ANSYS Increases Use of Polygonica 3D Modeling Software

At the end of 2017, engineering simulation software leader ANSYS announced that it had acquired 3DSIM, a move intended to expand access to simulation in 3D printing. Now, in continuing efforts to increase and enhance the use of 3D software, the company has signed an agreement with manufacturing software middleware provider MachineWorks. Per this new collaboration, the use of Polygonica Polygon Modelling Software toolkit will be increased through ANSYS.

MachineWorks has been providing software engines to manufacturers worldwide since 1994, and more than 60% of CAM developers worldwide have integrated its software setting as the standard for CNC simulation and verification component software. It has also been integrated into stand-alone verification and controller-based applications, like Collision Avoidance Systems.

MachineWorks is the preferred simulation solution of several leading software and hardware manufacturers in the CNC industry, and released the latest version of its Polygonica mesh processing software development kit (SDK) last year.

The algorithms in Polygonica, originally used in AM workflows, are capable of completing multiple geometric operations on polygon mesh models, like automatic solid healing, Boolean operations, and fixing self-intersections, as well offsetting, point cloud manipulation, remeshing, and simplification.

The SDK was built on MachineWorks’ core technology of machine simulation and material removal and has multiple applications, particularly in 3D printing, which requires complex polygon modeling problems to be solved in the case of dealing with defective models that have many polygons.

ANSYS Discovery SpaceClaim software has used Polygonica for quite some time, helping to progress its functionality in order to support generic CAD functionality based on polygons. In addition, Polygonica is also used in its recently released Discovery Live software. The Discovery Live tool allows for quick computation, using local GPU power, of CAE analysis results, and allows product designers to immediately see relevant results during conceptual design, which makes the feedback loop between design and analysis shorter.

Dr. Fenqiang Lin, Managing Director of MachineWorks, said, “We are very excited that ANSYS have seen the potential for using Polygonica across their product range and we fully expect they will be driving us to deliver solutions to even more challenging polygon-based geometry problems.”

Polygonica, which is delivered as a set of APIs, has been embedded into multiple software solutions in varying industries, from dental, medical, and CAE/CAM to mechanical CAD design, mining, and augmented reality/virtual reality for large capital asset industries, like offshore and shipbuilding.

“The agreement with MachineWorks enables ANSYS to provide the industry-leading faceted modelling capabilities of Polygonica more broadly to our customers. Our recent release of ANSYS Discovery Live brings simulation to every engineer through remarkable ease of use and dramatic speed—Polygonica extends the included geometry editing to faceted data beyond traditional CAD,” said Justin Hendrickson, Director of Product Management at ANSYS.

Structural simulation of dirty polygon-based geometry in under 30 seconds, thanks to combining Polygonica and ANSYS Discovery Live.

If you’re interested in seeing Polygonica for yourself, later this month it will be exhibiting at DEVELOP3D LIVE in Warwick. Polygonica will also be at RAPID + TCT in Fort Worth next month.

In addition, Dr. Lin will be speaking about the challenges of and opportunities for polygon modeling at the AMUG Expo in St. Louis on April 9th.

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