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| Customer: Forming Technologies Inc. |
Forming Technologies Inc. (FTI) is the world’s leading provider of software solutions for design, feasibility, and cost management of sheet metal components. FTI creates innovative solutions designed to reduce development time and material costs.
FTI built software that provided users with tools for developing optimal blank shapes taking into account material deformations in any 3D model. Despite the fact that the tool had advanced capability, FTI could not effectively penetrate the SOLIDWORKS user base, because their solution was not integrated with latest releases of SOLIDWORKS. FTI turned to AMC Bridge, as one of the leading experts in SOLIDWORKS API, to create a new generation of the BLANKWORKS® application, which is integrated with versions of SOLIDWORKS starting with SOLIDWORKS 2007.
The new generation of BLANKWORKS® provides SOLIDWORKS users with a fully integrated solution for developing optimal blank shapes and it’s built with the latest SOLIDWORKS User Interface paradigms, which offers users familiar appearance and interactions.
BLANKWORKS® includes the following features:
- Fast and accurate blank shape generation
- Accurate unfolding specific features such as flanges while preserving surrounding geometry
- Graphical display of material thinning and gathering, to addresses initial product and process feasibility
- Automatic mesh generation
- Customizable materials database that provides flexibility required to analyze virtually any component
- HTML‐based report generation to summarize the process and provide valuable engineering data for quoting and estimation
- FTI's proven Coupled Hybrid Inverse (CHI) solver that correctly accounts for bend allowances even with non‐linear bends
- A simple and intuitive, fully integrated into SOLIDWORKS user interface
AMC Bridge provided FTI with a fully functional add‐in compatible with latest versions of SOLIDWORKS. FTI didn’t have a sufficient SOLIDWORKS API trained resources in house, so outsourcing this project to AMC Bridge significantly reduced their time‐to‐market while providing them with top‐quality software product. Happy with the quality of work and efficiency of the AMC Bridge team, FTI and AMC Bridge have extended the relationship to a number of follow-up projects.
