Glovius offers a number of tools that are purpose built for analyzing part designs. These tools help you analyze the design of the part and the ease of manufacturing. These tools have a wide variety of applications such as –

1. Calculate the extents of the part design using the Analyze tool
2. Visualize the internals of a component using advanced Section tool
3. Check feature definitions using the Measure tool
4. Compare two versions of a part to identify the changes in 3D
5. Analyze the material distribution of parts using the Thickness analysis tool
6. Calculate the manufacturing parameters using Projected area tool
7. Ensure the component’s ease of manufacturing with the help of Draft analysis tool

Analyze Tool
Analyze tool is designed to give you a quick overview of the component. It is designed to highlight the most important parameters of the component at a glance. Analyze tool displays the part components extent dimensions, also called bounding box dimensions. Glovius picks up the accurate dimensions even if the component is designed at an inclination to the default planes. Analyze tool calculates the volume of the component along with the billet volume. This aids in the calculation of the billet wastage in case the component is manufactured by milling etc. Analyze tool gives you the mass of the component. In case the original file doesn’t have material properties assigned, you can edit the density values to calculate the mass of the component.

Get a quick overview of 3D Parts and Assemblies

Section Tool
Section tool helps you see the internals of the component. Using the various options in Section tool, you can identify the internal geometry features. Apart from taking sections along standard planes, you can use the reference planes in the component or create custom planes for sectioning along a specific plane.

Cut Sections along Standard or Custom Planes

Measure Tool
Measure tool is our most used and versatile tool. Using the Measure tool, you can check the feature definitions – the length of an edge, the diameter of a hole, the width of a rib, and more. Glovius assists users in measurements by highlighting the suitable geometric entities (points, edges, planes) to enable users to measure faster. We also have specific measure tools called Tape Measure and Area measure – the tape measure can be used to calculate the total length of a complex edge or spline or the length of a complex curve. The Area measure tool is used to calculate the area of planar and non-planar surfaces. Read more about all the capabilities of measure tool here.

Measure the linear, angular, radial and point distances in CAD parts and assemblies

3D Compare Tool
The design of a part evolves through various iterations during the design to manufacturing process. Compare tool helps you to identify the changes to the features of the component. Input the two versions of files to Glovius and visual the changes (and their similarities) in 3D. Glovius identifies the changes to geometry like change in the fillet radius or addition/removal of a stiffener rib. You can export a PDF report of this result and share it with your team and suppliers.

Compare two versions of CAD parts and assemblies in 3D

Thickness Analysis Tool
The thickness analysis tool analyzes the material distribution in the part design and displays the results visually. Using this tool, you can check the values of all the dimensions in the component alongwith the thick and thin regions. Identifying the thick and thin regions helps you in optimizing the part design. Thin regions may fail during usage and thick regions increase material costs. Read more about this tool here.

Analyze the material distribution of a part design and optimize your designs

Projected Area Tool
Projected area is an indispensable tool to calculate the area at a particular plane. If the part is being cast, use this tool to calculate the casting pressure. The applications of this tool are varied. For example, you can use the area value from this tool to calculate the drag coeffients of the part if it is intended to be used in a fluid environment.

Calculate the projected area of a casting part

Draft Analysis Tool
Draft analysis is an indispensable tool if your component is manufactured via Casting or Injection molding. Using this tool, you can calculate the drafts made by all surfaces of the components with respect to a reference plane. The results are displayed in 3D with colorized surfaces to categorize and identify the surfaces based on the draft angle values.

Analyze the draft angles of all surfaces of a part component

Give these tools a spin and let us know your feedback. Download Glovius from here and reach us with your feedback at support@glovius.com

Sridhar Oruganti,
Product Manager, Glovius

The ability to determine the material distribution and the corresponding thickness or thinness of a casting part is crucial for its design and manufacturing. Non optimal values of the part leads to issues in its performance during use. Thin wall sections may be structurally weak causing the component to fail while over compensated thick portions lead to an increase in the weight of the component and hence the subsequent cost to manufacture.

In Glovius you can quickly identify the material distribution using the Thickness Analysis tool. The tool calculates the thickness using the Ray method or the Sphere method. You can choose either method from the Glovius Settings Dialog. Each of the method is suitable for a specific use case.

Calculate the thickness of a part

Download Glovius today and use Thickness Analysis on your casting parts and identify probable design issues.

Sridhar Oruganti,
Product Manager.

Glovius can now export 3D components to HTML files and view the 3D component using just the browser. The exported file contains 3D Geometry along-with metadata such as Attributes and BoM table ( in case of assemblies). The 3D HTML file also contains Glovius Web Viewer and you will be able to Section, Toggle Views, Rotate, Pan, Zoom and Save a Snapshot. All modern browsers such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari and Mozilla Firefox are supported.

The main advantages of exporting to 3D HTML are :

1. View 3D CAD files directly in the browser. No additional software needed.
2. 3D HTML file is lighter in size and can be shared easily.
3. Create unified packages with 3D geometry, attributes and the web viewer.

Watch this video for a quick overview of the export 3D CAD to HTML file functionality:

Download a sample 3D HTML file generated from Glovius. You can also get a hands on this feature by with the latest version of Glovius.

Sridhar Oruganti,
Product Manager.