Rapidform Success
Training, Tips and Ideas for Rapidform Users

Success Blog

« Older Entries

Job Opening: Software Support & Sales Specialist

By Tom Charron • Nov 16th, 2008 • Category: Industry News

Rapidform Inc. is currently seeking a Software Support & Sales Specialist in its Sunnyvale, CA office. The Software Support & Sales Specialist will play a key role in the sales and support of Rapidform 3D scanning software to customers throughout North America. You will fulfill software orders, manage our license database, support customers with licensing problems, quote and process software maintenance renewal (warranty)) orders, and call sales leads to schedule demonstrations with our applications engineers.

This is a dual-role position with both support and sales components. The successful candidate will be a highly motivated, technology savvy individual with excellent communication skills. Dedication to customer service and the ability to figure out complex technical problems quickly is essential.  You must have a willingness to go the extra mile to make each customer happy and show the value of our products and services.

In return, you will receive an excellent compensation package with sales based bonuses, a fun, dynamic work environment and significant growth opportunities. Our US operations are growing quickly and this position is ideal for someone who wants to grow into a technical sales or more senior support position with a financially stable, successful software company.

Responsibilities include:

- Process incoming orders, including recording the order, creating licenses using our web-based system, burning DVDs and packaging and shipping orders to customers.
- Maintain our license and customer maintenance databases, keeping them up to date
- Answer emails and phone calls from customers experiencing licensing/installation problems
- Troubleshoot problems and clearly explain solutions to customers
- Escalate advanced tech support questions to our application engineering team in the U.S. and Korea
- Track maintenance agreement expirations and sell maintenance renewals to existing customers
- Call new prospective customers (leads) and schedule demonstrations with our application engineers as necessary

Skills:
- BS or BA with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher
- Degree in Mechanical Engineering preferred
- Familiarity with networking, including firewalls and LANs
- Excellent communication and phone skills required
- A friendly personality and an interest in sales

About Rapidform Inc.
Rapidform Inc provides the most advanced 3D scanning software to customers throughout North & South America.  Rapidform allows users to turn physical objects into 3D models for CAD, inspection, simulation and analysis.  Leading organizations like Honda, Oakley, Honeywell, Yamaha, Kenworth, the US Air Force, Howmet, Harvard University and the Smithsonian all use Rapidform for research, design, manufacturing engineering and quality control.  Our software empowers engineers and designers to leverage existing real world geometry for new design concepts and to verify that parts are manufactured to spec.  For more information, visit www.rapidform.com.

To apply, please send your resume with accompanying cover letter to us.careers@rapidform.com. No calls, please.


Using the Pro/E Wildfire Interface in XOV

By Michael Mock • Nov 16th, 2008 • Category: Tech Tips, XOV

XOV, the world’s leading inspection package, is capable of importing many neutral CAD formats. In addition, CAD interfaces can be added to XOV to improve the fidelity of inspecting physical objects to your original CAD parts.

One such interface is for Pro/E Wildfire. With the Pro/E interface, you can open the PRT files from Pro/E directly. The advantages of this are the high fidelity of opening the exact data, right from Pro/E. When a CAD file is saved in a neutral format, some information can be lost or miswritten. To avoid the possibility of these common errors, XOV can open the PRT files directly, thus removing any chance of file interoperability issues.

Pro/E Wildfire uses a numbering convention to store revisions to it’s files. An example would be a file named: Example_Part.prt.1. This would be the first revision, hence the number one. As changes are made to the part, Pro/E stores each revision with a accending numerical identifier. Such as Example_Part.prt.2 and Example_Part.prt.3

This revisioning is very useful, however, XOV can not process the file with the indentifier at the end, as it is treated like a file extention. Much like Windows does not think a *.1 file is a Pro/E file, neither does XOV.

The solution to this inconveniance is simple. In Pro/E, Save a Copy of the part you want to inspect. Perhaps save it in a directory with the scan data and XOV file. After the file has been saved, use the Windows Explorer or comperable program to navigate to the file, and rename it to *.prt from *.prt.1

Now, XOV can open the Pro/E file directly using the Pro/E interface.


