From Hours to Minutes - Fixing Faulty 3D Part Models Before Manufacturing

​Manufacturing shops, do you often receive 3D part models from customers that need major fixing before you can build the mold or start machining?  And are you forced to spend countless man-hours tediously touching-up untrimmed surfaces, missing surfaces, and open edges? 

If so, I invite you to try ZW3D -- the Overdrive modeler and healing tools inside this CAD/CAM solution make quick work of fixing these faults and giving you a fully useable model.

"Show Open Edges" Guides Users Through All Faults

Here are some top features and commands that I've featured in a recent video:

• On importing, you have the options of "Autosew", "Break Trim Edges", and "Delete Duplicate Surfaces" -- a great start to healing and prepping the model.
• Also useful tool is the "Move" command which lets you orient the model by vectors to make it as handy as possible to heal.
• Then you have the centerpiece "Show Open Edges" command which highlights and guides you through all unresolved problems step-by-step -- it's an amazing confidence builder and time saver. 
• I often use "Concatenate Edges" to join surface edges by an angle deviation and automatically correct many problems.
• Then you have a powerful freeform editing toolset, highlighted by "Trim to All Curves" -- because you don't need to manually pick each curve, this tool alone saves hours.  Also remember, because Overdrive is a unified modeler, you can trim edges to either surfaces or shapes.

Click for Bi-Rail Loft

• Lastly, there's a rich semi automated healing toolset, including "Rule" for joining 2 edges, "N-Sided Patch" for 3 edges, and, for merging more complex geometries, "Bi-Rail Loft" (my favorite, for 4 pieces of geometry), "Fill Gap", and "FEM Patch" (for a four sided opening with an irregular shape).

But the best news is that all this healing is simple and fast -- what used to takes hours now takes minutes.

​​Feel free to have a deeper look at the video below.

-- Randy Biebel, Manufacturing Advisor, ZWDirect