid prototyping, reverse engineering, 3D movies and gaming, geo-exploring, urban modelling and other 3D digital applications.

Model Courtesy of monk3947 at Thingiverse. Polygonica Logo added by MachineWorks Ltd 
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2125189