As a result of this acquisition, VISI, the leading CAD/CAM software for stamping dies, has integrated Camtek’s PEPS-Wire EDM software into the VISI core product and renamed it VISI PEPS-Wire. Subsequently, this integration has further strengthened VISI in the stamping die-maker community.

The new VISI PEPS-Wire module creates wire EDM toolpaths automatically from solid parts, automatically finding holes, lands, and draft angles that need to be wired, allowing wire EDM programmers to cut fast and reduce mistakes.

One Module in a Full Featured Product

VISI PEPS-Wire is a 2-axis and 4-axis wire EDM software module that can be run independently or in conjunction with the full-featured VISI CAD, CAM, and Analysis systems for toolmakers. VISI has over 40 software modules optimized for die-making, mold-making, and foundry work.

Solids-Based Wire EDM Programming

Wire to your 3D CAD’s solid part with automatic feature recognition. The part does not need to be designed in VISI to take advantage of this automation. VISI can work directly with Parasolid, IGES, CATIA v4 & v5, Pro-E, UG, STEP, Solid Works, Solid Edge, ACIS, DXF, DWG, STL and VDA files. Or use the classic wire-based CAD geometry to create wire EDM toolpaths.

Using VISI’s feature recognition, the system “finds” machinable wire EDM features in a solid, constructs the toolpath’s upper and lower guides, and connects up the control points – all automatically.  Programming is dramatically faster and there are fewer errors due to computer accuracy.

Lowest TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)

VISI PEPS-Wire is the most cost effective wire EDM programming solution available. Whether you have a new wire EDM machine or are using a competitive wire EDM software program, VISI PEPS-Wire is half the cost in both initial purchase and maintenance (compared to leading competitors), without giving up any features or functionality.

Want to Learn More?

Give us their company name, a contact person inside their company, and their phone number. We’ll do the rest of the work. If their company decides to buy software from us, we give you $250.

Send us their information using our Contact Form. Make sure to include your name and number so we can give you your bonus when they buy!

This offer is not available to employees nor family members of employees of Compass Technolies, TST, Vero, ETA, FTI, eBair, Transmagic, or any of Compass’s software vendors. Limit to 1 redemption per person per year. Not valid towards referrals that have received a software demonstration from Compass in the past 6-months. Offer expires 12/31/2012.

Up to now, there has been a major problem with this technology that has limited its use.  Specifically, there’s been no way of getting the calculated compensation model out of the analysis system back into the CAD/CAM system to machine an “overbend” station.  The problem lies with the analysis system’s use of FEA (finite element analysis) meshed surfaces. Specifically, when a mesh compensation model is translated back into a CAD system the finite elements create unacceptable facits (deriving from the analysis mesh) in the model to be machined.  These facits which are acceptable in the analysis system are not in the machining system.

VISI’s Springback Function

VISI-Modeling’s new Springback Module allows die designers to have their cake and eat it too. It’s an upgrade to VISI’s recently released TDD module (Target Driven Technology) which uses TDD’s warping/morphing/stretching technology to do its work.  Using two mesh models coming from an analysis system (a mesh-based nominal part model and a mesh-based compensation part model), the VISI Springback Module creates a new quality machinable form station. It does this by “morphing” the original nominal uncompensated die forming surface to a compensated die forming surface based on the delta movement of the two mesh models provided by the analysis system.  Because an original high quality CAD surface was used in the “morphing” process, the resulting surface of the overbend station inherits that same degree of degree of quality needed for machinability.

The distance the tooling will be compensated is controlled as a percentage of the distance the part “springs back”. Often, you don’t need to over-bend a part the full distance of the springback. For example, if a bend springs back 5-degrees, the tooling may only have to over-bend the part 4-degrees. Once VISI has deformed your tooling surfaces to include overbend, you can repeat your analysis to confirm that the part now springs back to the nominal part shape.

VISI-Progress‘s Springback function also accepts wire-frame sections or CMM data instead of analysis results.

