User experience improvements:

• Snap vertex onto edge at click location

  • When a vertex is snapped to an edge, the location along that edge which was clicked will be targeted.

• Improvements to color picker.

  • When a face is selected, palette is set to its color (allowing to copy hex code). "Clear" button has been added so that you can restore color to default.

• Loading

  • Slightly faster loading of Phi. New loading indication with more information.

• Support for lower resolutions

  • We changed the layout of our modals and floating toolbar, so that they are more compact and fit in a smaller browser window. "Suggest a feature" and "Contact us" buttons have been moved to bottom row.

• UI of "Place vertex at xyz" and "Draw circle with parameters"

  • The user interface of these two operations is more clear.

• New icons: "Set color" and "Set material"

Bug fixes:

• Indication of Mirror or Symmetry mode

  • While there is an active Mirror or Symmetry plane, a dot will appear above the respective buttons.

• Shift hovering an edge in snapping mode

  • Shift hovering an edge while in snapping mode will not show "new vertex" preview.

• Color hex code can be typed in.

New functionalities:

• User database

  • Your preferred settings are now stored in a database and persist through your sessions. At the bottom of the settings menu you can find "Reset" which will return all your settings back to default.

  • "Welcome to Phi" modal will not appear again after checking the relevant checkbox. Reset your settings to undo this.

• Snapping: Unification and more possibilities

  • Snap to reference and Snap to body are now a single button; shortcut is N. You can partially snap an edge onto part of a target Phi or reference edge. You can also snap a vertex onto a target Phi or reference edge.

User experience improvements:

• Onshape settings carried into Phi

  • Default length units now follow your Onshape preference. Changing the "Length unit" setting will only affect the current model.

• More data stored in your model file:

  • Defined section planes and workspace units are saved in .phi file.

• Positioning Group

  • "Project", "Snap" and "Attach to STL" buttons are grouped within the "Place" menu

• Simpler and unified Projecting

  • Directly project onto Phi or reference bodies without specifying which ones.

• Separate menus for reference Parts/Part Studios, STL models, and sketches.

  • Separate buttons to insert, edit, hide for each reference type (Part Studio, STL, Sketch). "Convert" button is now in the "Part Studio reference" menu (appears on hover of the "Add Part Studio reference" button), while "Resample" and "Save STL to file" are in the "STP reference" menu. Part Studio reference bodies now appear in blue, to differentiate from STL reference bodies, which remain green.

• Reference sketches

  • Cleaner frame: The vertices at the corners of reference sketches are visible only in edit mode.

  • Loading indication while sketch is loading into Phi.

• View normal to Symmetry plane or Mirror plane

  • Clicking on Symmetry plane or Mirror plane will turn the view perpendicular to it.

• Number of edges added is displayed

  • If more than one edges have been added at once, then the number of new edges is displayed in a note. In this case, warnings about failing to add an edge between a pair of consecutively selected vertices will be ignored.

• Split edges on export: default value OFF

  • Setting "2-vertices exported" has been renamed to the equivalent "Split edges on export" and the tooltip (which appears on hover of the icon) has been improved.

  • Moreover the default value of this setting has been set to OFF.

• Show setting's tooltip on label hover

  • In order to make Settings easier to use, a tooltip shows up when you hover over the name of the setting, not just the icon.

Bug fixes:

• Past values suggestion in textboxes

  • When typing in a textbox, a white box suggesting past values would appear in some cases. This does not show up anymore.

• Better handling of mouse movement, clicks and releasing (e.g. when over a note while dragging).

• Reference vertex size

  • When "Snapping to reference", the size of the reference vertices is now correctly shown.

• Wireframe and Hidden edges status indicators

  • The status ball indicating "on" state for Wireframe view and Hidden Edges view is now correctly displayed, according to current mode.

• Wireframe is correctly shown after material changes

Hot-key changes:

• N: Snap

• Shift-N: Case-specific Snap

• Shift-T: Display tangencies

• J is not used for Snapping anymore

New functionalities:

• Flip surfaces

  • In order to swap the inner and outer sides of a surface, select one or more of its faces and click the "Flip" icon. You will end up with the exact reverse of your shape.

User experience improvements:

• Customizable starting objects

  • You can now define more than one dimensions for the default body you're about to import. Enter the x, y and z dimensions for a cuboid, the height (z) and diameter for a cylinder, or just the x,y or diameter for 2D shapes.

