1. nTop Support
  2. What's New?
  3. What's New

nTop Platform 2.16 - What's New

Avatar
Andrew Sartorelli

Summary

nTopology nTop Platform 2.16 is here! The main feature of this release is an autosave setting that lets you incrementally and automatically save your files so that you can recover work in the event of an unexpected exit or if you forgot to save. In addition to usage improvements and bug fixes, we’ve also introduced a powerful suite of boolean blocks in our Beta tab that lets you union, subtract, and intersect slice stacks so you can combine and manipulate complex slice data. As with every release, nTopology’s dedicated support team is ready to answer your questions. Please visit support.ntopology.com to gain access to helpful tutorials and support articles.

New Features and Improvements

Autosave Your files

  • You can now enable Autosave to incrementally and automatically save your files in the background so that you can quickly recover your work in the event of an unexpected exit or the event of closing nTop Platform without saving.
  • This feature can be enabled by going to File > Settings > File Backup and checking the Autosave checkbox.
  • Once enabled, you’ll have the ability to select the time interval for autosaving. The Save time interval is in minutes and includes the following intervals to select from:
    • 5 minutes (default)
    • 10 minutes
    • 30 minutes
    • 60 minutes
  • Lastly, you’ll have the ability to specify your Autosave folder location. By default, this file path location is set to AppData > Roaming > nTopology > Autosave.
  • If this feature is enabled and you do experience an unexpected exit or forgot to save your work, the next time you open your file, you’ll be prompted to recover your autosaved work.

Autosave.png

Boolean Union, Subtract and Intersect Slice Data

  • You can now boolean union, subtract, and intersect slice data to combine and manipulate complex slice data.
  • Slice Stack Boolean Union
    • Location: Beta / Slicing
    • Description: “Combine multiple slice stacks into a single slice stack.”
    • Inputs:
      • Slice stacks:
        • Type: Slice Stack List
        • Description: “List of slice stacks to union.”
    • Return Type: Slice Stack
  • Slice Stack Boolean Subtract
    • Location: Beta / Slicing
    • Description: “Boolean subtract the slice stacks.”
    • Inputs:
      • Primary slice stack:
        • Type: Slice Stack
        • Description: “Slice stack to subtract from.”
      • Subtraction slice stack:
        • Type: Slice Stack List
        • Description: “List of slice stacks to subtract.”
    • Return type: Slice Stack
  • Slice Stack Boolean Intersect
    • Location: Beta / Slicing
    • Description: “Boolean intersect the slice stacks.”
    • Inputs:
      • Slice stacks:
        • Type: Slice Stack List
        • Description: “List of slice stacks to intersect.”
    • Return type: Slice Stack
  • Note: For each of these operations, the slices must have the same layer height between layers, and the layers must be aligned. The slice stack layers can have different bounding box Z heights.

New Lattice Pipeline Updates

  • Our new lattice pipeline now features the following blocks, which exist in the current lattice pipeline, but have been modified to work with our new architecture:
    • Branched Lattice Body
    • Collapse Lattice Vertices
    • Extend Open Beams
    • Orthofoam Lattice Body
    • Voronoi Surface Lattice Body
    • Voronoi Volume Lattice Body
  • In addition to adding new blocks, we’ve updated the Beta ribbon to include a new menu structure to make the stages of generating a lattice more intuitive. The organization is as follows: Generate, Unit Cells, Cell Map, Utilities.
  • Our new lattice pipeline is currently in beta. Beta blocks are generally not recommended for production use as they may change but are made available to users for early access. To see all Beta blocks, please go to File > Settings > General and check “Show Beta Blocks.”

Usage Improvements

  • The Mass Properties from Mesh block has been updated to output a result on non-manifold and non-closed meshes. In previous versions, if a mesh was non-manifold and or non-closed or if a mesh list contained a mesh that was non-manifold and or non-closed, the Mass Properties from Mesh block would throw an error, and the block would not run. The block will now throw a warning if an input mesh is non-manifold and or non-closed and will produce values of 0 for all meshes that are non-manifold and or non-closed. For example, the volume on a non-closed mesh will return 0.00 mm^3.
  • The Radial Basis Field from Point Map block can now be found in our ribbon and has an icon.
  • We’ve removed the Point Stack object and have made it a part of the Slice Stack object. When exporting CLI, if the slice stack includes points, the following warning message will be returned: “Warning this slice stack contains points which are not currently supported in the standard CLI specification. Use the “Export CLI Points” block to extract points.” Export Points to CLI block has been renamed “Export CLI Points” and has been modified to accept a slice stack instead of a point stack as an input. If the stack for Export CLI Points contains polylines, the following warning message will be returned: “Warning this slice stack contains polylines which are not exported by the Export Points to CLI block. Use the Export CLI to export the polylines from your slices.”

Bug Fixes

  • The ‘g’ gravity block value was incorrect in previous releases. We’ve updated the value to be 9.8 m/s^2 instead of 9.8 mm/s^2.
  • Section cutting an FE Surface Mesh will no longer cause nTop Platform to exit unexpectedly. This bug affected the following version(s): 2.15.
  • We’ve updated our topology optimization routine to not fail with multiple point restraints. This bug affected the following version(s): 2.14, 2.15.
  • We’ve updated our unit system variable so that it will not be complete if the variable is empty. The bug affected the following version(s): 2.10 to 2.15.
Was this article helpful?