Product Literature

VISI Modules Brochure

VISI Sheet Metal Solutions

VISI-Progress Case Study

Related Software

• VISI-Progress - Die design CAD software for rapidly designing progressive stamping dies. Unfold straight-bend and and drawn parts with flanges. Including strip development and cataloged components. Feature-based-machining to automate CNC toolpaths to your manufacturing standards.
• FastBlank - Blank prediction software for estimating the size, shape, and thinning of a sheet metal part.
• BlankNest - Nesting optimization software for minimizing the material needed on a coil. Nest multiple different parts if needed. Useful for parts being made in a transfer or line die.
• ProgNest - Similar to BlankNest, yet allows for built-in strip carrier stock.
• Dynaform - Die simulation software for analyzing if your stamping die design makes your parts correctly.

Get Your Own Personal Demo Today

If you would like to see VISI-Progress‘s Springback feature demonstrated on your own parts, contact us at 440-734-9600 for a personal presentation.

VISI Incremental Stock

VISI-Machining calls this CAM visualization feature “Incremental Stock”. This is the kind of information that is needed to choose the next “best” combination of tool path, tool type, and size.  The benefits include reduced CNC run time, and higher quality finishes for reduced bench polishing.

This feature is most useful when machining mold cores and cavities, and die form stations.  When you can “truly see” stock remaining on a tool surface before you cut steel, you can try different machining strategies and pick the best for producing the highest quality surface in the shortest amount of time.

Color Coding

The VISI Incremental Stock feature adds color-coding to the simulation model to illustrate how much stock is remaining. In the above picture, green designates zero stock remaining (this means the last cut was made exactly exactly to the part surface and no additional CNC toolpaths are necessary. Everything else in blue is remaining stock. The darker the blue the more material there is remaining on the part.

If the toolpath has gouged the part, it shows up in yellow, orange, or red, depending on the severity of the gouge.  You will never see gouges in parts machined with VISI if everything has been set up right.  But it’s nice to confirm this with VISI’s Incremental Stock feature.

Product Literature

VISI Modules Brochure

VISI 5-Axis Case Study

Related Software

• VISI-Mold – Mold design CAD software for rapidly drawing mold tool designs. Automated tools assist in core/cavity development, draft analysis, tool build, catalog components, flow analysis, and optimized feature-based machining.
• VISI-Progress – Die design CAD software for rapidly designing progressive stamping dies. Unfold straight-bend and and drawn parts with flanges. Including strip development and cataloged components. Feature-based-machining to automate CNC toolpaths to your manufacturing standards.

Get Your Own Personal Demo Today

If you would like to see VISI-Machining demonstrated on your own parts, contact us at 440-734-9600 for a personal presentation.

However, now there are tools that will fix even the most impossible CAD geometry in minutes. It’s a new module, called Target Driven Deformation, is part of the VISI-Modeling Series, and here at Compass, we are amazed at the number of things you can do with it.  In the example below, draft was added – retroactively – to the impeller blade.  Without TDD, the job would have better been done by remodeling from scratch.

CAD Model of an Impeller

Target Driven Deformation

Called Target Driven Deformation (TDD), this new advanced modeling module of VISI-Series allows tool designers to “morph” or “warp” CAD multi-surfaces that, until now, would have been considered unfixable. The optimal use of the TDD feature by tool designers is for changing CAD geomtries that would otherwise be impossible to draw or fix.

Conventional CAD tools exist for creating and manipulating individual CAD surfaces.  The difference with TDD modeling tools is that it operates on CAD multi-surfaces thus short-cutting gross amounts of work.  What’s more,  it works on primitive geometries that result when customer CAD files are translated into a designer’s CAD system.

The basic principles of TDD are simple.  Certain of the geometries on a part are locked down – not to move – while others (such as points, edges, or whole surfaces) are defined to move – from an origin to a destination location.  All remaining geometries on the part are allowed to “morph” or “warp” (to stretch and deform) to satisfy the original movement constraints and to maintain a valid solid model.

