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What is the difference to other tools?
Hi,
there are other tools on the market like NX Mechatronics Concept Designer or Industral Physics - what are the differences to these tools?
Answer
First off all we try to make the business different on a shareware basis. We also hope to encourage by that a large user community which is exchanging solutions - like it is usually done in the Unity Echo System.
Second of all Game4Automation is a totally open system. If we don't have something in our Framework you could do it on your own or look in the Unity Asset Store for solutions (https://assetstore.unity.com/). Everything is possible like in Games. For sure it is not so deeply integrated into the CAD like for example NX Mechatronics Concept Desiger. But by this deep integration you also get all the limitations. No way to deliver the digital twin to your customer. No way to build your own application on top of your digital twin. These limitation are there because of technology or APIs missing in these tools or because of the strong and very restricting license contracts No way to use newest VR and AR technology - which is allways integrated in unity itsel. And like in Game Game4Aumation could be deployed to anywhere - the web, windows PCs, Android or IOS.
Game4Automation is free under the Apache2.0 License. You could deliver - what you develop based on it - to anywhere!
Hello,
I am currently working on a digital twin project; the idea is to start using virtual commissioning. Our first researches led us to NX MCD, which is performant in term of physical modelling (gravity, inertia, collisions, friction…) and can connect to PLCSIM Advanced, SIMIT, WinCC to test automatons and automatons programs.
I was wondering how well are Unity and Game4Automation handling these aspects compared to NX MCD (CAD part obviously not included, just for virtual commissioning).
Regards,
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
I know NX MCD very well (for example, we did a Simit coupling for the first time before Siemens did it themselves, and we also implemented and sold NX MCD to several customers as a Siemens partner). Nowadays we are completely out of the Siemens business and I don't know the latest developments of NX MCD, but I'll try to give you my opinion about the differences.
This is comparable to NX MCD:
- Import CAD data (via Step or other formats with PIXYZ).
- Define kinematics, kinematic groups, ....
- Define drives (in G4A there are more detailed drive behaviors and you could implement your own with C#, then you wouldn't need Simit).
- Connect the drives and sensors with Simit or PLCSim-Advanced or OPCUA or TwinCAT....
- You have the choice to use Simit or to model the behavior of the sensors and drives in Unity
- Define movements, gears, CAMS
- Moving goods based on forces, transport surfaces and gravity.
What does not work with G4A:
- Measure forces (because of PhysX limitations).
- Moving drives with forces (which mostly doesn't make sense because we need to guarantee the position of kinematic chains, which doesn't work stably based on physics due to a certain spring behavior of the solver) - in G4A we can guarantee the final positions
- Use as CAD system (design is always imported via Step or PIXYZ).
What works in G4A and not in NX MCD
- Distribute your Digital Twin as a fully functional executable to anyone in the world without paying license fees to anyone.
- Distribute it across WebGL, Android, IOS, Linux (one Digital Twin, multiple distribution platforms).
- Create your own UI functions, buttons.
- Use all available Unity features, asset store solutions ....
- Integrate any type of VR, AR with any type of user interaction.
- Render in real-time high quality with live shadows, reflections, real materials....
- Move more than 800 things on transport surfaces (in my time, MCD lost performance very quickly)
- Open source code, documented and freely available C# API.
Best regards
Thomas
Customer support service by UserEcho
Hi Jeff,
I know NX MCD very well (for example, we did a Simit coupling for the first time before Siemens did it themselves, and we also implemented and sold NX MCD to several customers as a Siemens partner). Nowadays we are completely out of the Siemens business and I don't know the latest developments of NX MCD, but I'll try to give you my opinion about the differences.
This is comparable to NX MCD:
- Import CAD data (via Step or other formats with PIXYZ).
- Define kinematics, kinematic groups, ....
- Define drives (in G4A there are more detailed drive behaviors and you could implement your own with C#, then you wouldn't need Simit).
- Connect the drives and sensors with Simit or PLCSim-Advanced or OPCUA or TwinCAT....
- You have the choice to use Simit or to model the behavior of the sensors and drives in Unity
- Define movements, gears, CAMS
- Moving goods based on forces, transport surfaces and gravity.
What does not work with G4A:
- Measure forces (because of PhysX limitations).
- Moving drives with forces (which mostly doesn't make sense because we need to guarantee the position of kinematic chains, which doesn't work stably based on physics due to a certain spring behavior of the solver) - in G4A we can guarantee the final positions
- Use as CAD system (design is always imported via Step or PIXYZ).
What works in G4A and not in NX MCD
- Distribute your Digital Twin as a fully functional executable to anyone in the world without paying license fees to anyone.
- Distribute it across WebGL, Android, IOS, Linux (one Digital Twin, multiple distribution platforms).
- Create your own UI functions, buttons.
- Use all available Unity features, asset store solutions ....
- Integrate any type of VR, AR with any type of user interaction.
- Render in real-time high quality with live shadows, reflections, real materials....
- Move more than 800 things on transport surfaces (in my time, MCD lost performance very quickly)
- Open source code, documented and freely available C# API.
Best regards
Thomas