• Current version displayed

  • Phi's current version is shown at all times at the bottom right corner.

Bug fixes:

• State balls

  • Fix for yellow state balls sometimes disappearing under some icons after latest release.

• Shift-Smoothening

  • Fix for Shift key in setting edge smoothness in some cases involving fixed objects.

• Projecting

  • Small fixes and improvements in projecting edges onto faces.

New functionalities:

• Project edges onto faces

  • Project the selected edges, or the edges of any selected faces, onto any other faces. The latter can be Phi or reference faces. Define the projecting direction among existing elements or even the camera view. The projected edges will drop onto the target surface along that direction, unless you also ask for an offset.

Bug fixes:

• Saving locked tangency

  • Tangency and perpendicularity constraints are now saved.

• Add linear edge

  • Shift+"Add edge" icon now works.

New functionalities:

• Copy faces

  • Select a set of faces of a body, and hit Ctrl-C to copy just those as a new, independent body. Until now you could only copy the entire body.

• 0-bridging

  • Select adjacent faces on two bodies and "bridge" them, i.e. unite the two bodies into one.

• "Quick Intro" Step-by-Step design

  • To welcome all our new users who join every day, we have implemented a "Quick Intro example" functionality. You can go there at the beginning of the session (through the initial "Welcome" window), or anytime with the "i" button at the top-right corner. For a more detailed course, you can always follow our Tutorials which you will find in the adjacent tab.

User experience improvements:

• Thicken multiple faces (a first improvement)

  • Select a set of faces and "thicken" them, creating a body with the shape of the original faces on both sides. In this first improvement you can only do this for open faces with relatively similar orientations. A more complete improvement is on its way in a future release...

• Center of rotation

  • Rotation gestures assume the center of the scene as pivot point. Such gestures are dragging with the right mouse button, or hitting the arrow keys, or clicking one of the "View down to X, Y, or Z" buttons. To quickly set any point as the center or rotation, right-click on it.

• Dividing edge in fractions: What you see is what you get

  • When you hover an edge, hit Shift repeatedly and then hit V, then all vertices indicated will be created, thus splitting the edge equally in 2 to 8 sections (as many times as you have hit Shift).

• Display tangencies after Tangency operations

  • After any edge endpoint tangencies are added (e.g. by making perpendicular to plane etc), all the tangencies are displayed for 1 second, then hidden, so you can get some instant feedback about what you just did.

Bug fixes:

• Click sensitivity

  • We improved the click sensitivity to avoid accidental moves that were reported by some users.

• Removing the move manipulator after Copy Body

  • After copying a body we force the user to move the copy out of the way before allowing them to remove the move manipulator, unless they explicitly hit the move icon. This now happens more seamlessly.

• Floating crosshair fixed

  • We had reports of the crosshair lines being left hanging in space. This should be fixed now.

Hot-key changes:

• Right-click: set as center of rotation.

User experience improvements:

• Reference Sketches: Edit with standard tools

  • Reference sketches are now edited using the tools you are already familiar with! Use the Move Manipulator to scale, move, or rotate your reference sketches, freely or with a precise value. For more specific Scaling operations (e.g. by percentage, or defining a new dimension), you can use the "Scale" icon or shortcuts: "D" and "Shift-D". And of course, remove unnecessary sketches with the "Delete" icon or key.

• Reference Sketches: Edits are saved

  • Any edits you make to the reference sketches will now be maintained after file is saved and reloaded.

• Connect selected vertices with a loop of edges

  • When a set of vertices is selected to be connected with edges, an edge will also be added between the first-and the last-selected vertex, provided they belong to the same face.

• Default shapes now sit on top plane

  • Default shapes are now inserted with the XY or "Top" plane right below them, rather than running through them.

• Number of triangles saved in .phi

  • The number of display triangles set will be saved within the .phi file, so that it automatically returns to the last value when the saved file is loaded in another session.

Bug fixes:

• Separate objects are exported as such

  • Each separate body, as well as each open surface, is exported as a separate Onshape part or surface. The user can then handle accordingly, applying boolean or other operations within Onshape.

• Shift-smoothening chains of faces

  • Smoothening chains of faces with the Shift key pressed now works as expected.

New functionalities:

• Lock edge tangent constraint

  • Select an edge and one of its vertices to lock its tangent at that end. Shortcut is T. Select and click again to unlock it.

