Digital analysis and physical testing are becoming increasingly integrated in the pursuit of optimized product design and development across many industries. With the release of its VGSTUDIO MAX version 3.4 software, Volume Graphics has added and augmented important functionalities that help designers and manufacturers capture and interrogate product data to improve final quality.
VGSTUDIO MAX 3.4’s reverse engineering module provides a comprehensive suite of capabilities in one highly automated package. The module can generate surfaces from a CT scan, or any voxel model converted from a closed mesh/point cloud scan, using an auto-surface function that is fast and accurate. This allows manually generated design models to be available digitally without the need for a CAD designer or reverse-engineering specialist.
Users can generate and archive 3D CAD models of legacy parts, as well as update models in which the actual part or tool deviates from the master CAD model. This automates the creation of digital twins of individual parts and allows for validation of the model-to-part relationship. The recreated or newly validated CAD model can be exported as a STEP file to any CAD system. The software also enables CAM systems to mill on CAD instead of meshes.
The new Digital Volume Correlation (DVC) module in VGSTUDIO MAX 3.4 helps users to quantify displacements and strains, simply and intuitively, between multiple states over time and enables precise insight into the material at hand. This is particularly useful for gaining a deeper understanding of foams, fiber composite materials, or additively manufactured (AM) porous samples or components. Voxel-based, 3-D volumes are automatically correlated by the software, allowing for before-and-after comparisons of in-situ experiments. Results are visualized in extreme detail, making it easy to pinpoint where defects or damage have occurred.
The user can quantify and visualize problems such as cracks and pores by comparing datasets at different states over time with initial undamaged data. Results are visualized via color overlay, vector fields, or strain lines. The equivalent strain or single components of the strain tensor can be shown as a color overlay and mapped directly on a volume mesh to validate the results of FEA simulations.
VGSTUDIO MAX also allows for mapping microstructure information such as fiber orientation, fiber-volume content, or matrix porosity on the same mesh that is used for the FEA. This allows the user to consider all significant microstructure information within a mechanical model and validate it by comparing FEA and DVC results.
DVC can also be used to detect internal damage for maintenance of composite materials by comparing a scan acquired after manufacturing with another scan of the same part after several years of use.
Other enhancements to version 3.4
- New visualization options for deviations of geometric tolerances
- Subvoxel-accurate defect detection with VGEasyPore
- Stress tensor export in a .csv file of stress fields calculated using the VGSTUDIO MAX structural mechanics simulation module
- New, more intuitive Tool Dock
- Support of 4K displays for a crisper, sharper, and scalable graphical user interface