what’s new in 2019€¦ · selection highlighting ... the mechanical gripper aspect allows...

1 | What’s New in 2019

What’s New in 2019 We are happy to announce the release of the Emulate3D 2019 Product Range.

These release notes cover the new features that have been added since the previous release.

Contents CAD Is The Model .................................................................................................................................... 3

Autodesk Inventor Add-in ................................................................................................................... 3

SOLIDWORKS Add-in ........................................................................................................................... 4

PTC CREO Parametric Add-in .............................................................................................................. 4

Autodesk Revit Add-in ........................................................................................................................ 5

Mechanisms ........................................................................................................................................ 6

Path & Path Follower Joints ............................................................................................................ 6

Solver Settings ................................................................................................................................. 6

Performance ................................................................................................................................... 6

Visual Highlighting........................................................................................................................... 7

Mechanical Gripper ............................................................................................................................. 7

Demo3DVR-V2 – Mechanism Interaction ........................................................................................... 8

Motors................................................................................................................................................. 9

Controllers ....................................................................................................................................... 9

Encoders .......................................................................................................................................... 9

Joint IO .............................................................................................................................................. 10

Motor Predictor ................................................................................................................................ 10

Injector Conveyor .............................................................................................................................. 10

Roller Conveyor ................................................................................................................................. 10

Convex Extrusion Physics Improvements ......................................................................................... 10

Emulate3D ............................................................................................................................................. 11

Siemens SIMIT V10 Support .............................................................................................................. 11

Tag Server Reconfiguring .................................................................................................................. 11

Net Server Additional Protocols ........................................................................................................ 12

QuickScript Controls Testing Interaction .......................................................................................... 12

QuickScript Aspect Support .............................................................................................................. 13

QuickScript Snippets ......................................................................................................................... 13

Visual Studio 2019 Support ............................................................................................................... 13

Volumetric Physics - PhysX 4.0 ......................................................................................................... 14


VR Ambient Occlusion ....................................................................................................................... 14

Emulate3D Rendering Performance ................................................................................................. 15

Selection Highlighting ....................................................................................................................... 15

Catalogs and Components .................................................................................................................... 16

Vehicle Framework Catalog .............................................................................................................. 16

MagneMotion Catalog ...................................................................................................................... 17

Industrial Trucks Catalog ................................................................................................................... 17

Vertical Conveyor Systems Catalog................................................................................................... 18

Simulation Black Box Component ..................................................................................................... 18

Scheduling Catalog ............................................................................................................................ 19

Plotting Catalog ................................................................................................................................. 20

Viewers ................................................................................................................................................. 21

Augmented Reality – Image Tracking ............................................................................................... 21

Oculus Go Support ............................................................................................................................ 21


CAD Is The Model

Autodesk Inventor Add-in CAD Is The Model is a new set of features to allow CAD to be marked up with “Aspects” to create

Dynamic Digital Twins for virtual commissioning. These Aspects represent things like conveyors,

joints, physics geometry, sensors, etc. This is a new approach to turning CAD into usable emulation

and simulation models of machines or layouts with as few additions as possible.

These Aspects can now be added directly inside Autodesk Inventor and the properties of those

aspects are stored within the Autodesk Inventor part and assembly files.

These Aspects stay within the CAD files when using a PDM solution such as Autodesk Vault.

The Add-in for Autodesk Inventor now includes the optional Demo3DVR-V2 capability to view and

interact with CAD directly in a virtual reality or mixed reality headset (HTC Vive, Oculus, Microsoft,

etc.). Kinematic mechanisms can also be interacted with outside of VR without the need for an

additional license.


SOLIDWORKS Add-in The Add-in for SOLIDWORKS now includes the optional Demo3DVR-V2 capability to view and

interact with CAD directly in a virtual reality or mixed reality headset (HTC Vive, Oculus, Microsoft,

etc.). Kinematic mechanisms can also be interacted with outside of VR without the need for an

additional license.