How to get a watertight solid model in CATIA

By Som Valliyappan • Oct 8th, 2008 • Category: Tech Tips, XOR

Rapidform XOR/XOS can create a body on a mesh using “Auto Surfacing” command. This method can quickly and automatically wrap the mesh and create a surface/solid body with just one click of a button, but it might be possible for gaps to be created between patches on complicated and sharp areas of a mesh. So in such cases if you want to export the created model from XOR/XOS to other CAD system such as CATIA, UGS NX or PRO/E Wildfire, you need to perform additional processes to heal the gaps after transferring to other CAD system.

This technical tip is useful when you export a surface / solid body as neutral format (IGES or STEP) into CATIA to create a complete watertight solid model.

As you see the model tree as shown in the image above, the patches are broken after importing a body into CATIA. If you want to create a complete body, you need to use healing Process in CATIA such as heal and join in Healing Assistant.

Method

This method is used in the Healing Assistant Workbench or Part Design Workbench. If created model has many patches and curves, this model has highly possibility of error occurrence. Therefore it needs to be healed for broken patches.

In Assistant Workbench
1. Click Start > Mechanical Design > Healing Assistant in the menu and click the (Heal) button in the Tool bar. Select all imported surfaces and click OK button as shown in the image below. If CATIA cannot heal some edges, these edges are displayed in green. In that case, increase the tolerance value little by little (max. 0.1) and try to heal again.

Note
The Heal command improves surface connection condition. If adjacent surfaces are completely connected and closed within the given allowable tolerance, then you can skip this stage.

Note
If you skip the above healing process, you can create a combined body by clicking the (Join) button in the tool bar as shown in the image below. Click the OK button.

In Part Design Workbench
1. Click the Start > Mechanical Design > Part Design in the menu and click the (Close Surface) button in the Tool bar and select the joined body in the Model Tree as shown in the image below. Click the OK button.

2. This command transfers the surface body to a solid body and registers it in the model tree. Finally, you will obtain a Closed Solid body.


How to extract real scaled section profile from the CAD data and scan data

By Som Valliyappan • Oct 7th, 2008 • Category: Tech Tips, XOV

In the Application, you can obtain several inspection results such as deviation map, section profiles, result image etc during the inspection process. However the results will be recorded as captured images. In case if you want to print sections out in its original scale, you can export sections as *.dxf file format.

Method
First of all, you can create a section profile from the CAD data and the Scan data using a Ref. Plane as shown in the image below. (Design > Section)

Click the File > Export in the menu and select the CAD’s section and the Scan’s section as shown in the image below.

Click the OK button, and then select AutoCAD DXF (dxf file format) as saving file type and check the 2D section in the Export Section As option as the image below.

Import the file in AutoCAD and you can make a draft or print it out with scale option.


How to generate an accurate mesh from line type scan data

By Som Valliyappan • Oct 6th, 2008 • Category: Tech Tips, XOR, XOS

When you create a mesh, Mesh Buildup Wizard is typically used. If scan data consists of line type point clouds, then it is not easy to maintain the original shape of its boundaries while generating the mesh.

If you use the manual way of using 3D triangulation command in the Addins menu, you will get better result than the automatic way of using Mesh Buildup Wizard as shown in the image below.


Results from Mesh Buildup Wizard (image above)


Results from 3D triangulation in Add-ins (image above)

Method
1. When you apply triangulation with line type scan data which is already aligned by a scan device, accurately align scan sets again in the software. Select the Align button in the bottom pallet menu, or Click Tools > Scan Tools > Align in the menu.

Use the Global And Fine method with Apply Only Small Transform option as shown in the below image. This option considers that initial alignment is already done and accurately aligns scan shots removing gaps among scan shots by small transformation. And also if overlapped regions have planar shape, its alignment may slide along the planar area. This option prevents featureless scan shots from sliding during alignment.

2. Apply Addins > Combine command to make a single scan data.

3. Click the Addins > 3D Triangulate in the menu and check Assume Vertices Are Densely Placed Along A Direction option. Especially, when you try to triangulate line type point cloud, this option is appropriate for keeping edges or boundaries as it is as shown in the below image.

4. If necessary, execute the Enhance, Global Remesh and Fix Normal command in Mesh mode to get a mesh which is well optimized and featured.


« Older Entries