CAD Builder

For more than 20 years being always at the forefront of 3D, Open Cascade has gained considerable expertise in geometric modeling. In order to demonstrate software developing capabilities the company decided to come up with a sample of parametric CAD modeler — CAD Builder. It is a generic tool for parametric modeling derived from the SHAPER Module of the SALOME Simulation Platform developed by Open Cascade in collaboration with CEA and EDF.

Specific Development of 3D Modeling Tools

CAD Builder is designed for both professionals (engineers, architects, constructors, etc.), who has got used to work with parametric CAD software, and users with no or little CAD experience. It allows creating 3D models, modifying them and reusing in other applications. Created models are fully parametrical. So, a user can change initial objects, entered parameters, insert intermediate operations and get the final model modified accordingly. CAD Builder supports Python language to input model expressions or make scripts for automatization.

In addition to usual CAD part modeling features, CAD Builder supports the creation and modification of:

Multi-dimensional models, i.e. geometries made of solids (3D), surfaces (2D) and lines (1D) topologically connected Non-manifold topologies, like a solid partitioned by internal surfaces Reference to geometric subsets of a model, so called Groups, used for setting the boundary conditions of calculations.

So, 3D models created in CAD Builder can represent composite objects and be the base for generating conformal Finite Element Meshes.

Advanced user may create new features in addition to the existing ones in CAD Builder. The architecture is flexible for creation of new plugins in C++ or Python easily using standard or custom GUI elements and Open CASCADE Technology modeling algorithms.