Posted: Jan 24, 2008

What's New in Shark FX 5.0:

Multiple Viewports

Viewports provide a graphical user interface to display and edit the same model in multiple views. Each view may have a different orientation, which for example enables a component to be viewed and modified simultaneously in isometric, side, front, and top views.

A variety of predefined viewport arrangements are available that split the screen into two, three, and four views. Additionally, a floating viewport window can be created which is especially useful to display data on multiple monitors.

Parametric Dimensions & Geometric Constraints

Shark supports dimensions and constraints for managing a variety of geometric relationships between 2D sketches. These relationships are used to establish the design intent of 2D sketches which then typically drive 3D solids. Modifying any object within a system of constraints will update all other dependent objects accordingly. Dimensions and constraints are key to making rapid design iterations based from 2D sketches.

A variety of constraint types are support by Shark which include distance, radius, diameter, coincident, tangent, horizontal, vertical, perpendicular, offset, concentric, parallel, equal, colinear, and symmetry. Distance constraints may also be defined by vairables and equations. Variables and equations are useful for relating other dimensions such as defining the height of a rectangle to be a function of its width (H = 2 x W).

Shark supports the unqiue ability to create sketches without entering into a dedicated 2D mode. This is accomplished by an underlying inferencing system that identifies skechs as you are designing. This means you can create constraints in any view, at any time.

Sketches may also be defined on a face of a solid, In this situation, the sketch is dependent on the geometry of the face and updates as the face changes. This includes the ability for the sketch to changes its orientation to match any changes of the face orientation.

Colour By Face

Colours can now be applied to the individual faces of a component, allowing for improved visualisation without the need to explode or split components just to modify the colour of a particular face.

Material Filters

The method by which photrealistic materials are applied to components has been enhanced allowing for materials to be applied using one of 3 filters; Apply to Face, Apply to Body or Apply to Similar. These filters enable a selected material to be dragged and dropped on to the face of a component, on to all the faces of a component or on to all displayed faces which have the same material as the face on to which the new material is dropped. This final filter is ideal for replacing one material with another across an entire assembly.

Enhanced Protrusion Solid Tool

The Protrusion Solid tool located in the solids from 2D profiles palette now supports protrusions by distance. The direction of the protrusions relative to the selected face that the 2D profile lies upon.

Enhanced CutOut Solid Tool

The CutOut Solid tool located in the solids from 2D profiles palette now supports material cutouts by distance. The direction of the cut is relative to the selected face that the 2D profile lies upon.

Three Face Blend Tool

The Three Face Blend tool creates a variable radius blend between three adjoining faces. The center, or shared face, is replaced with a smoothly blended surface. The radius value is completely controlled by the geometry of the three faces.

Modify Profile Tools

Feature based solids such as extrusions, sweeps, and lathes are created from collections of 2D curves called profiles. The new Modify Profile Tools enable these profiles to either be modified by adding, removing or replacing curves or to be completely replaced by an alternate profile.

Curve to Arc Tool

The Curve to Arc tool will convert splines, conics, ellipses, polylines and collections of lines into arcs. This tool is of special interest to designers interfacing with CNC machines which do not accept higher order curves. The tangent continuous option can be used to have each arc tangent to its neighbor or the position continuous option can preserve the original curve. Conversion is done relative to a user defined tolerance.

Dynamic Linear Array Tool

The dynamic array tool will create and distribute copies based on the starting reference point and cursor location. As you move the cursor, the angle and number of copies increases or decreases. The spacing value describes the absolute distance between each consecutive object.

Enhanced Printing on Mac

Printing now uses the Quartz drawing system which enhances several print aspects on the Mac platform. Quartz provides a much larger coordinate space which means larger size plots can be printed. Quartz also supports much finer line weights which is especially noticeable when printing very thin lines. Printing now obeys the anti-alias setting under the View Display settings.

OBJ Import/Export

The Wavefront OBJ ASCII file format is widely accepted throughout the world for exchanging facetted data between CAD applications. OBJ files exported from Shark contain vertices, normals, texture coordinates, and part names. Texture coordinates are especially useful for 3rd party photo rendering applications to preserve the original NURB parameterization for smooth renderings.

SketchUp Import

Shark can import Google SketchUp and Google SketchUp Pro version 6 or earlier files. As Google SketchUp files only contain planar data all entities are converted into planar surface object types. This import option opens up the entire collection of components and models contained in the Google 3D Warehouse for use in Shark.

Enhanced AutoCAD 2008 Import/Export

Miscellaneous Corrections

• Corrected crash with certain text in DWG files
• Fixed Tmp file issue with DWG files
• Corrected Page Setup not working on mac
• Corrected click on layer name to edit second time not working on mac
• Fixed select highlight issue when zoomed in on model
• Data entry now preselects non zero field for translate/move tool
• Corrected bug with selecting control points of faces/and calculating extents of surface_faces.
• Updated AI export to support scaling
• Corrected option to keep core for shell tool
• Construction lines now use view instead of window based clipping to allow zooming in on construction line.
• Corrected crash with certain font types such as Parchment
• Corrected dragging a sketch which had a previously deleted object associated with it.
• Dimension font size & type now correctly preserved between launches.
• Exporting as FACT supports scaling into different units
• Corrections for culling and transparency.
• Corrected crash on read bug regarding group links not getting rebuilt correctly from a ViaCAD 2D/3D file.
• Added "Y is up" option for OBJ export.
• Creating a new view from rotation now applies multiple rotations at a time.
• Localizing file properties menu item for different language support
• DXF/DWG exporting error handling now includes using a temp file and displays a dialog box when export aborted
• Sketches now force moves into the sketch plane.
• Double line tool crash fixed and now protected from overlapping curves.
• Corrected offset crash with overlapping curves
• Added shift key graphic to Edit:Select Chain tool menu for Mac
• Corrected issue of dangling profiles after part deleted.
• Text height and dimension height now correctly converts to the equivalent heights for DXF/DWG import and export.
• Exporting hatches to DWG/DXF now implemented.
• Feature reordering working again.
• Application folder permissions are improved to support Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
• Corrected ACIS crash related to offseting overlapping curves
• Corrected Double Line Tool crash related to overlapping wall lines
• Fixed crash on iMac when in Thousands of Colours.
• Corrected bad window title of "UNDEFINED" when opening certain file types.
• Corrected corruption of surfaces when using the Insert Knots Tool.
• Corrected VRML export to support grouped 3D data.
• Corrected OBJ export to support grouped 3D data.
• Corrected crash when hitting the return key while creating certain solid primitives.
• Auto constraints now cleaner regarding equal constraints.
• Added arrow tool data entry support for infinite planes.
• Added arrow tool data entry support for bend features.
• Corrected display artifacts associated with spiral and helix tools.
• Added arrow tool data entry support for spiral helix tools.
• Transparent flag now preserved when trimming surfaces.
• Progress cursor now updated after an export operation.
• Removed spinning cursor when resizing a viewport.
• Fixed Undo on a history feature.
• Fixed crash when quicktime was not installed on PC.
• Added PhotoRender to Viewport
• Advanced Render drop downs now working for body or face.
• Fixed variables and equations dialog box on Mac.
• STL export set to binary by default.
• Corrected moving, dragging, editing draw views in multiple viewports bugs.
• Enabled Publish to Web on Mac.
• Corrected Shark and Shark FX file association.
• Updated Shark FX Videos on PC.
• Corrected undo stack for constraints.
• Detail views now recognize hatches.
• Improved precision of AI export.
• Updated Shark FX User Guide.
• Updated Release Notes.

Software Description