Top 5 CAESES features you might not be using (but should be)

When it comes to sim­u­la­tion-driven design, every minute counts — and so does every feature in your toolset. CAESES is packed with powerful capa­bil­i­ties designed to accel­er­ate your design process, improve per­for­mance, and stream­line inte­gra­tion with sim­u­la­tion tools. But with so many options avail­able, it’s easy to overlook some of the more advanced or spe­cial­ized features.

In this blog, we high­light five standout features in CAESES that often fly under the radar but can make a big impact when put to use. Whether you’re working on hull opti­miza­tion, pro­peller design, or any complex geometry task, these tools can help you take your design automa­tion to the next level.

1. Generic Curve: Flexible 3D Curve Modeling with Full Para­me­ter­i­za­tion Control

Few tools in CAESES offer as much flex­i­bil­ity and control as the Generic Curve. It’s one of those features that feels almost lim­it­less once you start explor­ing it. At its core, the Generic Curve lets you describe geometry math­e­mat­i­cally — with x(t), y(t), and z(t) defined as func­tions of a single para­me­ter t that runs from 0 to 1. From simple math­e­mat­i­cal func­tions such as sine or helical def­i­n­i­tions used in engi­neer­ing tasks to advanced modeling chal­lenges like blending between shapes or con­trol­ling internal param­e­triza­tions, you can turn pure math­e­mat­ics into geometry with elegant pre­ci­sion. There’s a bit of a learning curve (no pun intended), but once you’ve mastered it, you’ll find it’s one of the most powerful and expres­sive tools in your design toolkit.

In real-world design, the perfect shape is rarely known in advance — it often lies hidden some­where between known extremes. The chal­lenge is to explore that space freely while staying true to physical, func­tional, or man­u­fac­tur­ing con­straints. The Generic Curve enables exactly that: it provides the control needed to preserve design intent while still allowing maximum geo­met­ric vari­a­tion. You can morph between existing geome­tries, inter­po­late between imported and designed curves, or define entirely new tran­si­tions — all while keeping your model robust and respon­sive. This makes the Generic Curve a powerful enabler for dis­cov­er­ing untapped poten­tial within your design space, where opti­miza­tion meets cre­ativ­ity and precision.

For anyone who loves exper­i­ment­ing with geometry and pushing beyond tra­di­tional CAD bound­aries, the Generic Curve is a true hidden gem. It embodies what CAESES does best: turning engi­neer­ing ideas into real, func­tional design freedom and opti­miza­tion potential.

See the doc­u­men­ta­tion of the Generic Curve here.

2. Nested Geo­met­ric Opti­miza­tion: Enforce Geometry Con­straints While You Optimize

In many design processes, opti­miza­tion entails running sim­u­la­tions, gen­er­at­ing design variants, and hoping that the outcome will meet all given require­ments and con­straints. With CAESES, that opti­miza­tion process can be made smarter. Using nested geo­met­ric opti­miza­tion, you can enforce geo­met­ric con­straints (cross-sec­tional area, for example, com­pres­sion ratio, or dis­place­ment) directly inside of the main opti­miza­tion loop — auto­mat­i­cally and exactly.

This guar­an­tees that every variant you create is not only para­me­ter­ized but also valid by design. A piston bowl will always meet the exact com­pres­sion ratio you spec­i­fied. Each volute cross-section will fit exactly to your spec­i­fied area pro­gres­sion. And any ship hull that you send to CFD will already have the correct dis­place­ment. All of which saves you time, reduces infea­si­ble variants, and ensures valid and quality designs for sim­u­la­tions — every time.

Main­tain­ing key geo­met­ric con­straints, such as a piston bowl’s com­pres­sion ratio, can be time con­sum­ing and trou­ble­some if per­formed manually, espe­cially if numerous design vari­ables are inter­re­lated. CAESES’ Design Engines can be used to accom­plish this for the user by con­tin­u­ously updating depen­dent vari­ables to fulfil a given con­straint. For example, you want to change one design para­me­ter but keep the com­pres­sion ratio constant. Using a Design Engine without variant gen­er­a­tion in an inner opti­miza­tion loop keeps your model ​“up-to-date” with the nec­es­sary design require­ments, min­i­miz­ing time and poten­tial errors.