PTC CREO Parametric Add-in The Add-in for PTC’s CREO Parametric allows parts and assemblies to be exported to the Emulate3D

.raw3d format ready for import into Emulate3D or for showing in VR or one of the free mobile and

desktop viewer apps.

The Add-in for PTC’s CREO Parametric now includes the optional Demo3DVR-V2 capability to view

and interact with CAD directly in a virtual reality or mixed reality headset (HTC Vive, Oculus,

Microsoft, etc.). Kinematic mechanisms can also be interacted with outside of VR without the need

for an additional license.

Support for CREO Parametric mouse and keyboard bindings has also been added to Emulate3D.


Autodesk Revit Add-in The Add-in for Autodesk Revit allows parts and assemblies to be exported to the Emulate3D .raw3d

format ready for import into Emulate3D or for showing in VR or one of the free mobile and desktop

viewer apps.

The new Revit Add-In also has better support for exporting materials, textures, transparencies,

reflectivity settings, etc.


Mechanisms

Path & Path Follower Joints

Two new Joint Types have been added, Path and Path Follower, to allow markup of the following

mechanism types (and more) directly in the CAD Is The Model Add-Ins:

• Track-based Vehicles

• Chains and Sprockets

• Cams (Knife-edge and roller)

• Conveyor Flights

Icon Joint Name Parameters Description

Path Angle1 Angle2 Angle3 Distance

Path joints permit one link to translate along a predefined path and rotate about three axes. They add four degrees of freedom, represented by four parameters. The first joint parameter is the signed distance along the path. The second, third and fourth joint parameters are the directed angles about three orthogonal axes.

Path Follower

Angle Distance

Path follower joints permit one link to translate along a predefined path and rotate about the path. They add two degrees of freedom, represented by two parameters. The first joint parameter is the signed distance along the path. The second joint parameter is the directed angle about the direction of the path.

Solver Settings

Fine tuning of the mechanism solver is now possible with the addition of the

Mechanism Solver Settings aspect in the CAD Is The Model catalog.

Performance

A new mechanism solver offers improved performance for mechanisms consisting of many inverse

kinematic joint parameters. Stability is also improved in many cases, particularly where the

mechanism contains multiple closed loops.


Visual Highlighting

Hovering over a Visual or Visual Reference property in the aspect viewer now highlights the visual in

the viewport. This is useful for visually identifying which visual is the base for a joint. It is also useful

for inspecting all the visuals that form a single link in the mechanism.

Mechanical Gripper The mechanical gripper aspect allows gripping loads when all configured surfaces are

contacting the load. The loads can be gripped kinematically (by reparenting) or by using

physics-based fixed joints. Using fixed joints avoids the need to change the hierarchy of

the load. It also respects conservation of momentum.


Demo3DVR-V2 – Mechanism Interaction All the CAD Add-ins now come with the Demo3DVR-V2 capabilities. This allows the built-in Kinematic

Joint Type aspects to be added directly in CAD stand-alone, without needing Emulate3D and the

CITM catalog to be installed on the machine:

Joints can be interacted with directly inside the viewer in the CAD package and in VR with the

optional upgrade. All joint types are converted to Inverse Kinematic for this purpose, meaning that

there are no motors available and joints can only be driven by manually using the mouse or VR

controllers.

Hovering the mouse or VR controller over a part that has a joint on it highlights that part with a blue

outline so it’s easy to understand what can be interacted with.


Motors A new variable speed motor replaces the old Linear Motor and Angular Motor aspects. This new

motor splits the control and state encoding logic into separate Controller and Encoder components.

It is possible for users to implement their own controllers and encoders without touching the motor

itself. Other improvements include:

• Support for position limits, which may be restricted automatically by other aspects such as

kinematic joints. This removes the need for a Limit Switch aspect in most cases.

• Support for configuring the state of the motor at time t=0. The position, direction and speed

can all be specified.

