Version 4.0 comes with amazing new features and many fixes - thanks to our great users! Note that we have also had larger changes in the geometry kernel, which is always a challenging task for a CAE system. Please check your projects if you use curve reparameterizations (such as the unit speed setting), shift transformations and Breps in general. We have heavily tried to keep backward compatibility to earlier versions of CAESES, but there might be slight changes to your geometry with this new version. Another item, the stream section curve type of the blade add-on, has been completely redesigned and extended. Plenty of new functionality for blade designers has been added to make this curve a workhorse for any kind of blade geometry. As a consequence, we had to significantly modify the existing behavior, where the full backward compatibility could not be kept. We are really sorry for any inconvenience. Just get in touch with us if you have questions about it.

New Features

3D Window Added new icon for blade design view ZX
BRep Added operation to create a solid (closed volume) from intersecting surfaces / breps.
Blade and Profile Fitting Added new global commad fitProfileByPointDataAndLETE() in order to fit given point data and a leading and trailing edge circle with a smooth nurbs curve
Camera Positions New icon at the top right corner of the GUI for saving and restoring user-defined camera positions
Charts A new charts view is now available at the design results table. This includes dynamic background colors for sensitivities as well as regression curves. Designs can be selected in this view, and charts change dynamically during design engine run.
Curve Command Added new command which returns the position at a given relative arc length, and another command that returns the tangent vector at a relative arc length. With this, the unit speed reparameterization can often be avoided so that the exact curve shape is preserved.
Curve Highlighting On mouse over, the origin and orientation of the curve is automatically displayed now. With this, there is no need to explicitly switch on the curve orientation toggle.
Design Engines Allow to execute multiple independent computations within one design simultaneously for optimization algorithms that do not allow asynchronous updates.
Design Viewer Allow to export rows of the Design Viewer as animated GIFs
Documentation User object documentation is now added to the project file (documentation) and shown when the project gets opened
Documentation Show type documentation for an object when pressing F1 while the object is selected
FCurve New command to calculate the shortest distance to another curve which simply sums up the shortest distance values for a given number of sample points
Feature Debugger Added line-per-line profiling mode.
Feature Debugger Added autocompletion to immediate window
Feature Editor Added possibility to create custom snippets
File handling Added isDir(FString path) command to check whether a given path denotes a directory
Free Form Deformation New deformation method (sometimes called box deformation or morphing) to quickly change the shape of existing geometries. Boxes can be created around geometry parts in which transformations are applied. Suited for imported geometries, and also in conjuction with adjoint sensitivities.
Free Form Deformation Added a new sample into the documentation browser
GIF Animations New feature in the menu visualization to automatically create GIF animations either from a window or the entire CAESES GUI
HTTP Monitoring Monitor design engine run through a browser
Image Curve Improved shift transformations with linear bspline curves.
Import IGES / SAT / PARASOLID Introduces dynamic resolution for nurbs surfaces depending on the number of imported surfaces.
Local Float License Added option to hide user list publication.
New GUI Full redesign and rebranding of user interface including new icons and colors
Notifications Added objects to send emails and mobile push notifications from within CAESES.
Offset Curve If a surface curve is given and a thickness distribution, then the thickness is applied normal to the underlying surface, instead of using a plane
Profiling Added profiling mode that allows to track update times of objects.
Profiling Added profiling option in help menu.
Software Connector Values of entries were not updated properly when the value type (entryDef) were changed.
Samples New samples for profile design, offset curve and a smooth thickness distribution as well as impeller and volute design
Screenshot Collection Added optional name tag for auto-generated screenshot pictures
Sensitivity Studies and Response Surfaces The free optimization toolkit Dakota is now integrated via a new design engine. This new design engine comes with pre-configured methods such as sensitivity studies and optimizations with response surface models Furthermore, users can set up their own Dakota method (algorithm) and use it directly from within CAESES.
Software Connector Added possibility to use custom export features directly from the Software Connector
Stream Section Added optional theta angle as user input so that stacking axis can be also designed as a simple 2D curve in the meridian plane
Streamsection New tutorial for axial blade design using stream section
Surface Import Added automatic mechanism to fix corrupt singularities in imported surfaces models
Tutorial Free Form Deformation Added a new tutorial for free form deformation.

Changes

Design Viewer The Design Viewer now also displays images in sub directories of the design directories (i.e. images created by an external tool)
Feature Debugger Debugging session does not automatically stop after execution and can be restarted.
Feature Debugger Improved overall handling of empty lines when stepping through a FeatureDefinition with the debugger.
File Operations When writing a file within a feature without specifying a full path, the file is written in the current working directory (i.e. the design directory or a the current computation directory)
Icons Change icons for save and save as, as well as camera positions
Inscribe Circles Increased number of circles and added internal check for upper and lower side instead of convention suction and pressure side - appeared for stator blades
Meridional Camber Curve Changed internal developing law from dm to dmp so that dm-prime is now used instead of dm.
Screenshot Collection Screenshot Collections now always save the screenshots to the file system. The "Store in Project" option is no longer supported.
Stream Section Curve generation now results in the mean camber line if no thickness definition is given.
Stream Section Changed camber mode name from blade metal angle to angle distribution, check this setting for backward compatibility.
Tutorials Full review of tutorials including new tutorials for blade design, free form deformation and Dakota

Bugfixes

Brep Fixed inconsistent edge ids with extrude operations.
Computations Fixed results not being automatically displayed when computation ran the first time.
Curve Shortest Distance to Point Fixed returning distance instead of parameter value
Design Engines Fixed error when creating a new DesignEngine that does not support certain types of constraints from an engine with those constraints set.
Design Engines Fixed rare cases of variants staying pending if multiple independent computations run inside a single design.
Design Viewer Fixed Design Viewer creating high CPU load.
Ellipse Fixed derivative calculation i.e. increased accuracy
FGenericBlade Fixed possible unwanted immediate update when using the "Multiple Profiles" option
FSeriesParameter Fixed missing indication when an FSeriesParameter became invalid because the underlying series became invalid (e.g. after deleting an object that is referenced in the series)
Feature Debugger Fixed error when stepping through an if-statement that contains elseif condition(s)
Feature Debugger Fixed immediate window not working for some commands.
Feature Editor Fixed possible crash when closing a project that has the editor of a nested feature open
Feature Editor Fixed possible crash when applying a feature that ends in an incomplete control structure (i.e. missing end keyword).
Feature Functions Fixed wrong behavior of assignment operator for local variables inside a function.
Features Fixed compile error when using switch with strings that contain commas
Features Fixed wrong handling of basictypes within functions
Features Fixed problems with containers like FDoubleSeries, FIntegerSeries, FUnsignedSeries.
Features Fixed not being able to return NULL from a function
Meta Surface Fixed orientation and skinning for meta surfaces with start position > end position.
Project Conversion Improved error handling and loging.
Project conversion Fixed project conversion process in commercial editions.
SSHResourceManager Fixed administration part of the webinterface not working with Java 8.
Solid Removed post-processing operations that result in open solids
SshResourceManager Fixed error when cloning applications from one host to multiple others.
Stream Section Fixed calculation of 3D leading edge position which was incorrect for some cases.