• Copy edge tangent to other edges

  • Select multiple edges and a vertex on each, and make the tangents of all edges at that vertex parallel to the tangent direction of the first selected one. Tangents are automatically locked in place.

• Make edges perpendicular to faces or planes

  • Select one or more edges and make them all perpendicular to a selected face, a mirror or symmetry plane, or a coordinate plane. The side that is closest to the plane/face is the one that's made perpendicular, unless a vertex is selected on the edge in which case that side is made perpendicular. Tangents are automatically locked in place.

• Make edges tangent to faces

  • Select faces and edges that are attached to them, and the edges will be made tangent to the faces. The tangents are automatically locked in place.

• Visualize smoothness and tangency

  • Display all tangencies between edges and fixed edge tangents

• New way to place objects and bodies at coordinates

  • Shift-click on a vertex and enter the target coordinates. All selected elements and bodies will shift together to the target location.

• Improved grid controls

  • Grid now displays major units with accented lines, and minor subdivisions are suggested based on the current workspace units, and shown with thinner lines. The grid will appear centered on origin or, if desired, on a selected vertex. Grid controls have been moved above the "Show Grid" button for convenience.

User experience improvements:

• Simplified smoothness controls.

  • Smoothness buttons for chains of edges, multiple faces, or entire areas, have all been merged into one, with shortcut U. Shift-U smoothens while keeping vertices fixed. An additional button removes smoothness.

• Smoothness Strength

  • A new slider for setting smoothness strength more conveniently has been moved inside the Smoothen menu.

• Circular with parameters: Diameter

  • Operation "Make circular with parameters" now asks for diameter rather than radius.

• Instructions for multi-step operations

  • Instructions are displayed for operations involving more than one step (e.g. offset face, set mirror/symmetry plane, and others). They are displayed on the top-right corner of the scene.

• Current filename and status displayed

  • The name of the file in process is always displayed at the bottom left corner, with an indication of whether it is saved, autosaved, or with unsaved changes.

• Shift-delete vertices doesn’t modify edge shape.

  • Delete vertices with the Shift key pressed, and the underlying edges will not be automatically smoothened after the vertex is removed.

Bug fixes:

• Color consistency

  • The default color is now uniform for all new shapes and faces.

• Minor fix for bridging open faces

Hot-key changes:

• Shift-Delete (a vertex with 2 edges):

  • Delete vertex, but keep the edge shape as is

• U: Smooth

• Shift-U: Smooth without moving vertices

• Ctrl-Shift-U: Set smoothness strength

• T: Lock Tangency

• Ctrl-Shift-T: View Tangency

New functionalities:

• Selectively hide edges and vertices

  • Clicking any of the "Hide faces / edges / vertices" buttons (or hitting the R / W / Q shortcuts respectively) while some elements are selected, will only hide those and leave the unselected ones shown. Alternatively, clicking any of these buttons with the Shift key pressed will hide all unselected elements and keep the selected ones shown.

• Selectively send to Onshape

  • If there are selected bodies or faces when "end to Onshape" is clicked, then only those will be exported. In case nothing is selected, then everything will be exported.

• Sending to Onshape: Floating vertices can be ignored

  • An new option has been added to settings: when off, vertices that lie between two edges (a.k.a. "floating" or "2-vertices") do not count when the model is sent to Onshape, unless the edges are non-smooth with each other. This means that consecutive smooth edges connected with floating vertices will be exported as a single edge.

• Removing floating vertices without changing the shape of the edge

  • When you remove a vertex, we smoothen the underlying edge so its shape is smooth and without abrupt turns and corners. Hitting the key “2” will remove all 2-vertices (i.e. vertices lying on one edge, or rather on 2 edges connected at that vertex).

  • We added a new option so that if you hit “Shift-2" it will remove all the 2-vertices as before, but it will NOT smoothen the edge. So the edge shape will remain exactly like it was, but the vertex will disappear.

User experience improvements:

• Selection of coinciding vertices

  • When two vertices or more coincide, Phi helps you select the one you intend to:

    • If one of the coinciding vertices, is selected, the edges that come out of it are temporarily highlighted to indicate where the vertex belongs. This way, you will know whether the vertex you just selected is the one you want.

