CAD/CAM software has been further improved to offer unparalleled capabilities for the mould tool designer by offering speedier product visualisation and powerful radius and curvature tool.

VISI-Series, Vero International Software's CAD/CAM software solution, has been further improved to offer unparalleled capabilities for the mould tool designer. The introduction of the extra functionality follows 'hot-on-the-heels' of the incorporation of the fully integrated 5-axis machining module and features two new analysis tools - VISI Analysis and Draft Analysis. The VISI-Analysis suite of tools provides a wide array of functions that greatly simplify and alleviate the largest bottleneck at the beginning of the design process.

The Comparison tool provides the capability to dynamically check different models and quickly visualise all part modifications using a graphical interface.

The options within the comparison tool provide the capability to check for 'material on' and 'material off' conditions as well as major part changes.

The result of the comparison can be output as design change surfaces and the modifications can be quickly applied to the rest of the design process.

The radius and curvature tool provides the capability to quickly analyse a part and graphically visualise the result.

The minimum radius is not only useful to the tool designer, but equally important to the CNC machinist when deciding on the selection of the correct cutting tool.

Within the VISI-Analysis suite there are extra options to automatically create parting faces, detect redundant bodies, automatically fill holes on faces and a tip chart routine to display all relevant work plane rotation and translation values when moving from one co-ordinate system to another.

Detecting small and sliver faces is another new addition to the VISI-Analysis suite.

Using this tool it is possible to automatically identify faces using a minimum surface area tolerance.

This will quickly allow the user to identify and discard any possible problematic sliver surfaces.

If the starting model is a solid, any face detected with an area less than the knitting tolerance can be removed and the solid retained.

It is important to remove any unwanted sliver faces as these can prove to be very troublesome further along the design process, especially for the CAM department.

The introduction of the Draft Analysis tool provides the capability to easily check the model for draft conditions using a user specified angle range.

The result is displayed using a graphical interface and quickly identifies the possible problem areas for moulding.

Using the draft control panel, it is possible to define any draft condition and using a value of zero will quickly identify the natural split line.

The Draft Analysis tool can also be switched to two other visualisation methods - one for smooth draft rendering and the other to display a rendered set of ISO curves on the model providing the option to check the 'flow' of a set of faces.