HOOPS Exchange only requires a new license key if you are currently using a key which was generated for a prior major version. For example, developers upgrading from v7.1 to v7.2 may use the same key, but those upgrading from 7.2 to 2015 need to generate a new key. Please visit the HOOPS Exchange download page if you need to generate a new key. The key is delivered in the file include/A3DSDKLicenseKey.h. Once you have generated a new key, you should copy the file to <EXCHANGE_INSTALL_DIR>/include/.
The expiration date for the generated license key is tied to your contract with Tech Soft 3D. If you have signed a license agreement for HOOPS Exchange, then the license key that is generated will be a perpetual (non-expiring) license key. If you are evaluating HOOPS Exchange, then the license key will expire when your evaluation expires. Evaluation license keys will expire at the end of the evaluation period and are not suitable for production software. Any software that uses an evaluation license key will no longer work after the evaluation period.
HOOPS Exchange releases are not binary compatible with older releases. You must recompile your application when updating to a new version of HOOPS Exchange.
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
Inventor | 2016 |
CATIA | V5-6 R2015 (R25) |
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
SOLIDWORKS | 2015 |
JT | 10 |
Parasolid | 27 |
NX | 10 |
Our shattered assemblies function can now support:
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
NX | 9.0.2 |
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
Autodesk Inventor | 2015 |
Solid Edge | ST7 |
Catia V5-6 | 2014 |
Creo | Parametric 3.0 |
A new Parasolid bridge is available which leverages the native Parasolid binaries to provide healing as a part of the export process. The result is a higher quality model. You are also able to export directly to an open Parasolid session. See the Programming Guide section 4.2.1 for details.
Our SOLIDWORKS reader now supports diffuse textures and views. Improved support for PMI.
Our IFC reader has a new option pertaining to faceted B-rep. Previously, a single face would be generated for each triangle imported as a part of a faceted B-rep structure. Now, the reader will merge collections of faceted triangles into a single entity by default. You can control this behavior by altering the m_bFACETED_BREPAsOneFace member in the A3DRWParamsIFCData structure.
Our NX reader PMI support is improved.
Better management of markup data positioning.
Our JT file reader now supports ULP (Ultra-Lightweight Precise) B-rep as well as LODs.
The Autodesk Inventor reader now supports diffuse textures.
When exporting Parasolid models, we now keep the topology as close as possible to the original topology in order to prevent topological artifacts.
CentOS 6.5 is now supported.
B-rep may now be imported from Autodesk Inventor files. The functionality is provided in beta status.
Please note that this feature may impact the reading of Inventor files in kA3DReadGeomAndTess mode.
By employing a variety of healing techniques, we've continued to improve the quality of our Parasolid export. In addition, if the source file was Parasolid based (i.e. NX, JT, SOLIDWORKS, or Solid Edge) then we'll make extreme efforts to provide the original Parasolid data when you export to Parasolid.
There has been continued improvements in our visual PMI support with the main focus being CV5, NX, and Creo.
Our STEP importer now disables healing by default. Healing can be enabled using the m_bHealOrientations flag.
The STEP importer flag m_bSplitSHELL_BASED_SURFACE_MODEL flag controls whether each logical body is put into a separate B-rep entity. Please note that this flag is set to true by default, thus in order to achieve similar results to HOOPS Exchange 7.1.0, this flag should be set to false.
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
Siemens PLM NX Software | 9.0 |
A new API (A3DAsmGetFilesPathFromModelFile
) has been introduced which allows developers to query the file dependencies of a particular assembly. It also returns a missing file list which is the list of files referenced by the assembly that HOOPS Exchange cannot find.
By employing a variety of healing techniques we've continued to improve the quality of our Parasolid export. In addition, if the source file was Parasolid based (i.e. NX, JT, SOLIDWORKS, or Solid Edge) then we'll make extreme efforts to provide the original Parasolid data when you export to Parasolid.
There has been continued improvements in our visual PMI support with the main focus being CV5, NX and Creo.
We now use some of the healing capabilities available in HOOPS Exchange to address common problems with STEP files related to face and edge orientation problems.
In this release we extended our JT exporter so that it also exports any Views or PMI that is included with the model.
