Who here is professionally using Phi Freeform Modeler?

Evan_Reese

I still love the idea of an Onshape-integrated freeform tool, and I respect that Phi is trying something new and not just doing a me-too Sub-D tool. I'm semi-keeping up with their updates and it seems like they've come a long way since I beta tested way back when (at the time it was interesting, but I couldn't picture where I'd prefer it to standard surfacing tools). I'm still curious to hear an account from someone who has actually integrated it into their workflow. Does anyone have an experience they'd like to share with the class? Pros, cons, tips, anecdotes, etc.

S1mon

I tried Phi out a while back, and I continue to follow it, and found a few issues:

1. The surfacing quality was not where I would want it to be. Yes, you could very quickly create swoopy surfaces, and there are some unique tools, but overall is it something that would compete with Rhino, Alias, ISDX, CATIA, NX or ICEM - no. It might be good for form finding, but it's not a Class-A surfacing tool as far as I could tell. The latest update promotes that they've updated the underlying math to improve the curve quality, but the demo still clearly shows that they are G2 not G3. If there are better ways to keep things G3, they need much better demos - I see the curvature plot below, and I'm done - I would not touch this.
2. The smoothing technology is interesting, but it often does things which I would never want. 
3. The yearly cost is not that different from a seat of Rhino - which is orders of magnitude more powerful, although it's not integrated or cloud based. But then Phi is only so integrated. It's contained within the Onshape document, but it still uses the concept of saving and auto backups - not microversions.
4. While I see a certain amount of development as evidenced by the releases, it seems like it's so niche that I question if it will be around in the future. Their YouTube page has 65 subscribers. Not thousands, sixty-five. Rhino has 24.2k, Shapr3D has 141k, and Nick Kallen who's developing Plasticity - which is almost out of beta - has 4.26k. Phi needs a lot more users and/or much much better demos.

S1mon

Further examples:

Phi concept car demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC06ZiqODMA



Here's a Plasticity beta user doing car modeling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNMbxNc5BOk



Plasticity has G3 Blend curves, and can do freeform 3D control point editing of curves, but the surfacing tools still have very basic controls. The surfacing shown here is definitely not Class-A, but seeing the workflow is impressive (I believe this person is in the gaming industry, not CAID). I'm sure much better work could be done in Phi than shown above, but the demos are dreadfully basic. Who would ever show automotive design CAD not in perspective?

Personally, if I really needed to do high end surfacing that I couldn't manage to do directly in Onshape, I would likely get a seat of Rhino. Rhino is also a bit of a Swiss army knife that has a tool for everything, even if it's not perfect. Sometimes you need something to flatten a 3D surface, or make some crazy pattern.

I already paid for Plasticity because it's so inexpensive, and the trajectory of development has been impressive, but until it gets to a 2.0 release I probably won't do much more than play with it. Plasticity 2.0 should bring things like lofts that update when you change the driving curves, and possibly editing of the CVs in the middles of surfaces. Right now it doesn't even have curvature combs, so I can only do so much real work with it (it does have zebras and nice HDRI shaders, but no curvature combs!). It is based on Parasolid, so there are opportunities to edit/create things that I know will translate back and forth to Onshape perfectly.