• Support for individually configuring which target properties should be reset when the model

is reset. The reset values for the target state, target direction and target speed can all be set.

The new motor is unit agnostic, supporting both linear and angular units. Actors, such as user scripts

or controllers, may lock various properties of the motor. This prevents other actors from attempting

to control the property at the same time.

Controllers

Controllers are responsible for exposing inputs, allowing users, user scripts or PLCs to control a

motor in a specific way. The 2019 CAD Is The Model (CITM) catalog includes the following controllers

at launch:

Icon Name Description

Generic Controller

The generic controller optionally exposes inputs for the state, direction, speed, acceleration and deceleration. It is possible to enable/disable each input individually, ensuring that you only expose the specific inputs that you require. The corresponding target properties on the motor are locked by the controller.

Actuation Controller

The actuation controller exposes a single input for toggling the direction of travel. The motor will be driven towards its upper limit when toggled. Otherwise, the motor will be driven towards its lower limit. The motor’s target state and target direction properties are locked by the controller.

Position Controller

The position controller exposes a single input for target position that the motor should be driven towards. The motor’s target state and target direction properties are locked by the controller.

Encoders

Encoders are responsible for exposing outputs that report the current state of the motor. The 2019

CAD Is The Model (CITM) catalog includes the following encoders at launch:

Icon Name Description

Polling Encoder

The polling encoder optionally exposes outputs for the position, velocity and acceleration to double floating-point precision. These outputs are updated regularly at a user-configurable frequency.


Joint IO It is now possible to bind directly to the parameters of kinematic joints. This can be used for reading

and/or writing parameter values without needing to use motors.

Motor Predictor Binding positional server tags directly to the position of a joint may result in non-smooth motion

when using lower read-scan frequencies. The motor predictor is designed to help remedy this by

extrapolating the most recently received positions in order to predict the position of the motor at a

higher frequency. This can help improve the smoothness of motion and reduce traffic between

Emulate3D and the PLC.

The Motor Predictor aspect exposes a Source Position input and acts as a motor, allowing it to be

bound to joints, conveyors or anything else that accepts a motor. The predicted position, velocity

and acceleration are displayed in the aspect viewer. It is unit agnostic, supporting both linear and

angular units. Continuous angular motion (normalized to closed-open [0°, 360°) interval) is also

supported.

Injector Conveyor Injector conveyors can now be marked-up using the new injector conveyor aspect. This aspect

supports conveyors with an angled leading or trailing edge. It is possible to select between box and

convex-hull geometry for the physics.

Roller Conveyor Roller conveyors can now be marked-up using the new roller conveyor aspect. This aspect supports

an arbitrary number of rollers. The rollers may be of different dimensions. It is possible to select

between cylinder and convex-hull geometry for the roller physics. The rollers may either be driven

kinematically or dynamically.

Convex Extrusion Physics Improvements The convex extrusion physics aspect now supports concave profiles. It is also now possible to select

between different path framing methods, with the parallel transport and reference-vector framing

methods currently supported. The path framing determines how the profile is extruded along the

path. Normal smoothing can be enabled, yielding improved behavior for chutes.


Emulate3D

Siemens SIMIT V10 Support Siemens have rebranded the Simulation Unit (V9) to be SIMIT (V10). Some of the internals of the

SIMIT unit configuration have changed and support has been added for these changes in Emulate3D

2019. V9 is also still supported as before.

Tag Server Reconfiguring Previously if a tag server and a set of tags had been setup for one communication protocol,

switching protocol would mean deleting the tag server and creating a new one. With 2019 an

existing tag server can be reconfigured, without losing any existing tags, so testing can be started

using OPC DA, and later switched to OPC UA, or a proprietary protocol, just by changing the

configuration of the tag server itself, not the tags.

Use the Add Server Wizard to reconfigure a server:

This also allows switching PLC types very easily for the same virtual commissioning model.