    • If it isn't, you are prompted to click twice. The first click simply deselects the vertex already selected, while the second one selects the other coinciding vertex (and highlights its edges). If more than two vertex coincide, you can repeat until you have the wanted one.

• New button and shortcut for hidden edges mode

  • Viewing the hidden edges (ie. that are covered by faces) is now accessed with a separate button, located on the left side of the interface (just below the Wireframe View button), or with the new shortcut, the H key.

  • Now that you this transparency mode can be quickly turned off and on, you can even switch while using the move tool, to better view surface shapes.

• Convert a reference face into a one-sided Phi face

  • Converting a reference face into Phi will now create an open face. In case you still need the old, two-sided converted face, you can hold the Shift key down when you click the "Convert" button.

• Shift-clicking on a face selects the whole body

  • Shift-clicking on a face selects all elements of the body (including faces, edges and vertices), rather than its faces only.

• "Toggle face visibility" ignores accidentally selected edges

  • As long as one or more faces are selected, the "Toggle face visibility" operation will ignore any selected edges (or vertices), and will just make the selected faces invisible.

• Sign "loading" at Phi initiation

  • Sometimes Phi takes some extra seconds to load, and this creates confusion. Responding to your concerns, the "loading dots" will now appear while Phi is loading.

Bug fixes:

• Shift-selected chains of edges reviewed

  • Bridged edges used to show some abnormalities when surrounding edges were shift-selected. We reviewed the chain selection and corrected this issue.

• Sectional planes minimum distance adjustment

  • In certain cases, the minimum distance of the sectional planes ended up not being small enough. This has been corrected, so the minimum distance now adjusts itself regardless of the initial model units.

• Cleaner stitching of open surfaces

  • Stitching two edges that belong to open faces will unify the surfaces, resulting in a single common edge.

• "Clicking" has been reviewed

  • In particular cases, the complexity of the session's content could affect the "clicking" action. We have isolated this correlation.

• Improved view at hidden edges mode

  • Inner side color follows outer side when in hidden edges mode

Hot-key changes:

• H: View hidden edges

• Shift-2: Delete non-fixed vertices with 2 edges only, but keep the edge shape as is

New functionalities:

• Limit the chain of edges to be selected

  • Simply Shift-clicking on an edge will select the entire chain or loop that edge belongs, like before. However, selected edges along that chain will now act as limits. So, you can click-select two edges, then Shift-click any edge between them, and that will select only the part between them. If only one edge is selected as a limit, it applies for that end of the chain.

User experience improvements:

• Phi coordinate system and planes equivalent to Onshape

  • To seamlessly export to Onshape, the Phi coordinate system and planes are now equivalent to the Onshape ones, so that one can quickly orientate around an exported model. "Left" and "Right" reference sketches have also been swapped, so they now follow the names commonly used in Orthographic Projection (identifying the sides of the object as viewed from the front). Also, "Top view" (or "Viewing down the -Z axis") will orientate the positive Y axis up, as is convention.

• Keep edited bodies in Tutorial Mode

  • It's sometimes useful to watch a tutorial video again while designing. For this reason, entering Tutorials will not be replacing your model with a cube, giving you the freedom to enter and exit the tutorial mode anytime you feel like it. Moreover, moving on to the next tutorial will not automatically restart the cube for you; instead, you can continue experimenting on what you already have. Of course, you can click the "Restart" button anytime, to start fresh.

• Fixed edges are included in a chain Shift-selection

  • Since confining the selection of a chain is now easier, we made things simpler: A Shift-selected chain of edges will not stop at fixed edges anymore.

Bug fixes:

• Make a single edge circular with parameters

  • You can now select a single edge and click the "Make circular with parameters" button. The operation, which was before only possible for a chain of two edges or more, will take place as usual. Only behind the scenes will a vertex be temporarily added, and then removed again.

• Crashes caused by smoothing a long chain of edges are prevented

  • Chains consisting of an arbitrary number of edges are now internally divided into smaller batches, so that the browser won't get overwhelmed and crash.

New functionalities:

• Split a face at its vertices

  • If you hold the Shift key down when you split one or more faces (clicking the Split button or hitting "S"), then the new edges created to split the selected face(s) will connect their vertices, rather than the middles of their edges.

User experience improvements:

• Progress of STL loading

  • While loading an STL file, the progress is displayed at the to right corner of the interface.

