Full NURBS-based modeling, Construction History, and the most advanced modeling tools make of solidThinking 4 a matchless tool for designers and graphics professionals.
solidThinking uses NURBS (Non Uniform Rational B-Splines) as its geometry type. This curve and surface definition method offers the greatest flexibility and precision. NURBS are capable of representing any desired shape, both analytic and free form, and their algorithms are extremely fast and stable.
The Construction Tree gives you real-time update when modifications are made to curves, parameters or surfaces. Thanks to the possibility to freely manipulate your models, you can easily experiment new shapes and improve your creativity. Once you have tried how the Construction Tree improves your productivity you will not do without it.
The most advanced modeling tools and the numerous construction aids make it possible for you to create any shape you can think about.
Main features:
- Simultaneous point editing on multiple objects.
Unlimited undo levels.
- NEW Un-edit. Allows to remove any editing from selected points of a curve/ surface independently from any other
successive modification of the curve/ surface.
Transformations
- Translate. Move one or more pickable items to a new location. Magnet options: Constant, Linear, Smooth.
- Rotate. Rotate one or more items.
- Scale. Change the size of one or more items.
- Mirror. Mirror objects.
- Replicate. Replicate any object along a path or over a surface.
- Matrix copy. Replicate an object along X, Y, Z to create a box-like array.
- NEW DynaMatrix. Dynamic matrix copy with Construction Tree.
- Polar copy. Replicate an object along a circular path of any given radius.
- Step copy. Replicate an object applying incremental transformations (translation, rotation, scale).
- NEW DynaStep. Dynamic step copy with Construction Tree.
- Combine. Combine two or more selected objects into one single object.
- Uncombine. Create a separate object for each entity of an object.
Deformations
- Twist. Twist an object along a user-defined axis.
- Taper. Widen or narrow one side of an object.
- Warp. Warp all points of an object comprised in a user-defined distance and with respect to a user-defined axis.
- Shear. Shear an object with respect to a user-defined axis.
- Bend. Bend an object with respect to a user-defined axis.
- Linear Stretch. Stretch an object along a path curve.
- Lattice. Free object deformation.
- PixelMap. Deform any selected NURBS surface based on the brightness intensity of each pixel of a bitmap image that you use as a map.
- NEW SurfDrape. Drape a NURBS surface over another surface.
Primitives
- Plane, disc, cylinder, sphere, cube, cone, toroid, prism.
Curves
- High quality freeform NURBS curves of order 2 to 7.
- NEW Real-time adjustment of curve tangency and curvature at any given point. Any curvature radius can be set.
- METAcurves. Interpolation of points using a smooth curve. Ability to specify cusps at points.
- Arcs (center-2 points, 3 points, fillet arc, tangent-2points, line-arc).
- Circles (center-radius, 3 points, tangent-2 points, point-2 tangents, center-tangent)
- Ellipses (center-2 axes, point-2 focuses).
- Lines (single, perpendicular to segment, parallel to segment, fillet segment).
- Polylines (open, closed).
- Regular poligons.
- Helix and spiral.
- Break curve at specified point.
- Split intersecting curves.
- Join. Join two curve endpoints.
- Curves Blend. Create a blend curve connecting two existing curves.
- Curve Tangency Align. Establish tangent continuity between two curves. Optionally modify incidence of curve to tangency plane.
- PathCast. Project a curve onto a surface in order to obtain a 3D curve on a surface.
- NEW Curve to Plane. Project a 3D curve onto a user-defined 2D plane.
- EdgeExtract. Extract a surface edge into a 3D curve.
- Isoparm Extract. Extract an isoparametric curve from a surface.
- Curve Offset. Create the copy of a curve at a fixed distance. options: Symmetric, Closed, Rounded corners and Rounded ends.
- Refine Curve. Increase curve detail.
- Rebuild and Simplify Curve. Reduce number of points of a curve given the target number or a tolerance.
- NEW Silhouette. Extract a silhouette curves from a set of NURBS surfaces given a direction and a viewpoint.
- NEW Section. Extract any number of sections from a a set of NURBS surfaces along a specified direction.
Surfacing Tools
- C2-continuity surfaces.
- FillPath. Create a surface by filling one or more selected curves.
- Extrude. Create a surface by extruding a profile along a specified direction.
- Lathe. Create a surface by revolving a profile curve around its X, Y, or Z-axis or any user-defined vector.
- Rule. Create a surface that fits across a number of cross-sectional curves by a linear interpolation.
- Skin. Create a surface that fits across a number of cross-sectional curves by a smooth interpolation.
- Lofting. Create a surface that fits across a number of cross-sectional curves by a spine-controlled interpolation.
- Pipe. Create a surface by sweeping a cross sectional profile curve along a second path.
- Birail. Create a surface by sweeping a profile curve along two path curves.
- Trim. Interactively trim a surface and retain specified regions of the surface while discarding others by projecting a curve on it.
- Intersect. Surfaces Intersection.
- NEW Automatic Boolean Operations of Intersection, Difference, and Union.
- Surface Offset. Create the copy of a surface at a fixed distance.
- Blending. Create a surface forming a blending between two surface edges.
- 3sides. Create a surface blended between three boundary curves.
- Coons. Create a surface that is fitted between four arbitrary boundary curves.
- N-Side modeling tool. Create a surface that is fitted between "n" arbitrary boundary curves.
- Curves Network. Create a surface by interpolating a network of curves.
- NEW Round. A new topology-based technique to build accurate, constant radius circular fillets across multiple surface edges.
- Fillet. Create a fillet between two surfaces.
- Surface Tangency Align modeling tool. Allows to align a surface border to any other surface trim edge, with the ability to specify the incident angle between the two surfaces.
- Surface Refine. Increase detail of surfaces.
- Simplify Surface. Reduce number of points of a surface given a tolerance.
- Fit points. Create a surface from a point cloud data sets.
- PointsCloud from object. Create a PointsCloud given a surface.
- Text. Create 3D text.
See also: