Version 2.9.17

Release Date: December 29, 2018
Current Build: 30

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• See also VTube-STEP Updates
• Download updates the Support Page

The new Measure Guide window draws a small model of the part with the current section highlighted with a color band.

This will help you visually identify which part of the tube to measure next.

This feature has an on/off switch in Measure Setup / Other. Also, you can view the window at any time from inside Measure Process Measure a tube.

In MultiScan Mode

Resizable Window

The window is resizable.

Multi-monitor Support

The Measure Guide window can be moved to other monitors.

Measure Guide Window Setup

Setup the window in the Measure Process / Measure Tube option.

"Automatic Display of MASTER" Option

In the Measure Setup - "Other" menu, use this option to indicate that VTube-LASER should automatically display the Measure Guide window when you are measuring tube shapes.

The new Autobuild Parametrics feature speeds up importing and calculating centerline and bender data parametrics by 5 times or more by automating the calculation process with a single button press.

The new Autobuild Parametrics button is in the Parametric Tube Data menu.

Autobuild will automatically attempt to calculate the centerline from the imported STEP or IGES model. For Autobuild to work, it needs to follow these rules about the incoming model.

The Rules for Autobuild

• The model should be a single clean tube.
  
  
• The model should formed as a segmented tube shape made up of cylinders and truncated-tori.
  
  
• Remove all other geometry first.
  
  
• The following are either handled or ignored:
  
  

1. Inner walls are used to determine the wall thickness
   
   
2. End wall rings are ignored
   
   
3. Non-surface data, like lines and points are ignored
   
   

Video

Click on the video image to see a video of the Autobuild Parametrics feature working.

VTube-LASER now handles point clouds in storage we call "buckets." This allows you to scan anything into VTube-LASER - not just tubes.

With this feature:

• Scan point clouds into list of point cloud buckets using the LASER scanner.
• Turn buckets of points on our off.
• Select points on the screen then press DELETE to delete them from the buckets.
• Measure the distance between any two points.
• Transfer the point clouds into SOLIDWORKS.
• Transfer the point clouds into an ASCII file for use in any other program.
• Point clouds are stored and recalled to/from the VTube-LASER project file.
• Point cloud changes are stored in the UNDO memory. If you delete the wrong set of points - just press UNDO.
• Set the color of each bucket of point clouds.

Scanning Test: Malibu Control Arm

This is a Malibu Control Arm that we scanned in VTube-LASER.

The scan has a total of 19259 points in eight different buckets. Each bucket can be turned off and on.

The color of several of the buckets of points have been changed so that you can identify different regions of points by color.

Send to SOLIDWORKS

Press one button to transfer the scanned point cloud to SOLIDWORKS. The transfer takes about 5 seconds.

Convert to SOLIDWORKS Mesh

Use the SOLIDWORKS features to turn the point cloud into a mesh and surface. (This requires a Professional or Premium license of SW.)

The new Cylinder Fit Tolerances Named Setup feature allows you to switch between stored cylinder fit tolerances for measuring cylinders.

Each setup is stored in a list of named setups that can be used at any time in any tube measure.

For example you could store a unique setup for measuring tubes with armor (like on brake lines) and another default one for regular tubes.

After extensive testing, we've concluded that any point count above 50 per stripe is never helpful in VTube-LASER. For example, as you approach 1000 points per stripe, it slows the math engine significantly and actually causes more Cylinder Fit problems than it solves.

VTube-LASER will now allow up to 50 points per stripe for measuring cylinders - never more.

This is important to you if you correct benders with 180-degree bends using Bender Setup communications.

The Split Bend corrections (for a 180-degree bend) were being applied in Bender Setup in the uncompressed mode - which means that only half the correction was being applied to 180-degree bends.

Also, the wrong number of rows was sent to Bender Setup - which meant that correction data was not properly aligned with the data at the bender. For example, for a single 180-degree bend part, there should only be two correction rows. However, VTube was sending three rows of data for two 90-degree bends.

This has been fixed in this version.

See the resulting correction data grid in the Bender Setup screen below the image.

When the arm is connected to VTube, and the user changes from VTube-STEP to VTube-LASER, VTube now automatically displays the DRO window (Digital Readout).

The new command allows you to clear paths that no longer exist in the list of Path Manager.

Now you can configure the Path Manager without importing or loading any files.

Load the Path Manager by pressing the "Configure the Path Manager" button in the System Options / File Setup menu.

VTube has an added Radius 2 and Radius 3 fields in Part Setup and Bender Setup to allow for easier conversion to benders that require radius values assigned to levels (like Eaton Leonard and YSE)

We found that new users prefer to use the Collected Features menu to start the collection process. Since that is intuitive to new users, we placed buttons in that menu that allow users to start the Collect Features Control Window.