Details from the Video Above

The model in the example is an impeller blade that has a center hub with vertical sidewalls.  The Draft Angle Analyser of VISI’s Surface Analyzer shows zero degrees of draft.  The goal here is to add a 2-degrees of draft onto these vertical walls while maintaining all other part geometries the same.  Given conventional CAD tools, the best way to fix the model would be to remodel it entirely from scratch applying correct hub draft right from the start.  This is because problems will arise maintaining the integrity of the blades as they are re-intersected with the new upper hub surface. And every edit to the walls of the model will surely involve an edit of the other impeller features.

A New Easier Way

Using TDD, the software does all the work based on a set of deformation commands. First the model is picked. Then all geometries that are to remain stationary are locked down (in this case the bottom face of the hub and fan blades and the boss feature on the top of the model). Next, the geometries that must move are picked and their movements defined (in our example this is the large radius on the top of the hub that needs to be deformed inward to add the desired 2 degree draft).  A circle defined by the lower edge of the radius is defined as the “from” geometry for the hub and a second smaller circle is created in the same plane inside the first as the “to” location for the hub.

Once the parameters are confirmed, the TDD feature moves the radius edge from the first to the second location while dragging and morphing the remaining geometries to fit proportionally as seen in the image on the left.

And with that,the model is correctly deformed with the specifications that you gave it and your changes are complete.

Using TDD, the change took but a few minutes.  Without TDD the change would have taken at least hours if not a day.

Product Literature

VISI Modules Brochure

VISI TDD Brochure

Related Software

• VISI-Mold - Mold design CAD software for rapidly drawing mold tool designs. Automated tools assist in core/cavity development, draft analysis, tool build, catalog components, flow analysis, and optimized feature-based machining.

Get Your Own Personal Demo Today

If you would like to see Target Driven Deformation on your own parts, contact us at 440-734-9600 for a personal presentation.

VISI will allow you to unfold any metal parts you have with relative ease and gives you flexibility when doing so to maintain the integrity of your part.

Start the process by opening or importing the part into VISI. Using the option in the “Progress” dropdown “Part Study”. After selecting the part through the Part Analysis Build the options for defining different part properties opens up. This window allows for the defining of part material properties and different unfolding methods.

The material properties are sorted by “Family” (brass, copper, steel, aluminum, etc) and “Materials” (specific material specifications within the chosen family). There are default ones that come with the installation of the VISI product, but if you have additional materials to add, you can access the library by clicking the icon in the top left “Family Properties” and then editing in that menu. The thickness of the part can also be defined as “t” and the material side at the bottom of the left column.

The right side of the Part Properties window is devoted to defining the unfolding calculations applied to the part. The first option is for defining the neutral fiber on the bend. Bending a sheet metal part produces stretches and compressions onto the part. If the tension stress is onto the external side of the fold, the compression of material is assumed onto the internal side. The stretching tension increases the original dimension of the part, while compression reduces the dimension. The boundary between stretching and compression is the neutral fiber where the original dimension remains unchanged. VISI offers two methods for finding this value: Manual (select between 1/3, ½, 2/5, and 5/12 where the fractions refer to the position through the metal thickness that you want to define the neutral fiber) or Automatic (using Romanoski, Oehler-Kaiser, or Sharp Corner algorithm methods).

There is also the option for selecting the unfolding type used. Constant length unfolding uses an algorithm that forces the arc length of the bend on the chosen or calculated neutral fiber to remain constant. When the bend is unfolded, the radius and centre point of the selected bend must change to maintain a constant arc length. Constant radius unfolding uses a separate algorithm that forces the radius of the bend on the neutral fiber to remain constant.

Linear extension after the bend unfolds the bend creating a surface with the same radius and adding a plane surface after the bend to have the same neutral fiber length. The linear extension before the bend performs in the same way, but adds the surface before the bend.

After all of the unfolding specfications are set, the actual unfolding steps can be created. Start by selecting the face to unfold from and an origin point. Typically, you can use the automatic unfolding feature for all but the most complex parts to get a flat blank for the part. After the blank is created as a goal to unfold toward, switch to the “Step” tab and add a step to the strip unfolding. A copy of the previous part will be created. By right clicking on each othe bends in the part, a dialog opens to allow for a bend angle specification. Through this, you can work backward through the strip by defining the bends at each step.