See how this works in a diesel piston bowl opti­miza­tion case study.

You can also check the doc­u­men­ta­tion here.

3. Auto­matic Creation of Feature Def­i­n­i­tions: Visual Pro­gram­ming Made Easy

Feature Def­i­n­i­tions in CAESES allow engi­neers to program libraries of reusable custom func­tions and com­po­nents, speeding up model setup and stan­dard­iz­ing workflows.

The pos­si­bil­ity to auto­mat­i­cally generate Feature Def­i­n­i­tions from objects in the Object Tree could be one of the most user-friendly features in CAESES. You can turn selected geometry into a reusable feature with the press of a button! This is a great feature for engi­neers wanting to try out the powerful Feature Pro­gram­ming Language (FPL) without writing any code. You can use it to get into visual pro­gram­ming, while getting com­fort­able with script-fueled ideas, all the while speeding up the mod­el­ling process. This creates a way for users with less CAESES expe­ri­ence to knock down the barriers of creating modular, para­me­ter­ized designs.

Learn how to auto­gen­er­ate Features from a selection.

4. Data Reduc­tion and Refine­ment: Fit the NURBS Def­i­n­i­tion to Your Task

In the Post Pro­cess­ing section of a BRep object, you can find options to reduce or refine the under­ly­ing NURBS data. For instance, you can refine your control polygon to have more control vertices avail­able when applying shape defor­ma­tion tech­niques in areas that were pre­vi­ously sparsely pop­u­lated by vertices (defor­ma­tion to NURBS geometry is applied by shifting the control vertices).

Con­versely, you can reduce the amount of data, which for example impacts the file size of the geometry export, but also the pro­cess­ing speed for oper­a­tions con­cern­ing that geometry within CAESES. In this case, vertices are removed from the control polygon accord­ing to an absolute accuracy tol­er­ance, i.e., vertices are thinned out until the devi­a­tion of the BRep from the original shape reaches the given tolerance.

See here how to adjust your under­ly­ing NURBS def­i­n­i­tion.
 

5. Custom Types and Work­flows: Encap­su­late Complex Processes into Reusable Building Blocks

With CAESES, you can even define custom types using Feature Def­i­n­i­tions. These are not just features, they’re cus­tomized building blocks with rich and complete complex func­tion­al­ity. Custom types can reduce com­plex­ity by enabling teams to wrap complex engi­neer­ing processes into reusable features. This promotes col­lab­o­ra­tive work and sim­pli­fies model upkeep, while also speeding up the devel­op­ment loop across multiple projects.

Custom types go hand-in-hand with our recently added and well-adopted work­flows. Work­flows offer a quick and stream­lined method to build fully para­met­ric models for specific geome­tries (for which the given Workflow has been set up) and walk you through the process in a struc­tured but flexible way.

The amount of time saved once you have a robust base model for a type of ship, tur­bo­ma­chin­ery, pro­peller, etc., is immense. With only minimal input, you can build an initial model within the Workflow and then cus­tomize it to meet the needs of your project. Work­flows are not only limited to the ones provided by CAESES out-of-the-box (for tur­bo­ma­chin­ery, ship hull, and pro­peller modeling), but you can also develop your own Work­flows imple­ment­ing new modeling ideas. This provides your team with a custom toolbox, ensuring that you organize know-how and move more quickly in the design process.

Con­clu­sion

Every design project comes with its own chal­lenges — whether it’s meeting strict con­straints, managing complex data, or simply finding faster ways to get from concept to sim­u­la­tion. The features high­lighted here may not always be top of mind, but they can make a real dif­fer­ence in stream­lin­ing your process and unlock­ing new levels of flexibility.

By taking advan­tage of tools like Generic Curves, Nested Opti­miza­tion, auto­mat­i­cally gen­er­ated Feature Def­i­n­i­tions, Data Reduc­tion and Enhance­ment, Custom Types, and Work­flows, you can move beyond tra­di­tional CAD lim­i­ta­tions and accel­er­ate inno­va­tion in your workflow.

If you haven’t tried these capa­bil­i­ties yet, consider explor­ing them in your next project. They might just be the hidden accel­er­a­tors that help you push your design automa­tion further — and we’re here to support you along the way.