Autodesk Alias AutoStudio 2023.1

Surface Fillet improvements
We've made several enhancements to the Surface Fillet tool, which include new Existing Theoretical and Build Theoretical Construction Types that provide improved results for Chordal Length and Tangent Length surface fillets. New Auto settings for Start, Interior, and End Flow Control let you create quality fillets in less time.


New Surface Fillet Construction Types
New Construction Types improve the quality of surface fillets and are capable of creating fillets that often fail using previous versions. These include:
- Existing Theoretical, which uses the true theoretical intersection of the input surfaces to build the fillet.
- Build Theoretical, which generates a theoretical intersection of the input surfaces when an existing theoretical intersection is missing.
Note that the Chord Construction Type has now been renamed to Arc (Chord).


We've added a new Auto option to the Start, Interior, and End Flow Controls. When set to Auto, Alias determines the best method to use to control the way fillet surfaces edges meet the edges of the boundary surfaces. Creating fillets using Auto takes the guess work out of choosing the Flow Control setting that is most compatible with the edge conditions of your input geometry. This way you get the best results quicker.
For Start and End Flow Control, Alias chooses between Default, Extend, Edge Align, or Connect. For Interior Flow Control, Alias can use different Flow Control methods along the length of the fillet to ensure that the best method is used depending on changes in surface topology.
Improved Interior Flow Control
In addition to Auto, a new User Defined option has been added to the Interior Flow Control. This option gives you greater control over the Flow Control method that's used at each interior boundary of the input surface sets. Select User Defined to view the methods that the Auto setting used to build the fillet. If the desired result is not achieved, use manipulators to choose a different method at each of these areas and quickly rebuild. This workflow lets you easily experiment until you reach the optimal shape and CV layout.


Updates to Dynamo and Dynamo Player
We've provided several new Dynamo and Dynamo Player sample scripts. We've also improved popular Dynamo Player scripts, including the tire generation script.


New Dynamo scripts
- Bulk-Graph-Resizer.dyn - The Graph Resizer script lets you scale the position of the Dynamo nodes in multiple scripts at the same time. Use this script to reduce overlapping nodes in complex scripts, specifically if you are using the 2023 version of Alias-Dynamo, which displays nodes larger than in previous versions.


- Useful-Nodes.dyn - Open this script in Dynamo to access a collection of Dynamo nodes that will prove useful when writing new scripts or updating existing ones.


Access the new Dynamo scripts from the Sample Files folder in your Alias installation directory. For example: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AliasAutoStudio2023.1\Dynamo\Sample Files.

New Dynamo Player scripts
We've added new Dynamo Player sample scripts to the Dynamo Player Toolbox.

New general modeling scripts
- DP-Thicken - Lets you add thickness to a selection of NURBS surfaces. For the script to work correctly, the geometrical normals on the surfaces must be aligned.


- DP-Explode - Creates copies of selected entities, and then moves them away from the computed center of the selected input object. Use the Relative Movement parameter to set the move distance.


New scripts for subdivision objects
- DP-Subdiv-by-1-Gen-1-Rail and DP-Subdiv-by-1-Gen-2-Rails - Use these scripts to build out a subdivision object using a series of one or two connected straight edges, which are used as rails, and a third set of connected edges, which guides the shape of resulting subdivision geometry.


- DP-Subdiv-from-Planes - Creates a subdivision object from a collection of planar NURBS surfaces.
- DP-Subdiv-from-Curves - Creates a subdivision object from connected NURBS curves.
Improvements to Dynamo Player scripts
- DP-Nurbs-Tire - You can now use custom curves to generate tread patterns for your tires. In the Tread parameters, set Create to Custom, and then use the Custom Tread parameters to make adjustments. Ensure that the custom curves you want to use for the tread pattern are positioned close and above the tire geometry.


- DP-Subdiv-Align - This script replaces the DP-Subdiv-Perpendicular-Align.dyn from previous versions of Alias. It includes the following improvements:
. The ability to align subdivision CVs in any direction.
. New Mode parameter lets you specify G0 alignment (first row of CVs), G1 alignment (second row of CVs) or both. By default, the script aligns the CVs at G1 to the surface.
. When using G1 alignment, you can specify the alignment angle applied to the second row of CVs. Use the G1 Angle parameter to set the alignment angle between -180 to 180 degrees.


- DP-Pattern-Toolkit - You can now use this script to place solid objects at point locations on the target surface. These objects can then be used to define trim regions on other input surfaces.


- DP-Multi-Surface-Patterning-One-Guide-Curve - We've made several updates to this script including:
. Ability to place objects across multiple surfaces.
. Use open or closed geometry, including NURBS and subdivision objects.
. Addition of a Flip Result parameter, which flips the pattern geometry across the axis of the target surface.
. Several fixes to script, which make it more stable.

Curve and COS Offset tool updates

A New Offset Measure option in the Curve and COS Offset tool lets you choose between using Chordal Length and Arc Length for the Offset Distance.

When set to Chordal Length, offset distance is based on the shortest linear distance between the input and the offset output. When set to Arc Length, this distance is based on the arc length of the input surface. Use Arc Length when you want the offset length measured on the surface length. Otherwise, choose Chordal Length for a linear offset distance.

The two new options are only available when the input is a surface edge, curve on surface, surface span or isoparm. These options are not available when offsetting a curve.


Path Array tool update

The Path Array tool now supports construction objects including points, planes, and vectors. Use the Path Array tool to duplicate these objects and place the copies at equal distances along one or more curves.


Updates to Alias Concept

We've added the Curvature Diagnostic Shader tool to Alias Concept. Assign this shader to your models to help identify curvature changes in your surfaces or potential flaws.