Once all of the steps are created, switch to the final “Solids” tab and “Rebuild 3D Parts” to add the material thickness back onto each step.

Below are instructions on how to easily setup a FTP service on your Windows server.

1. Download the FileZilla FTP Server program to your Windows server.
2. Install the program.
3. During the install, make sure you select the option to auto-start on reboot.
4. Start the FileZilla FTP Server program if it didn’t auto-start after the install.
5. Add a test customer FTP account under Edit / Users. Click Add, create a username, add a password.
6. Click the Shared Folders page on the left, and Add a home directory. Be sure to click “Set as home dir” when done.
7. If you want your user to be able to write and delete files in that directory, click those permissions now too.
8. Click OK and test your connection. By default, FTP uses port 21.

If you need to change the port number for FTP, go to Edit / Settings and in the General Setting page, change the “Listen on these ports” field.

If you are hosting this FTP server for Internet users, be sure your server is in the DMZ. The DMZ, which is called the Internet’s Demilitarized Zone, is the area of your network that everyone on the Internet can get to. If you can FTP to the FTP server within your subnet but can’t from somewhere else on the Internet, you likely have something blocking it — maybe a firewall, VLAN setting, port blocking, etc. Check with your network administrator in your company to get a network topology.

Top Ten Reasons

1. Who wants to look at your untrimmed surfaces?
2. Last updated when Windows NT4 was invented. (1996)
3. Missing socks is better than missing surfaces.
4. Still running your CAD system on a Commodore-64?
5. Sounds too much like “I Guess”.
6. Invalid surfaces — Even surfaces want to feel validated.
7. It was made by a committee, when was the last time that resulted in the best anything.
8. Look at the guy that calls it an IGESed file and decide if you want to be like him.
9. Who wants to be confused with the International Genetic Epidemiology Society?
10. Even the inventors knew it would be replaced; it was called the Initial Graphics Exchange Spec.

The Real Reason IGES Sucks

The IGES specification is just that, a specification. It can be interpreted differently by the CAD/CAM coder and as such contains properties that are difficuly to understand and implement consistently. Over the years this has led to many companies implementation of the IGES format differing to a great extent, rendering many of them incompatible.

Modern CAD systems have a large number of different ways they can write IGES data. These choices can make the resulting IGES file better or worse for its intended reader, depending on compatibility issues that are often poorly understood. For example, a CATIA user can export analytic surfaces such as cones and planes, or change them into spline surfaces before exporting. Some CAM systems would prefer the first format, others the second. (Credit: Everything2)

The History of IGES

IGES, also known as the Initial Graphics Exchange Specification, is a file format which defines a vendor neutral data format that allows the digital exchange of information among CAD/CAM systems.

The IGES project was started in 1979 by a group of CAD users and vendors, including Boeing, General Electric, Xerox, Computervision and Applicon, with the support of the National Bureau of Standards (now known as NIST) and the U.S. Department of Defense. It became an ANSI standard in 1980. (Credit: Wikipedia)

Over the years, IGES was slow to evolve. New CAD surface geometry was made possible in advanced CAD systems, and IGES was forced to evolve with it. However, many CAD systems now focus their energy on different file conversion standards like STEP.

Best Ways to Transfer CAD Geometry Between Systems

If you need to transfer CAD geometry between CAD systems, there is a hierarchy of “what to try first”. IGES is NOT the first, it’s the LAST option you should use. Use this guideline to determine what format is best to transfer files.

Please note, if you have a plot view alongside your 3D CAD drawing, the plot view will not normally transfer.

