Since 2016, MachineBuilder has been the cornerstone of the Vention ecosystem. It’s the first software we launched within the Manufacturing Automation Platform, and it’s gone through many iterations over the past eight years to advance into the 3D CAD software you know today.
But we’re not done yet. This year, MachineBuilder received its most comprehensive suite of upgrades, including smarter and more intuitive AI-driven design tools. With these enhancements, MachineBuilder is poised to aid engineers, manufacturers, system integrators, and machine builders in designing more advanced automated solutions in less time and with less complexity.
Continue reading to learn about the five new features that are now available to use in your next MachineBuilder design.
Streamlined design flow
When you enter MachineBuilder, you’re now prompted to start your project from scratch or choose from hundreds of design templates available in the Vention Design Library. From palletizing to workstations, these templates are designed in MachineBuilder by Vention experts. They are fully customizable, so use them as a starting point to tailor automated equipment or robot cells to your unique needs. With these templates, you and your team can design faster and more confidently, empowering your next project from the beginning.
Smart predictive placement
As you add parts to your MachineBuilder design, you’ll notice smart predictive placement in action. This utilizes Vention’s AI-driven Geometric Reasoning Engine (GRE) to minimize the effort of designing mechanical structures in 3D. Now, components automatically snap into the desired orientation with minimal input on your end. The GRE streamlines the assembly process and reduces design time.
Intuitive part manipulation
New part manipulation tools are now available within the design environment, powered by contextual guidance and a more discoverable 3D manipulator. As you move parts within the design, all the components attached to that part will automatically slide with it. This is a simple way to move components while still maintaining the design’s integrity, reducing the learning curve for designing in MachineBuilder.
Real-time bill of material, pricing, and part specifications
See your bill of material (BOM), pricing, and part specifications updated in real-time as you add or remove parts from a MachineBuilder design. With real-time pricing, gain instant visibility into specific details about your MachineBuilder design to better plan your project and calculate return on investment.
In addition, part dimensions, weight, 2D drawings, and technical specifications, such as moments of inertia and load capacity, are also now available directly within the 3D environment, making it faster to validate your design.
Enhanced grouping
Create groups within your design, then easily insert, remove parts, and resize extrusions within that group’s context. This enhanced grouping ability eliminates the need to design a new group or delete it. Now, component categorization is a lot easier within the design by keeping the same groupings for the entire length of the project. With this more seamless process, design faster and with more precision.
Design assistant
Machine learning and generative AI have officially entered the world of industrial automation design. By leveraging over 350,000 meaningful MachineBuilder designs, the integration of AI will facilitate a smarter, more intuitive design experience.
While there are limitless possibilities when you integrate AI into industrial automation design, we’ve begun by implementing a machine-learning model to eliminate the guesswork around joints and gussets. In your next design, you’ll now be prompted to add a joint or gusset when needed to strengthen the intersection between extrusions.
Design assistant is the first instance of generative AI design within MachineBuilder, and there is much more to come. We’ll continue to build upon these AI-driven features to push the frontier of automated equipment and robot cell design. When generative AI is applied to modular components, the user experience is improved, and the complexity and time required to create robust designs are greatly reduced.
Ready to give the new MachineBuilder a try?
As always, we would love to hear feedback about your experience using MachineBuilder or any of our products. Contact us at any time.