• Select and highlight inner side and mirror image

  • Both sides of a face, as well as its mirror image, will change color altogether when any of them is hovered or when that face is selected.

• Copying with fixed objects

  • A body with fixed objects can now be copied. The new body will not have any of its elements fixed and will appear with a manipulator on, ready to be moved where needed. The old body will remain as is; same fixed elements, same position.

• Copying body accidentally

  • Sometimes one can accidentally copy a body, and then have a coinciding duplicate. This is prevented from happening, by informing the user and urging them to move the copied body

• Attempting to quick scale ("D") with fixed objects

  • Quick Scaling ("D" shortcut) is an operation which in fact regards the body as a whole, whereas Scaling ("Shift-D") separately handles the assigned areas. For this reason, one cannot quick-scale ("D") a body with fixed objects. In case this is attempted, confusion will be prevented with a message prompting the use of normal Scaling ("Shift-D") instead.

• Scaling with Move Manipulator

  • The scaling balls of the move manipulator can now be used to scale along any axis; just place the Move Manipulator at an position (keep Shift pressed and drag its axes or rotating arrows) and then use the scaling balls as usual.

• Bridging edges got simpler

  • I can now stitch a "Π" gap by selecting only the 2 opposite edges (and not the middle one as well)

• Pop-out Move Manipulator is local

  • The Move Manipulator which appears automatically on a new popped-out face is oriented according to the local axis system (but you can still flip by hitting "G", as always).

• Attaching to STL when multiple STLs are loaded

  • If you have loaded more than one STL model and plan to use the “Attach to STL tool”, we now automatically select he model that is closest to the area of interest on your Phi model.

Bug fixes:

• Fixes to Bridging edges

  • Connecting open faces by selecting and bridging edges is now more robust, and covers some cases that used to be problematic.

• STL scaling

  • The size of an STL was not loaded or saved correctly in some cases, due to a bug related with the scaling factor

• Hidden faces

  • When working with hidden faces, specific conditions could change the status of some faces (i.e. whether they are hidden or shown) without the user's request. Carving and drawing edges only affect shown faces.

  • New faces: hidden or shown? Apart from fixing the above, new faces also behave more consistently regarding their hidden/shown status. As expected, they generally inherit the status of the faces they originate from.

• Move manipulator positioning

  • More consistent positioning of the move manipulator, e.g. after zooming, copying bodies, etc.

• Deforming a non-existent edge (crashing bug)

  • Check if edge exists before attempting to deform it.

• Attaching to STL

  • Improvements and small fixes to the Attach to STL tool (beta).

Hot-key changes:

Shift-S: Split at vertices

New functionalities

• Bridge patches

  • The bridge command has been extended to fill in gaps between faces with a new face.

User experience improvements:

• Smart Edge Smoothening

  • You can now quickly smoothen an entire area at once. Clicking on the "Smooth" button will attempt smoothen edges depending on the following criteria, while pressing the Shift key while clicking the button (or hitting the shortcut Shift-T) will do so respecting the position of the vertices:

    • What is selected?

      • Different elements will trigger different results. Specifically:

        • Faces: If a face is selected, adjacent edges will become tangent in pairs.

        • Edges: If edges are selected, the function remains as is: these edges will become tangent in pairs.

        • Vertices: If a vertex is selected, the edges coming out of this vertex will become tangent in pairs. This will not apply to any vertex which has more than 4 edges coming out, or is adjacent to a selected edge.

    • What is the angle?

      • If a pair of edges forms an angle bigger than 45°, then the above changes will not take place for that pair, as it is considered a delibarate design feature

• Brush select

  • Selecting multiple objects click-free: Keep the "B" (for brush) key pressed, as you simply move your mouse over the model. The objects you hover will be selected.

• Toggle invisibility

  • "Make invisible" and "Fill patches" have been merged into a single button: "Toggle invisibility".

Hot-key changes:

• B: Brush-select

• Shift-T: Smooth with fixed vertices

New functionalities:

• Materialize mirror image

  • A mirror image can now become a new, actual body with the click of a button, and can then be independently edited or moved.

• Save cropped reference STL model to file

  • Once you have loaded load an STL file, you can use the section planes to crop and save it into a new file (currently it will be downloaded to your file system).

• Save reduced version of STL model to file (beta)

  • You can reduce the number of the triangles of a loaded STL and save it in a new file.

