Canonical Recognition

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Make imported geometry easier to work with

A cylinder can arrive from another CAD system as a complex spline surface, often called NURBS geometry. Its simple shape becomes harder for software to use. Canonical Recognition finds analytic forms within a chosen tolerance and replaces suitable geometry with those forms.

Give measurement, CAM, and model-preparation tools direct access to properties such as an axis, radius, or plane normal.

How it works

Set how closely a replacement must follow the original geometry. The component checks suitable spline curves and surfaces for analytic shapes such as circles or cylinders. It replaces accepted matches and records the changes. Your application can then use the simpler geometry for measurements or later modeling steps.

Recover analytic curves and surfaces

Recognize lines, circles, and ellipses in suitable spline curves. Recover planes, cylinders, cones, spheres, and tori from supported B-spline or Bézier surfaces.

Choose recognition tolerances that match your accuracy needs. This gives a preparation workflow a clear basis for deciding which replacements are acceptable.

Expose axes, radii, and simpler geometry

Analytic forms help applications measure diameters, find axes, and prepare geometry for further calculation. Compatible neighboring faces or edges can also be combined, with modification history available to trace changes.

Run recognition after import, before an analysis step, or as a command users choose for a selected region.

Control how closely simpler geometry follows the source

Recognition compares an analytic shape with incoming spline geometry. A tight tolerance accepts only close matches. A larger tolerance may recognize more shapes and allow greater differences from the source.

Keeping this setting with a prepared model helps users understand how geometry changed. Modification history can identify affected faces and edges, while model checks help confirm that connected regions remain suitable for later work.

Recover useful dimensions from imported parts

A quoting or measurement tool may expect a cylindrical face to provide an axis and radius. After exchange between CAD systems, that face can arrive as a spline. Users may then need to select reference points or rebuild geometry just to obtain information that was simple in the original design.

Canonical Recognition can recover a supported analytic form when the imported surface matches it within the chosen tolerance. Your application can use the recovered cylinder for diameter measurements or pass it to feature recognition. Modification history helps identify the changed geometry during review.

For a supplier-file service, this provides a preparation step that several later operations can share. Keep the recognition tolerance and check results with the prepared part so teams can understand which replacements were accepted. The result gives later tools simpler geometry to work with and a clear record of the changes.

Connect simple geometry with feature meaning

Catalog-Based Feature Recognition uses geometric roles and relationships to identify supported holes, pockets, and other patterns. Combine it with Canonical Recognition when your workflow needs both simpler surfaces and recognized feature groups.

Add Shape Healing & Validation for model checks. Bring a typical imported part and tell us which properties or operations your application needs.