In an Autodesk press release, Autodesk disclosed its acquisition of certain assets from T-Splines, Inc. These technologies are expected to improve Autodesk’s free-form surfacing capabilities. T-splines technology is based on a surface control grid with fewer, more flexible control points than those found in standard nurb surfaces. The result are faster surface creation, editing, and better control of surface smoothness.
“The technology acquisition will strengthen our Digital Prototyping portfolio with more flexible free-form modeling and will help achieve even closer integration between industrial design and engineering workflows,” said Buzz Kross, senior vice president, Manufacturing Industry at Autodesk. “T-Splines technology will benefit designers and engineers that require watertight surfaces for downstream analysis and manufacturing.” (per the press release)
The downstream analysis Buzz mentioned would most likely be Autodesk Simulation (formerly Algor). Certain Simulation studies require watertight surfaces, and so I’m inclined to believe that we’re likely to see this technology pop up in Autodesk Inventor Fusion first, as it is the key pivotal component in the downstream simplification processes.