• Attach surfaces to STL files (beta)

  • We are releasing a beta version of our new tool for (almost) automatically attaching Phi surfaces to imported reference STL models. This is extremely useful for replicating models, or for designing parts that must fit onto scanned objects. The interface is still rudimentary while we decide what the best workflow is, but we are releasing it because some users already need it.

User experience improvements:

• Faster loading times

  • Phi should now load faster within the Onshape tab.

• Auto-detect whether input STL file is ASCII or binary

  • User no longer has to declare the STL they load as binary. This is automatically detected.

Bug fixes:

• User access (authentication)

  • There was an instance where a properly subscribed user could not fully access Phi due to an issue in the authentication communication between Phi and Onshape. This issue has now been restored and thoroughly tested. Should you encounter any other such problems, please contact us right away!

• Big STLs can now be opened within Phi

  • Reading STL files in multiple strings to avoid string length limitations imposed by some browsers.

• Mid-operation autosave

  • Autosave is halted while an operation is taking place.

New functionalities:

• Always display numbers of selected elements.

  • At any moment, you can look at the top right corner of the interface and know how many vertices, edges and faces are currently selected on scene.

• Display number of consistency issues.

  • In case Phi identifies potential edge or surface issues, their number is also displayed at the top right corner of the interface.

• Adding vertices on multiple edges

  • When edges or faces are selected, hovering an edge and hitting the V shortcut will also create one vertex on each selected edge, or any other edge around selected faces.

User experience improvements:

• User-friendlier selection of default object

  • In the "Default object" selection modal, Size fields have been placed above Shape field, so the selection order is more clearly dictated.

• Default surfaces lie on the XY plane

  • When a default flat model (square or circle) is loaded, it is oriented vertical to the Z axis.

• Reference sketches do not overlap

  • Loaded sketches are only visible from one side, so they don’t get in the way.

Hot-key changes:

• Shift-Delete or Shift-Backspace: Delete selected edge(s) along with any floating vertices left.

New functionalities:

• Sectional View

  • You can now view or work with a section of your model. This functionality consists of two modes: "Setting section planes", where the section is defined by dragging one cutting plane or more through the model, and "Editing model at sectional view".

User experience improvements:

• All of your files collected in your Onshape document

  • Reference sketches and reference STL models are now loaded via the Onshape document. This means that they are saved in your current document, and will be reloaded automatically when the .phi model is opened again in this document (as the reference models imported from Part Studio do).

• Check model

  • The interface of the "Check model" functionality (available in Settings) has been redesigned and feedback notes have been added, so that the user can have a simpler overview of the checks. Background improvements have also been implemented.

• Other improvements

  • We also changed a few interface details, so that it is more clear how certain operations (such as Scaling) work.

Bug fixes:

• Minor bug fixes

New functionalities:

• Educational accounts file sharing with Phenometry

  • This new release includes a change in the application permissions. This was implemented so as to allow our educational users to automatically share with us the documents and files they create, which will help us offer support and guidance, and improve Phi. We will not publicize or share any documents with third parties.

  • Non-educational users will not have their documents and files automatically shared, under any circumstances.

User experience improvements:

• Zoom sensitivity is now configurable

  • The user can set how fast they will zoom in and out, by adjusting the zoom sensitivity from the Settings menu.

• Importing reference models improvement

  • For imported reference models (entire Part Studios or Parts independently handled) that are automatically re-opened when you load a Phi model, additional provisions have been made to take care of the case that the internal Onshape IDs have changed (for example, due to making a copy of an entire document). Phi will still identify and load the reference Parts or Part Studios.

Bug fixes:

• Non-standard keyboards are now supported

  • New keypress handling has been implemented to accommodate non-standard keyboards, such as AZERTY.

New functionalities:

• New server infrastructure

  • Sending to Onshape is now faster and there are no size limitations at exporting or importing.

• New model consistency checks

  • Missing smoothness can be identified according to a defined threshold, highlighted to the user, and automatically improved. A move that will possibly result to one or more faces becoming problematic (e.g. unmanufacturable) can also be automatically interrupted, apart from being highlighted.

Bug fixes

• Correction in scaling of imported .STL files

Hot-key changes:

• Better keyboard support

  • Both left and right Shift keys can now be used.

• Shift-I: Improve model smoothness

New functionalities:

• Selective Import from Onshape Part Studio

  • Can now independently import parts within Part Studios, not just the entire Part Studio, for conversion to Phi or as reference.