Net Server Additional Protocols All existing communication protocols are now implemented in the Demo3D.Net framework. Sharing

a common code base for implementing caching, buffering, pulse encoders, etc. allows for

optimizations to all protocols at the same time, accelerating improvements across the breadth of

protocols.

The new protocols completed for the 2019 release are:

• SST PBMS

• Rockwell PCCC

• Rockwell CSP

• Ethernet IP

QuickScript Controls Testing Interaction New QuickScript widgets have been added to allow tags to be read or forced from a QuickLogic

script. This enables prototyping of control logic where the IO points for the system are known but

the PLC program hasn’t yet been written or isn’t available.

It also allows testing scenarios where faults can be triggered programmatically using a simple

QuickScript program based on other events or states, rather than just manually.

As there is no PLC involved this logic works in Fast Forward the same as it does in Real-Time.


QuickScript Aspect Support Aspects can now be accessed from QuickScript using these two new widgets which access the aspect

by its type name:

QuickScript Snippets The bottom of all QuickScript windows is now reserved as a snippet area. Fragments of code can be

dragged into it and will then appear in other QuickScript windows for quick copy/paste or regular

reuse of fragments of QuickLogic code.

Visual Studio 2019 Support Visual Studio 2019 is automatically used for script editing and debugging if installed. This can also be

overridden from the Options Dialog if a specific older version should be used instead.


Volumetric Physics - PhysX 4.0 Support has been added for Nvidia’s new PhysX 4.0 volumetric physics engine. The key feature of

which is a new internal solver that allows for better handling of mass ratios and more stable

handling of physics contact points.

These translate into much better stack stability of boxes or packages (even of differing weights) and

better stability for dynamic joints on robot grippers.

Support for Triangle based meshes for collision handling has been dropped in PhysX 4.0 but this isn’t

a problem for Emulate3D where we have the option to use convex hull decomposition to turn

Triangle meshes into collections of convex hull meshes, which are supported in PhysX 4.0.

VR Ambient Occlusion Ambient Occlusion (AO) is now enabled by default in VR. As shown in the two images below, with AO

enabled, features that partially occlude other features become very noticeable and the sense of

depth in the scene is greatly enhanced.

Ambient Occlusion can be disabled from the Controller menu inside VR:


Emulate3D Rendering Performance The Emulate3D main window rendering now takes the advantages of the VR Static Analysis tool and

enhances them further to provide significantly better rendering performance in and out of VR.

After a model is initialized all visuals are internally marked as static and their meshes treated

specially, in a way that makes them significantly quicker to render on the graphics card. As parts of

the model move, they are automatically removed from this static pool and handled as before.

The effect is like having the VR Static Analyzer enabled by default and all the time without having to

run it for a set amount of time. This is extremely effective for models with lots of relatively static

CAD or large warehouses with full racks where the rack contents may stay static for large periods of

time.

In a test case rendering was over 8 times faster in Emulate3D, and in VR went from 20 frames per

second to 140 frames per second, making the very large model (200,000 pallet warehouse)

completely stable in VR.

Selection Highlighting Selection Highlighting before 2019 added a bounding box to the selected part of the hierarchy which

wasn’t always easy to see when it was behind, or inside, some other geometry. In 2019 the outline

of the geometry is highlighted making it much easier to see what has been selected.

These images show the selection highlight in 2018 vs 2019. In 2019 the motor selection is clearly

visible, even though it’s under the belt conveyor:


Catalogs and Components

Vehicle Framework Catalog The Vehicle Framework Catalog has undergone a host of feature additions since 2018, along with

notable performance and usability improvements.

There have been several new vehicle additions, the Dual Serial LHD AGV which handles up to two

loads in series, the Hitch AGV with support for any number of trailers AGVs, and the Shuttle AGV.

The PickupJobCombiner component has been improved to support these vehicles, with

optimizations for pickups in series, a load timeout feature, and support for DispatchOutRules.

