MEDUSA4 – Technical Spotlight
Below is a selection of MEDUSA4 technical spotlights, regularly featured in CAD Schroer's "New Dimensions" MCAD newsletter. Not yet a subscriber? Visit our News page to sign up today!
MPDS4 Project Manager
The MPDS4 Project Manager is a front-end tool for browsing, administering and gaining an overview of all MPDS4 projects and accompanying data. A dialog presents the most important data for each project, and offers different viewing and editing options based on a user’s role. The tool allows Administrators to copy or back up project databases. Design engineers can start and stop databases in single or multi-user mode, view and edit project details and launch and work on their design. Non-CAD users can access management summaries detailing a project’s status, such as its level of completion, or the types of equipment used. Those with CSG JustView or the MPDS4 REVIEW software installed can view single sheets or exported (.HSF) 3D models directly from this tool.
Use the Project Manager to:
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| Create new databases
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| Copy, secure, recompile or backup existing databases
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| Open a project database in MPDS4
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| Manage users
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| Manager database versions
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| Open single sheets (.she) with CSG JustView
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| Review 3D model files (.mod) or plant designs (.hsf, .hmf) with MPDS4 REVIEW
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| View a wealth of configurable MPDS4 project information
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MPDS4: iPhone® / iPod touch® App Puts a 3D Plant in Your Pocket
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| The “On-Hand Viewer” iPhone app allows MPDS4 users to review 3D data on the phone in their pocket |
Viewing 3D plant designs no longer requires expert software. CAD Schroer’s MPDS4 PLANT DESIGN and factory layout software output and MWF Technology’s “On-Hand Viewer” iPhone / iPod touch app now make it easy for anyone to view 3D data on the go.
Find out more about the iPhone® App and MPDS4
Watch a demo video on YouTube
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MPDS4 REVIEW: Easy Model Review by Clients
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The new MPDS4 REVIEW tool provides an easy way to share models and communicate with customers and suppliers who do not have MPDS4 installed. It allows users to easily interact with your MEDUSA4 3D or MPDS4 models, conducting plant and scenery walk-throughs or inspecting designs in detail. Models are delivered by MPDS4 in a very compact format for fast viewing, and can be e-mailed to clients for daily design reviews or taken on-site by Project Managers to be viewed on any machine.
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Smart Drafting Tool: The new way to create geometry
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| The new Smart Drafting Tool automatically infers construction lines |
The new smart drafting facility in STHENO/PRO ADVANCED™ provides the means to quickly and easily generate geometry without the need for construction lines prior to drawing. The Smart Drafting Tool allows construction lines to be automatically inferred between points created and displays them dynamically as the cursor moves inside the drawing area.
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MPDS4 MECHANICAL HANDLING™
A New Discipline for Intelligence in Interconnected Components: Introducing the ideal companion for MPDS4 FACTORY LAYOUT (the module for fast 2D conceptual design and easy 3D visualisation of large installations): MPDS4 MECHANICAL HANDLING is a new discipline for placing intelligent interconnected components. From conveyor belts to cranes to fork lift trucks, installation designers can now easily select, lay out, configure, visualise and add intelligence to process machinery in their plant.
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Custom Schematic Symbol Libraries
Do you regularly create hydraulic, pneumatic or electric schematics, but spend a lot of time adapting standard symbols or creating new ones from scratch? Then its time to speak to one of our engineers. We can create customised symbol libraries or easily adaptable templates for your company, immediately cutting design time and costs while improving design quality, consistency and company flexibility and responsiveness.
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Text handling and DXF/DWG Conversion
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| Unicode makes it easy to create multi-lingual drawings like this, using Japanese character sets |
Unicode provides a universal architecture and encoding for all languages of the world, with nearly 100,000 characters currently encoded. This means more multi-language support for MEDUSA4, and even better integration with other systems.
With Unicode you can now:
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| Use any scaleable operating system font on all supported platforms
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| Cut and paste text from your Web browser to the MEDUSA text tool
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| Use the Text Translator with any installed language
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| Exchange data with other systems
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The CADConvert interface for DXF/DWG conversion now:
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| Reads and writes AutoCAD® DWG 2007
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| Reads and writes Unicode (the most common AutoCAD ANSI code pages)
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| Imports AutoCAD layer names
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| Exports group names as block names
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| Imports splines (NURBS) as curves
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MPDS4 FACTORY LAYOUT
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| Build complete 3D plants directly from a 2D layout |
The pioneering new 2D to 3D application for installation designers was conceived specifically for mechanical machinery vendors who sell complete installations. MPDS4 FACTORY LAYOUT offers virtually unique 2D to 3D functionality for quick and easy installation layout and space management, making sophisticated 3D project proposals possible - and affordable - even in the early tender stage.
Do you
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| Design and deliver capital plants, factories or other installations for discerning clients?
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| Need to quickly provide winning project proposals?
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| Want to combine the quick and effective layout capabilities of a 2D system with the detailed space management and visualisation side of a 3D tool, with minimum use of time and resources?
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Then it’s time you had a closer look at MPDS4 FACTORY LAYOUT, the ultimate in 2D/3D interaction for rapid installation design.
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MEDRaster Colour
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| Easily edit the properties of embedded raster files |
The new colour raster module allows customers to incorporate full colour images and scanned drawings into their designs. Around 90 major image formats are now supported. Existing customers with the bitonal MEDRaster product can upgrade for a small fee. Both products now support up to 5 separate rasters in a design, with the option of saving them to file (associated with the sheet) or directly in the sheet.
Typical applications include:
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| Addition of a colour-shaded view of a 3D model, to supplement a dimensioned drawing. (Unlike other systems, MEDRaster Colour allows you to store the image within the sheet)
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| Insertion and management of scanned paper designs - monochrome or colour - to avoid unnecessary rework
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| Incorporation of maps or other colour-coded diagrams as supplementary design information
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| Insertion of colour graphs and other images from non-CAD software for illustration or sales and marketing purposes
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| Provision of graphical instructions or photographs for downstream applications
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| Incorporation of graphical analysis or property data (such as visual stress analysis or heat transfer data) of design components for manufacturers or end customers
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2D to 3D Made Easy
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| The MEDUSA4 3D Model Viewer |
Your design process is ideally suited to 2D, but occasionally you have a need for 3D? MEDUSA4 3D provides the perfect answer!
Do you find yourself needing to:
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| Design or visualise a particularly complex part
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| Exchange 3D data with customers and suppliers
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| Do mass properties calculations
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| Carry out FE analysis?
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Then MEDUSA4 3D offers the following benefits:
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| Use 3D when and where appropriate, without having to bear the cost and time overheads associated with a full 3D approach.
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| Retain full compatibility with your 2D design data and process.
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| Use simple and easy modelling techniques based on orthographic projection, familiar to all designers.
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| Produce drawings automatically from 3D models. This speeds up drawing production when modelling is used. The drawings can be used with the rest of your 2D process drawings, e.g. assembly, installation, manufacturing and tooling drawings.
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| Use existing 2D drawings as the basis for 3D models - great where a model is needed purely for to meet a supplier or customer’s requirements.
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| Parameterise 3D designs using MEDUSA4 PARAMETRICS
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| Do quick mass properties calculations on your model
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| Easily exchange data with other 3D systems, and create output for Finite Element Analysis
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| MEDUSA4 basic 3D is included in all MEDUSA4 ADVANCED packages. MEDUSA4 3D PLUS is available as an add-on module.
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