• "Suggest a feature” button added

  • Making a new suggestion for a new feature or improvement, as well as voting for suggestions already made, is now directly accessed from Phi.

User experience improvements:

• Overwrite prompt when saving to Onshape

  • When saving to Onshape in Phi format, with a name that already exists, user is prompted so that the existing file is not accidentally overwritten.

• More clear scale definition when importing reference .STL

• Tooltips and some help texts have been improved

• Some performance improvements

Hot-key changes:

• N: Snap to Reference body

• Ctrl-drag: Pan

New functionalities:

• Elements can be removed from the Symmetry Set

  • Isolated pairs of edges or faces can be removed from the Symmetry Set , while the rest of its elements remain intact.

User experience improvements:

• You can now add edges in any order

  • Phi now automatically assigns added elements to each symmetry side, so you can select them in any order you want. This also means you can add many edges or faces together, using the Shift or the A shortcuts. What is more, Phi accommodates color uniformity on each side of the symmetry plane.

• Offset definition requires two clicks only

  • Simply click on one of the vertices of the loop to be offset, and click again when the offset preview satisfies you.

Hot-key changes:

• Ctrl+S: Save as

• Υ: Add to Symmetry Set

New functionalities:

• A new, simple interface for dimensioning your design

  • Select an edge or a pair of vertices, and use them to give dimensions to a body or parts of it. Supports proportional or non-proportional rescaling

User experience improvements:

• Check before clearing symmetries

  • A confirmation dialog makes sure you don't accidentally lose your symmetry sets.

• Shift-click on edges also uses smoothness information

  • When forming edge chains using shift-click, we now take into account smoothness information, and not only topology, to build better chains.

Bug fixes:

• Symmetry bug

  • We fixed a bug that was causing face shapes not to update correctly while dragging symmetric edges.

New functionalities:

• Smoothness between faces and edges:

  • Select a face and an edge, and make them meet tangentially to give smoothness to their junction.

User experience improvements:

• Better handling addition of vertices and crosshair:

  • A faster and more precise user experience.

New functionalities:

• Easier addition of vertices:

  • Repeatedly hit shift while hovering over edge to display regular subdivision intervals. Hit V near any of them to add pair of vertices at symmetric intervals. If many edges are selected, vertices will be added on all. Also select existing vertex and then hover over edge with shift pressed to get indication of point at same X, Y or Z value. Hit V to add vertex at that point.

  

• New crosshair implementation:

  • Crosshairs are now added on regular intervals of edge length.

• Improved smoothening behaviour:

  • A more efficient implementation of smoothening of entire edge chains.

User experience improvements:

• Labels in settings menu:

  • Labels added for easier viewing of settings menu items.

    

Hot-key changes:

• Q, W, R to view elements:

  • Hit Q, W, R to show or hide vertices, edges and faces respectively.

• T for edge smoothness:

  • Hit T to make selected edge chains smooth or smoother.

Major improvements:

• New smoothness for edges and faces:

  • Direct, simple and intuitive control of smoothness for edges and faces, giving better results through simplified tools.

• More natural dragging behaviour:

  • Dragging objects now gives more expected deformations, preserves flatness where possible, and avoids movements in and out of the screen

• Separation of inner and outer space:

  • The inside surfaces of all objects are rendered in a different color (red) to give a more obvious separation of the inside and outside space. Helps identify consistency issues and better understand freeform geometric constructions.

New Functionalities:

• Multi-face bridging:

  • Bridge between sets consisting of different numbers of faces.

• Guards in model consistency checks: 

  • Set guards to interrupt dragging when model consistency checks fail.

New Functionalities:

• Model consistency checks:

  • You can now run consistency checks on your model to indentify problems such as edges that are excessively twisted or have high curvature, or extremely short. You can either run them on demand, or automatically after every operation.

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• Snapping bodies: 

  • You can now make a body snap onto another body by selecting vertices, edges or faces that you want to match

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• Automatically disconnect after inactivity:

  • The application will now disconnect after a long period of inactivity

New Functionalities:

• Curvature combs:

  • You can now display curvature combs on one or more edges, and see them interactively change as you change the edge shape.

    

New Functionalities:

• Merge Bodies on Edge:

  • Allows merging two bodies by selecting two edges, one on each, and joining them on those edges.

