What's New in Profile Builder 4?

Watch the New Features Video!

Major New Features

• Join Profile Builder Objects
  • Pre-select Profile Members or Assemblies and click the Join button in the toolbar
• Extend Tool now works for Assemblies
  • Extend, split (using CTRL), or create a gap in a closed loop assembly
• Assembly Placement Point Tool
  • Click to set a new insertion point for the assembly.  ENTER to apply.
• New Hole Features
  • Select holes
  • Create holes in Assemblies
  • Move / Copy holes within Profile Members or Assemblies
  • Edit hole properties within Profile Members or Assemblies
  • Delete holes within Assemblies
  • Holes applied to Assemblies now persist after editing
• Assembly Height Tool for stretching or shrinking an assembly
  • Set the stretch plane by moving the red line. ENTER to apply.
• ‘Live Edit’ an Assembly
  • Use right-click context menu or double-click the apply assembly attributes button. In this mode, any changes to the assembly settings will be applied automatically to the selected assemblies.
• Snap Length can now be set and saved for an assembly
• Add Points to Path of Profile Member or Assembly
  • Use right-click context menu to access this feature.  Then click the end of the object you want to add points to.
• Trim to Face now supports trimming to two faces
  • After selecting first face, hold SHIFT to pick the second face
• Random scale of assembly components
  • Enter min and max uniform scale values
• New Layout options for Assembly components
  • Auto Layout (visually pleasing distribution)
  • Force component at mid-point
  • Force gap at mid-point
  • Component at mid-point only
• Hide start and end of Profile Members inside assemblies to create visual continuity between Profile Members and Component parts
• New ‘None’ Junction option for building discontinuous Profile Members along each edge with no trimming
• Set visibility of assembly parts

Other Notable New Features and Improvements

You can now:

• (Assembly) Disable auto-updating of assembly thumbnails
• (Assembly) Disable junction placement on components when using max or fixed spacing
• (Assembly) Disable start or end placement on components regardless of layout, max, or fixed spacing.
• (Assembly) Duplicate assembly parts with control of relative offset
• (Assembly) Create a new blank part without having to duplicate an existing part
• (Assembly) Change the height of an assembly and sub-assembly spans will also be stretched accordingly
• (Assembly) Use a component part as a span support even if it does not have an actual component reference from the model.  Useful for invisible or dummy ‘spacer’ components.
• (Assembly) Click a button to place a copy of an assembly component in the model to facilitate editing
• (Assembly) Re-order assembly parts
• Pre-select multiple Profile Members for trimming prior to activating the trim tools and all will be trimmed simultaneously
• Preselect multiple faces and build PB objects along the perimeter of the faces in one operation
• Press ALT while using a build tool to load attributes from an object in your model
• Press END to cycle the rotation of a profile in 45 degree increments while using the build tool.  Also works when adding holes with custom profiles
• Press TAB to toggle mirroring of profiles when using the build tool or when adding holes with custom profiles
• Use the Extend tool on an Profile Member of Assembly with a closed loop path to create a gap at the desired location
• Hold SHIFT when using a PB Picker (eye-dropper) tool to select objects outside of the active editing context
• Type in a distance followed by ‘s’ when using the Extend Tool to set the total SUM of the length of the object
• Inference parallel and perpendicular to entities when using the build tools
• Assembly save prompt can now be disabled in the PB Preferences dialog
• Added a home and samples folder for custom hole profiles.  Home folder can be changed in the PB Preferences dialog

UI and Quality-of-Life Improvements

• 2D preview of profile or assembly is now displayed prior to clicking first point with build tool
• You can now assign keyboard short-cut keys to the various major dialog tools
• Click on checkbox label is equivalent of checking the box itself
• Enter or Return key triggers change event for text input fields and text becomes auto-selected.  This is especially useful in combination with the new live edit assembly feature.
• Last built assembly will be loaded automatically into the Assembly Dialog when opening the dialog for the first time
• Warning notifications are displayed if you attempt to modify the internal entities of a PB object
• Arrow key axis-locking can now be used for the revolve tool and hole tool
• Extend tool inference improvements
• Changed labels for rectangular hole dimensions to be more intuitive.  Width and Height labels are now used instead of Length and Width
• If you change the axes of a PB object, the object will now be automatically rebuilt.  This allows you to immediately detect if the new axis orientation causes the extrusion to change.  (Axes orientation can affect how PB objects are extruded)
• Long filenames are no longer truncated in Profile or Assembly browser
• Fixed approximately 75 bugs and issues in addition to those listed above