BUILD3D

3D Geotechnical geometry design

BUILD3D is a revolutionary software tool for constructing 3D analysis-ready geometries.

Its powerful feature-based design allows for quick construction of 3D geotechnical models with complex topography or geology, sweeping tunnels or rivers, and 3D geometry from CAD files.

Key Features

Seamless Integration

BUILD3D includes the ability to import surface meshes directly from a Leapfrog geological model through Central connectivity. Surface geometry created in CAD software can also be imported as background surface meshes to simplify geometry creation. BUILD3D supports the import of multiple 2D cross-sections from Leapfrog through Central, or through CAD source files.

Feature-Based Design

BUILD3D is a feature based geometry creation tool that allows modifications of a model at any point in the Design History. Changes are quickly and automatically cascaded through the entire model geometry, providing huge time-savings.

Powerful Operations

A suite of powerful Boolean operations are available in BUILD3D, including intersect, cut, merge, and imprint. These operations provide the necessary tools for creating 3D geometries from scratch or modifying geometries imported from STEP files.

Mesh Generation

Generate the finite element mesh throughout the 3D domain with the click of a button. BUILD3D automatically produces a clean mesh, removing the need to spend hours on manual mesh adjustments, and material and boundary condition assignments.

BUILD3D provides the tools to create any geometry.

Dams and Levees

Import complex surface topography or stratigraphic boundaries from CAD files and use the imported surfaces to generate regions. Import the dam geometry or use the plane and sketch tools to generate a dam in BUILD3D. Use the Sweep feature to sweep a levee cross-section along a natural river path.

Roads, Bridges, and Embankments

Use the plane and sketch features in BUILD3D to generate road and embankment geometries, or import these from CAD files. Sweep a road and embankment cross-section along a defined path.

Open Pit Mines

Import pit shell surfaces and geological formations from CAD files. Use the cut features to remove material in the pit, and set up multiple analyses to model pit excavation. These analyses can be used to assess groundwater seepage and stability over time.

Underground Excavations

Use the Sweep tool to generate a body representing a tunnel cutting through soil or rock regions. Use the cut operations to remove material from the tunnel. Include multiple geometries in a single project file representing tunnel construction over time.

BUILD3D comprehensive feature set

Feature-based geometry creation offers significant time-savings
NURBS-based geometry for greater flexibility and precision
Import 2D GeoStudio analyses with materials and boundary conditions
Import bodies (SETP/STP, IGES), profiles (STP, IGES) or background mesh (STL, DWG/DXF)

Intuitive sketch tools including sketch, plane, sweep, extrude
Easy Boolean operations: intersect, cut, merge and imprint
Materials, boundary conditions applied to geometry objects
Clean mesh generation with tetrahedral or hexahedral mesh

Large model support
Powerful results visualization including contours and isosurfaces
Export surface mesh, body or results from selected nodes or surfaces