We implemented some optimizations within our IFC reader which will improve loading time with many IFC files.
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
Parasolid | v26.0 |
Solid Edge | ST6 |
SOLIDWORKS | 2014 |
STEP | AP 242 |
A new set of APIs (A3DCurveLength
and A3DComputeFaceArea
) have been introduced which allow you to calculate the length of edges and the surface area of faces, in addition to existing features which allow to calculate the surface of parts and the volume and center of gravity of parts.
A new set of APIs (A3DComputePlanarSectionOnModelFile
and A3DComputePlanarSectionOnRepresentationItem
) allow you to cross section a model. The APIs return the exact curves representing the outline of the section as well as the triangles which will represent the interior of the section.
A new set of APIs (A3DCompareFaces
, A3DCompareFacesInBrepModels
and A3DComputeFaceArea
) have been added which allow you to check for geometrical differences between two parts. The APIs not only tell you if two parts differ geometrically but also can provide triangles representing the differences between the two models.
A new API (A3DSimplifyModelFileWithAnalytics
) allows you to specify which analytics you want to consider approximating a geometry as. For example, excluding whether you want to approximate a surface as a torus can significantly improve the performance of this function.
Our Solid Edge reader will now import Welding and Frame data.
There has been significant improvements in our visual PMI support with a particular focus on CV5, NX and Creo. In addition to bug fixes we now support exploded views for Creo.
Improvements were made to the progress bar so that it will more accurately reflect the progress on an import or export operation.
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
ACIS | Up to v23.0 |
Autodesk Inventor | 2014 |
CATIA V5 | V5-6R2013 |
A new set of APIs have been introduced which make it much easier for developers to initialize HOOPS Exchange, to read in a file and to also export a file. With this API a developer can turn a CATIA V5 file into a Parasolid file with just a couple of lines of code. Please refer to the new sample ImportExport for an example of how to use these APIs.
Our JT export will now include any of the PMI data that is included in the model.
A new function A3DGlobalFontTextTessellationGet()
has been added which allows developers to turn a text string with a font definition into a series of triangles. A common use-case here is a developer using this API to turn PMI text data into triangles for use in their visualization system.
Developers can now easily remove the BREP definition prior to export to PRC to PDF. This allows developers to potentially sensitive information independent of the import settings.
Developers can now request that our provided View definition with NX files honors the default application "single click" view activation behavior. While in Creo you can now request that the default PMI coloring is the same as the default setting in the version of Creo which authored the file.
Platform | Architecture | Operating System | Compiler |
---|---|---|---|
osx_x64 | x64 | Mac OS X 10.7 | gcc/g++ 4.2.1 |
Format | Supported Versions |
---|---|
All | |
Rhino | 4, 5 |
Note, in the current implementation PDF is not supported via the standard read API (i.e. A3DAsmModelFileLoadFromFile()
). Instead Developers must first use the function A3DGet3DPDFStreams()
to extract the PRC/U3D data from the PDF document and then provide this data to appropriate Exchange or Publish API. An example of using this API is provided in the samples\publish\publishsource\DemoFunctionalities sample.
Format |
---|
JT |
VRML |
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
Siemens PLM NX Software | 8.5 |
To address some issues for Parasolid and ACIS customers we now do significant post-processing of the data prior to exporting it to Parasolid or ACIS. This has particular impact when dealing with data which originated in IGES files.
IGES data is now pre-processed to address issues which were previously impacting import success rates. This includes dealing with corrupt files as well as using advanced geometric algorithms to massage the data. These geometric algorithms include fixing B-rep orientation errors, closing open loops, adjusting tolerances, etc. This pre-processing has resulted in a slight increase in import time. Developers can also use the new Sew API (see below) to turn logical sets of surfaces into closed solids.
A new API A3DSewBrep()
has been added which will sew a series of sheet bodies. The API will create either a Solid or Sheet body depending on the structure of the provided data. A higher-level function A3DAsmModelFileSew()
has also been added which will perform a sew on all appropriate entities in a given model file.
Our semantic PMI structures have been enhanced to allow developers to determine the plane that a particular plane/axes associated with a particular datum.
Developers can now request that our Parasolid writer exports all entities regardless of the value of their hidden attribute.
