Guide

The AddPly workflow, start to finish

This one page maps the whole path, from a STEP file to a saved, exportable laminate. Each stage below links to the guided exercise that walks its exact controls in Learn; this page stays the overview so you never have to guess what comes next. Everything happens in your browser — AddPly keeps your projects in this browser at this address; nothing is uploaded, and the only file the product writes is one you asked it to export or print. When you are ready, Open workspace is the application itself.

Before you start

• For reading: any browser, phone included. This guide, the exercises in Learn and the reference studies below reflow to a phone screen.
• For authoring: a desktop browser. Full CAD authoring is desktop-first — it needs a mouse, a keyboard and room for a 3D view.
• A STEP file of your mould or tool, if you are bringing your own part.
• Storage enabled for this site. A private window usually refuses it — the workbench will say so plainly and let you work and export, rather than pretending to save.

Published reference studies

No STEP file yet? Four published laminates ship as inspectable studies in the composites bench. Each card below is drawn from the same source records the bench reads, with every number tagged by where it came from. These curved studies document laminate definitions; the CAD laminate workspace currently refuses to convert them into its planar editable-tool representation rather than flattening them.

The workflow, start to finish

Choose your starting point

No part ready? Open Library in the workspace and choose a card marked Opens in CAD. Read its limitations, then open an editable copy. Reset to template rebuilds the shipped starter after you have dealt with any unsaved work. The copy you already saved remains a separate project. Exercise 1 walks through the four-ply starter; its cutout is retained as intent and is not previewed in the viewport.

For your own part, follow the STEP workflow below. Reusable material sets and stack patterns add declarations to the region you select.

1 · Import the mould

Open the CAD laminate workspace and choose your STEP file under Source geometry. OpenCascade reads it in a Web Worker, so the window stays responsive while a large mould is measured, and you get the list of trimmed faces with the kernel’s exact areas and surface types. An import always starts a new, unsaved design; it never writes over the project you had open.

2 · Group the tooling faces and cut the boundary

Click faces in the view, or tick them in the list, and name a tooling group — the set of faces one laminate region may be cut across. Then choose a projection plane, sketch a boundary of at least three points, and apply it: the kernel reports the exact clipped area and names any group faces the boundary missed. A boundary that crosses none of them is refused, and the region you already had is left alone. The polygon is swept along the plane’s normal — a direction you chose to cut along, not a curve drawn on the surface and not a flat pattern.

Practice this on the shipped reference part, no CAD file needed: Exercise 2 — Multi-face CAD laminate.

3 · Stack the plies

Open Materials, then Material sets. Review a set’s assumptions and changes before pressing Apply set, or create your own material card. Its nominal thickness is a declaration, and applying a set does not change existing ply thicknesses.

In Regions, select the region you want to laminate. Its projected boundary records a zero reference. To declare another reference, open Rosettes from the Model tree and author the supported rosette. In Ply stack, expand Apply stack pattern: choose a Pattern, Region, Material and Zero reference. Check the tool-side-first angles and total thickness in the preview, then apply. The pattern appends plies; one Undo removes the whole application.

Use Add a ply for individual declarations. Each region’s declared stack thickness is shown separately. Overlapping regions require exact local declared-thickness evidence; the sum of separate region stacks is not a thickness everywhere on the part.

Walk through this end to end: Exercise 1 — First laminate and Exercise 3 — Materials and process intent.

4 · Save, export, and hand off

Open Export → Summary… to review the laminate, declared rules and evidence states. Measure required exact evidence in Regions. After an edit, regenerate a STALE summary and remeasure any stale geometry evidence. A Current summary describes the applied design; unapplied form text is included only after you press Apply in that form.

Save project keeps the design in this browser and reports success only after the browser has committed the write. Export project… downloads a portable file carrying the exact CAD geometry inline — the copy that travels, which does not change what the browser holds. When design intent is ready to package for a future AddPath consumer, Export → Export for AddPath… carries the tooling group’s support surfaces, ordered plies, materials, orientations, rosettes and process cards. It contains no fibre paths, courses, drape, verdict or machine program, and the receiving adapter is not built or tested here, so exporting does not establish consumer compatibility.

The full handoff exercise, with its stated boundaries: Exercise 4 — AddPath-ready handoff. Declared stacking rules currently prevent HDF5 and AddPath export. Export project… preserves them.

Designing with your existing chat? Connect your assistant to this public AddPly project, then describe your part, loads and attachments. The assistant can inspect and edit the project you see.

All four exercises

Prefer to learn the real controls by doing them, in order? Start here.

1. First laminate: a four-ply [0/+45/-45/90] — Open a shipped planar example, confirm its four declared plies, save it, reopen it and export it.
2. Multi-face CAD laminate: several faces, one tooling surface — Open the shipped B02 curved skin, group its connected faces, read the cross-face region, inspect the declared rules, measure exact evidence, save/reopen and produce the summary and plybook.
3. Materials and process intent: author, bind, and let evidence go stale — Create or import a material card, bind it to plies, add a process card, read usage and counts, then regenerate stale evidence.
4. Inspect layers, add patches and understand ply drops — Continue on your own mold: build the skin, vary reinforcement footprints, inspect each layer and read the local thickness steps.
5. AddPath-ready handoff: export design intent, not paths — Assemble the design intent AddPly can currently provide and export the open handoff, with its boundaries stated.

All exercises and the sandbox challenge

Moving work between machines or addresses

Browser storage belongs to one browser at one site address. A project saved at one address is not visible at another — including moving from a local address to a hosted one.

Export project… on the first, Open file… on the second. The file is fully revalidated and its geometry rebuilt before it becomes a project there, and the file you opened is never modified.

When something is refused

Help and beta feedback offers recovery steps and a local report you can review before sharing. Release notes lists this beta’s boundaries.

A refusal means nothing changed. The design you had is the design you still have. The workbench names what it refused and why:

• A boundary that crosses nothing — no region is created, and the previous one is untouched.
• A face that no longer matches — a project whose stored geometry does not rebuild to the same faces is not opened, because plies would otherwise be re-associated with a different face.
• A project saved elsewhere since you opened it — another tab moved it on. You are offered the saved revision, or keeping yours as a separate project. Saving again is not offered, because it would only repeat the refusal.
• A stored project that will not read back — the revision saved before it is offered, as a preview that writes nothing until you choose to keep it separately or repair the project.

What AddPly is for, and what it is not

AddPly is browser-based laminate design on imported CAD: multi-face tooling surfaces, boundaries drawn across face seams, declared plies, local browser persistence, and a printable revision-stamped schedule and plybook.

It is not a drape simulation, it solves no fibre paths, it carries no certified material properties, and it has no cloud backup or cross-device sync. AddPly does not plan fibre placement paths; connectors to the upcoming browser-based planner and to AddPath, the separate Addcomposites path-planning product, are on the roadmap and are not implemented.