TCST - Magics Software

Total C S Team Inc. is an authorized distributor of Magics RP and Magics RP modules

Magics Base

Magics gives you full control over your STL files. Among the offered functions you find:

Visualization, measuring and manipulation of STL files

Fixing STL files, uniting shells, trimming surfaces, double triangle detector

Cutting STL files, punching holes, extruding surfaces, hollowing, applying offset

Boolean operations, triangle reduction, smoothing, labeling

Nesting, collision detection

Coloring STL files

All these functions can be grouped in two categories:
» STL editing functionality
» STL repair functionality

STL Editing

For everyone who works with STL files, Magics is the ideal and complete software solution. Magics sets the standard for ease of use and efficiency when working with faceted data. It offers advanced and highly automated tools for STL manipulation options.

Intuitive STL handling

Intuitive and easy-to-use tools enable you to quickly rotate, translate, resize and assemble parts.

Extensive measuring capabilities can be used as an alternative to traditional paper drawings. Magics enables you to perform 2D and 3D measurements of distances, radii and angles based on planes, cylinders, axis, spheres etc (picture 1).

Cut-away views and cross sections can be generated to obtain a better understanding of the part.

You can generate customized printouts to document features of the part.

User co-ordinate systems can be created and applied to the parts. As in CAD systems, the Magics user can define and work with multiple co-ordinate systems.

Dedicated functions ensure an easy orientation by allowing quick alignment of parts.

A free STL compression tool "STLzip" is available for download from the Materialise website. By saving your work in a MGX file, you can compress STL files 10 to 20 times. This MGX format can be written and read by Magics.

Powerful STL manipulation

Intelligent and powerful STL manipulation tools enable you to modify designs directly on the STL data:

Parts can be labeled with characters in any Windows True Type Font in any size and at any location on the model, even on complex surfaces. Information (e.g. version number) can be engraved or embossed on the part (picture 2).

To support color capable machines, painting parts is simple in Magics. Different colors can manually or automatically be assigned to triangles and surfaces. The colors can be adjusted to compensate for color changes due to the RP process. Color information is also preserved when importing VRML files (picture 3).

Parts can be cut and punched along user defined paths, enabling you to produce large parts in different pieces. Use the advanced cut to increase the contact surfaces between the cut parts to boost the strength of the glued part (picture 4).

Offsets can be applied to make volumes from shells or to compensate for machining, painting, sandblasting,...

Boolean operations turn Magics into an STL based CAD system. Volumes can be added or removed by uniting, intersecting or subtracting STL files. Starting from different volumes, you can create a single shell object (picture 5).

Even parts with the most complex geometries can be hollowed. These parts are not only faster to build, but are also more accurate because less internal stresses are created during building (picture 6).

Creating various objects - such as spheres, cylinders, boxes, cones, pyramids, prisms, inserts and more - in STL format is easy to do.

Surfaces can be extruded to create machine stock.

Easy manipulation of scanned data

With a 3D scanner a large amount of points can be collected which results in large STL files. The triangle reduction feature rationalizes the size of this data with sophisticated options to considerably facilitate the data handling.

Using a 3D scanner to create an STL file of an object always entails noise. The triangle smoother removes the noise, this way improving the quality of the surface (picture 7).

STL Repair Many STL files contain flipped triangles, bad edges, holes or other defects that require repairing before they can be used. Magics provides unmatched means to interact directly on the defective triangles, allowing you to correct an STL file in a matter of minutes. Solve any problem without compromising the model thanks to the automated tools!
	Clear visualization and information Magics has excellent visualization tools for highlighting problems in STL files. Triangles with inverse normals, bad edges, gaps, etc are clearly indicated. In a blink of an eye you can see whether the STL file has flaws and where exactly the defects are located. Highlight bad contours to easily find even the smallest defects. Detailed STL analysis is available too, just perform a check of the properties. All information about the dimensions, number of triangles, number of bad edges, volume, number of shells, ... is generated by a single mouse click.
	Automatic repair Thanks to the use of intelligent algorithms, most STL repairing can be done automatically, which drastically reduces the time required. Flipped triangles and shells - with normals pointing in the wrong direction - can be inverted automatically. Magics determines the inside and outside of the part and then checks every triangle to see if its orientation fits this description. If not, the normal of the triangle will be inverted (picture 2).
	Bad edges - created by gaps between triangles - can be automatically stitched. Just indicate the desired tolerance and the number of iterations and with a single mouse click, Magics closes the gaps without exceeding the indicated tolerance. By stitching in iterations, you ensure that even the smallest details of your design are pre-served during stitching (picture 3).
	Automatic triangulation to fill holes and gaps is a real time saver. One click... and the hole is filled! Even holes with a complex geometry or with multiple contours can be quickly filled using the advanced or freeform hole filling functions. These functions fill the hole according to the geometry of the surrounding area. In seconds complex holes are smoothly filled (picture 4). With Magics double surfaces are easily detected. While loading STL files you can also choose to remove identical triangles.
Advanced manipulation At all times you can also manually repair defective or missing triangles. With a simple mouse click selected triangles can be deleted, normals can be inverted and new triangles can be created e.g. to fill gaps (picture 5). Magics enables you to perform Boolean and repairing operations on the different shells. Separate parts or shells can very quickly be merged to obtain a single shelled part. Repairing untrimmed surfaces becomes an easy task when using Magics. Just mark the triangles that need to be trimmed and Magics will cut them along at the intersection line (picture 6). back to top »

See the full list of Magics RP Features

Click here for information about Materialise's 3-matic product