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
SOLIDWORKS | 2013 |
Two new parameters have been added for controlling tessellation:
When reading PMI from a JT file, the link between PMI and its associated geometry is now maintained.
Exchange now automatically heals invalid geometry and topology when exporting to the X_T (Parasolid) and SAT (ACIS) formats.
A number of file formats were updated to support more current software versions. These format updates include:
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
CATIA V5 | V5-62012 (R22) |
CATIA V6 | 2013 |
Solid Edge | ST5 |
A new function has been added to globally adapt geometry and topology to your modelers specific needs. This function provides the capability to programmatically control the following repair behaviors:
For more information, please see the A3DAdaptAndReplaceAllBrepInModelFile function.
A new function has been added to return the physical properties of a B-Rep model. These properties include:
For more information, please see the A3DComputePhysicalProperties function.
A function has been added to determine whether a point lies inside or outside of a given FACE. For more information, please see the A3DFaceUVPointInside function.
A function has been added for globally simplifying spline curves and surfaces to their analytic form (such as planes, cylinders, spheres, etc.). For more information, please see the A3DSimplifyModelFileCurveAndSurfaceAsAnalytic function.
The data structure for returning semantic P}{MI have been enhanced to return the values of the semantic PMI data. This allows applications to easily read the numeric data associated with feature control frames and other PMI. For more information, please see the A3DMDSemanticFeatureControlFrameGet function.
A new structure has been added that contains direct links between Datum and other associated entities such as other Datum and model geometry. For more information, please see the A3DMDFCFDrawingRowData data structure.
A function has been added to calculate the 2D bounding box (height and length) for a text string. For more information, please see the A3DGlobalFontTextBoxGet function.
A new data member for specifying the font file path has been added to the A3DFontData structure.
A new function has been added to allow PRC data to be read directly from a memory buffer. Please see A3DAsmModelFileLoadFromPrcStream for more details.
An import option has been added for the IFC reader. You can now specify the code page to use when converting 3D text to Unicode. For more information, please see the A3DRSParamsIFCData structure.
A number of file formats were updated to support more current software versions. These format updates include:
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
Autodesk Inventor | 2013 |
Creo Parametric | 2.0 |
Two new functions have been added to enable editing of Product Occurrences and Part Definitions. Please refer to the Programmers Guide for more information on A3DAsmProductOccurrenceEdit and A3DAsmPartDefinitionEdit.
A new structure, A3DRWParamsIGESData, has been added to the A3DRWParamsSpecificLoadData structure to control how IGES files are read. This new structure contains a data member, m_bSewBrepModels, that controls whether Exchange will try to sew IGES surface models into a solid model. Please see the Reference Guide for more information on the A3DRWParamsIGESData data structure.
A number of internal improvements have been made to the JT reader. The results of these improvements are general improvements to the stability of the JT reader.
A number of file formats were updated to support more current software versions. These format updates include:
Format | Updated Version |
---|---|
CATIA V5 | R21 |
Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) | IFC 2x4 |
Siemens PLM Software NX | NX 8 |
Solid Edge | ST4 |
SOLIDWORKS | 2012 |
For HOOPS Exchange v5.0, we have added the capability to save PRC data to ACIS SAT files. This interface allows direct exchange of data with applications that support the SAT format (AutoCAD, Inventor, etc.). It also provides ACIS developers with an easy route to integrate HOOPS Exchange by using Exchange to convert CAD files to SAT format and using ACIS to read the generated SAT data.
In order to have maximum compatibility with other applications (including Autodesk applications like AutoCAD and Inventor), the Exchange SAT exporter writes an ACIS 5.0 format file.
Format | Version |
---|---|
ACIS (SAT) | 5.0 |
CATIA V5 drawing files (CATDrawing) are now supported. Please see the Drawing Model section of the Reference Manual for more information.
A number of functions have been added to enable precise measurement of PRC B-Rep models. These functions include curve and surface simplification as well as high performance point project functions.
Two new functions have been added to help manage subcomponents (parts, sub-assemblies) of a PRC assembly file. The first function extracts the filenames (including path) of all the parts and sub-assemblies referenced by a model file. The second function A3DAsmModelFileLoadFromMultiplePrcFile creates an assembly modelfile from multiple PRC files.