Hot-key Changes:

• F: Fit all body into view (shortcut to View All button).

• X: Fix or unfix items (was previously F).

Other Improvements:

• 0-thickness surfaces:

  • Better visualization, avoiding Z-fighting artifacts.

New Functionalities:

• Rotate in place with arrow keys:

  • Allows merging two bodies by selecting two edges, one on each, and joining them on those edges.

Icon and menu changes:

• Menu appearance:

  • Any button containing menus appear with a line underneath them. If any items in the menus are active, the lines light up in bright yellow.

• Mirror command:

  • Changed the icon.

Other Improvements:

• Panning speed 1-1 with mouse movements:

  • Regardless of zoom level, when panning the model movement follows exactly the mouse movement.

• Color picker:

  • Improved interface for picking face colors.

New Functionalities:

• Sending Phi models as closed bodies to Onshape:

  • Onshape has some specific strict requirements for the format to translate Phi models into Onshape Part Studios. Sometimes these were not met, so we changed the format to comply with Onshape and Phi models are now consistently translated into closed bodies, as they should.The left/right and up/down arrow keys now rotate stepwise around 'center of mass'.

• Units and model scale:

  • When starting, importing, exporting models, units and scale are now handled more consistently.

• Enabling/disabling tooltips:

  • We added a control in the Preferences menu for enabling/disabling tooltips, as they were sometimes getting in the way of users who didn’t feel they needed them.

• Faces made invisible, not deleted:

  • This is a point that caused confusion, as faces are not actually deleted, they are made invisible (and can be made visible again). A separate button was added for this. Instead of deleting faces one must dissolve faces into one.

• Symmetry and mirror planes on any face:

  • Any face can now be used as reference for symmetry or mirror planes. 

• Pop-out / thicken command:

  • We added a version of the pop-out that removes all other faces except the ones being popped-out, to simulate a thickening from a 0-thickness surface.

• More features for coordinates:

  • We added more functionalities for displaying and directly setting the coordinates of vertices and moving objects.

• Setting decimal places to display:

  • Can set the number of decimal places to display for any number or coordinate value.

• Option to break tangencies when fairing edges:

  • In the window where you set the fairing strength you can also declare that any tangencies at the ends of the chain of edges being faired should be broken, to obtain different results.

• Scale factor when loading default model:

  • We added a small interface for declaring the scale/dimensions of the default models being loaded.

Icon, menu and user interface changes:

• Tutorial contents and hotkeys in sidebar:

  • Contents of each tutorial video added in separate tab for easier search. An additional tab shows all the hotkeys (shortcuts) in the sidebar, next to the tutorial videos.

• New hotkeys for temporarily hiding vertices edges: 

  • Hitting Q or W will hide or show the vertices or edges, to help object selection when there are too many.

• Hotkeys in Floating toolbar:

  • Hotkeys now appear within floating toolbar.

Other Improvements:

• High CPU usage due to video codec:

  • We had reports of very high CPU usage in some browser/OS combinations. Turned out this was due to the short animations in our Phi tooltips that were encoded in a way that some browsers had trouble rendering. We re-encoded them and the problem was solved.

• Symmetry bug fix:

  • Fixed a bug that sometimes came up when declaring symmetries.

• Better grid behaviour:

  • We made the grid become gray when not viewing it down the X, Y or Z direction, to indicate that it’s not active, i.e. you cannot use it for snapping.

• Lighting improvements:

  • Our initial placement of lights around the model was found to be sometimes confusing, so we replaced that with a simpler setup that follows the camera’s viewpoint.

• Change in 'Delete Vertex' behaviour:

  • Deleting a vertex with only two edges on it will delete the vertex. When there are more than two edges, it will also delete the edges.

• Shift-click to unfix all selected elements:

  • Shift-clicking on the “fix” icon will un-fix selected elements.

• Improved coordinate axis appearance:

  • The coordinate axes/planes now have constant dimensions on the screen, regardless of zoom level.

• Change in 'Draw Linear Edge' and 'Linear Carve' behaviour:

  • You now need to hit “Shift-E” or “Shift-C” to start a linear edge or a linear carve, but you no longer need to keep the shift key pressed during the mouse move where you trace the cut.

• Part Studio reference models will automatically import:

  • When you reload a .phi file, it will automatically read in any Part Studios you had imported.