Further feature additions include support for turntable track sections, filtering of vehicles at zones to

increase throughput, custom functions for updating vehicle offsets, autofill of vehicles and control

points on loops.

The internal path finding system received an overhaul, the key idea being that control points no

longer require a dedicated node in the track system, which has yielded performance improvements

for models with frequent route calculations and track systems densely packed with control points.


MagneMotion Catalog This catalog is built on top of the Vehicle Framework Catalog and simulates the vehicle accumulation

and collision avoidance behaviors of QuickStick and MagneMover LITE systems.

QuickStick components may be snapped into position on any track section, and the motor blocks will

be automatically claimed and released by vehicles as they approach and pass over them. Vehicles

will dynamically claim their headway distance using the motor blocks on their current path to

achieve the correct accumulation and collision avoidance behavior.

MagneMover LITE components simply need to be snapped together, since they already contain track

sections with the required motor blocks built in.

Industrial Trucks Catalog The Industrial Trucks catalog is heavily based on the Vehicle Framework catalog. To that end, users

should familiarize themselves with the Vehicle Framework catalog, as a sound foundation to utilizing

this catalog.


Vertical Conveyor Systems Catalog The Vertical Conveyor Systems catalog comprises: Qimarox ProRunner Mk1, Qimarox ProRunner

Mk9; Qimarox ProRunner Mk10; Qimarox ProRunner Mk5 and Qimarox ProRunner Mk5 XL. All the

components can be configured for overall height and floor footprint, lift speeds and direction of

travel.

Simulation Black Box Component Use the Black Box to investigate product flow in a straightforward way, before deciding upon

equipment details. This Webstore component can be configured to abstractly represent any process

or system, either independently or connected to other components through inputs and outputs.

Properties can determine the processing capacity and time, with the ability to use QuickLogic to

customise the behaviour. The BlackBox is fully compatible with FlowControl and provides detailed

Sim3D reporting information. Example applications may include sizing buffers or storage, simplifying

merges and sortation, scoping resource requirements for vehicles, or representing custom

machinery and robotic cells.

Detailed documentation and tutorials are available for the Black Box component on the Web Store.


Scheduling Catalog The Scheduling Catalog contains components that allow the scheduling of loads. The Loads From

Schedule component produces customized batches of loads at times defined in a schedule table.

These tables can be imported directly from excel and users can set up SKU templates to be used

during load creation. The latest version of this component also enables Flow Control compatibility as

well as an internal Pause feature.

Alongside the Loads From Schedule is the Flow Schedule. This component behaves in a similar way

to Flow Control, but uses a schedule table to direct loads from one location to another instead of

QuickLogic procedures. The Flow Schedule is invaluable when working with custom load routing,

batches, and fixed dispatch times. Users will be warned if no stock is available to be ordered from a

given location, with the amount of missing stock displayed as a statistic.


Plotting Catalog

The Plotting Catalog contains three components that can be used to display various data from your

model live. The catalogue is available for all levels of license.

The pie chart can be used to display either the percentage duration a vehicle or component is in a

certain state or the percentage count of each state. The bar chart can be connected to several

different components via visual property references. In the image above it has been connected to 4

counters on 4 different lines. The line chart tracks the value of a single property through time, its

axis can be set to dynamically expand if the value falls outside the initial axis.


Viewers

Augmented Reality – Image Tracking The IOS and Android apps have been updated to include the PTC Vuforia image tracking technology

to enable augmented reality experiences tied to a symbol or photo. As the symbol moves or the

camera moves the .raw3d, or live model, playback stays fixed to the symbol as if it is part of it.

Oculus Go Support Support has been added to our Oculus App for the standalone Virtual Reality headset, the Oculus

Go. This enables untethered (no cable or PC involved) playback of .raw3d animations in virtual

reality, making for a lightweight portable demonstration tool.

what’s new in 2019€¦ · selection highlighting ... the mechanical gripper aspect allows...

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