CoolTech – SpinFire Professional 8.0 Preview

Actify will be releasing SpinFire Professional 8.0 mid April but they were showing it at NMW. SpinFire is a viewer for MCAD models. As with all viewers, it comes in handy when you don’t have access to the native MCAD program—plus they can often have nifty viewing features that are in advance of the native CAD programs themselves.

The coolest thing I saw in SpinFire Professional 8.0 was the viewing of GD&T annotation on a 3D model. That alone could be worth the price of admission. If you rotate a 3D model with SpinFire, the annotation constantly appears to face the viewer. The proper order of the GD&T inside a feature control frame stay in proper order even if the model is turned 180 degrees, as ASME standards dictate. And if that is not cool enough, annotations on oblique planes (those not facing the viewer) fade out so they don’t obscure annotations more germane to the present view. I asked if there was a way to turn off annotations in a particular plane, rather than ghosting them. They guys at Actify thought that was a great idea, maybe that would be in a future release. (I love it when these smart CAD guys humor us pretending-to-be-smart editors).

Also noteworthy in SpinFire Professional 8.0

• exploded views easily created and saved, which can be animated
• easily find center of areas
• chain edges together for distance calculations