1. Natively — If you have the same CAD/CAM system as your partner, save your geometry in the native file format. For example, if it’s VISI, transfer your file to someone else as a WKF file.
2. Common Kernel — If your CAD/CAM systems uses the same geometric kernel engine as your partner’s CAD system (for example, Parasolid or ACIS), then use that file format to transfer. You will have great success transferring data this way.
3. Native Translator — If you have a native translator in your CAD system that will import your partners CAD data natively, this is the third best option. For example, I have a Native CATIA translator in my VISI system, so I’d use that to get best results (CATIA has it’s own kernel, so I can’t use option #2).
4. STEP format — This is the best open-standard CAD geometry format available today. You should still get very good results with this option, however it isn’t THE best but it’s very acceptable. Sometime using STEP can yield better results than a Native Translator.
5. JT-Open — This emerging standard from Siemens is gaining much grown in the world of inter-CAD translators. It is as good as STEP, however most CAD/CAM systems don’t have this integrated yet. My system, VISI, does have it though.
6. Fax — Ok, I’m slightly joking here. IGES will give you better results than faxing your plots through a phone line, but I really felt good putting IGES below faxing.
7. IGES — Only send files via IGES as a measure of last resort. You will commonly have surface translation issues with this format. Surfaces can become untrimmed or incorrectly trimmed, and it can create gaps in surface geometry that won’t allow your CAD data to be closed to solid geometry.

Native Translator Recommendation

If you are looking for a Native Translator, I highly recommend TransMagic. You will get the best results with this system when transferring files between different CAD systems that work on different kernels.

Writing your company description page on your website is hard, I understand. You need to tell the rest of the world, in a few sentences, what you do and why you’re so great. And you need to stand out from the crowd.

But it’s good to know how NOT to write for your company description. Here’s a description from a website I visited today:

The XYZ Company has over fifty years of experience in providing industry with a broad range of tin and lead products for every application.

The exceptional capabilities of our staff, combined with the highest quality production standards, has earned our company a reputation of integrity, dependability and excellence.

Should you have a particularly difficult or unusual custom requirement, the technical expertise of our personnel can be of significant value.  We frequently custom formulate tin, lead, silver and antimony to meet the most demanding and specialized requirements of our customers.

At XYZ Company, we place a high value on customer service.  We want to give you better value and service than you will get anywhere else.  We strive to make sure all of our customers are completely satisfied.

Please contact us to discuss in detail how our products can fit your specific needs.  Your inquires will receive prompt and careful attention.

I beg you to tell me – WHAT DOES THIS COMPANY DO? They are 50 years old, they deal with tin & lead somehow, they have great service, they do custom stuff … A-HA! They custom formulate tin, lead, silver and antimony! That was sure buried in there! I would definitely recommend talking a little more about this thing you do — half of a sentence is not enough. The rest of the text is mostly fluff and gets in the way of customers finding you.

1. Tariffs on Free Trade — Free trade sounds like a good idea. Doesn’t it? If you and I want to buy and sell product from another country, it’s best for both parties involved. No tariffs to increase costs because the company I want to buy from is across the ocean. Cool! But that’s not the way it works today. The USA doesn’t put tariffs on goods coming INTO the USA. However, our partnering countries DO put tariffs on goods going INTO their countries. Not exactly Free Trade anymore, is it?
2. Lack of Innovation — American manufacturing companies are among the worst innovators in all industries. The lack of finding more efficient ways of doing business is staggering. How in the world do we get better by staying the same? You wouldn’t believe it, but about 15% of US manufacturing companies don’t even have a website for themselves, and it’s the year 2012 already!
3. Failure to Work Together — For the US to succeed, we need to be better than the rest of the world. We need to work together to find ways of doing business better. We need to be more efficient in production. We need to be more innovative with our manufacturing processes. We need to talk to one another to find ways that we can help each other. We need to stop worrying about our competitors knowing any “trade secrets” about our own company. Here’s a news flash — WE DON’T HAVE ANY TRADE SECRETS. The way we do business, is the way everyone else does business. Work with partners, and even your competitors, and find new innovative ways to compete in the world economy.

As a software sales company, I’m amazed every day how far we’ve fallen behind the foreign competition. China isn’t producing higher-quality products. They aren’t delivering product faster. They are just making it cheaper. Because they have cheap labor. And they have free trade to bring those parts into our country without tariff. So how do we get better?

We need to work together. We need to innovate. We need to invest in more productive ways to do business. That may mean using robots to do automated jobs. That may mean designing tooling with modern software. That may mean doing “virtual die tryouts” rather than testing after you’ve cut steel. They are SO MANY ways to improve your business. Be open to new ideas.