Imagine one day, a customer asks you for a CAD file of a design you are working on, but you don’t want them to be able to measure it. What could you do? If you send them CAD data they will be able to measure it. Then another day, your marketing team wants to render a design you are working on, but they don’t want to see all of the details in your model. You could remove all the details in your CAD model but that would take up valuable time. Do these stories sound familiar? If so, you might want to consider using a Lightweight 3D format to share design information.

First, the question needs to be asked, what exactly is a Lightweight 3D format? Basically, it is a format for sharing design information that has the following qualities:

1. It can be easily shared
2. It can be easily viewed
3. It contains 3D geometric information
4. It does not contain any parametric design information
5. It can be generated from almost any CAD format
6. It can be used in animations
7. It can be used in renderings
8. It can be used for technical illustrations

Note that standard CAD formats are great for designing but have many limitations when it comes to information exchange, for example they can’t always be easily shared and viewed. Lightweight 3D formats were developed to overcome these limitations and thus enabling collaboration.

Let’s say you decide to use a Lightweight format to share data then the question becomes which Lightweight format would you use? There are several options, below is a list of some of the most popular choices available.

eDrawings

It is interesting to note that eDrawings was one of the first Lightweight 3D formats to be developed. Although it was originally developed for SolidWorks, there are now versions that work with all the leading CAD packages. A great feature of eDrawings is that you do not need a viewer to open an eDrawings file, since it allows you to create HTML files (containing the 3D data) that can be opened in Internet Explorer. These files are also very compact, can be marked up electronically by you or your customer and can be easily shared via e-mail.

3D PDF

PDF has become a very popular format for sharing 2D drawing data and text documents as well. The free and ubiquitous viewer (Adobe Reader) and its compact file size give PDF a unique advantage over other formats. As if that weren’t enough Adobe upped the ante a couple years ago and added 3D capabilities to the PDF format. You might be wondering how do you create a 3D PDF file in the first place? There are a couple ways to achieve this. One way would be to use the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended, which has the ability to import the most popular CAD formats, and then use it to generate 3D PDF files. Another way would be to create 3D PDF files right from your CAD software. Although currently, not all CAD software has the ability to create 3D PDF files (both SolidWorks and 3DVIA Composer can do this right now), it is expected that this will become common in the near future.

JT

The JT format was developed by UGS. At first look JT appears to be simply UGS’s version of eDrawings. However, although JT and eDrawings are similar in many ways, one of the main goals of JT is to become a key component of PLM systems. This fits UGS’s business model of focusing on PLM and on large companies. Also, unlike their competitors, UGS has created an Open Collaboration program for integrators in order to expand the use of JT and JT enabled applications throughout the market. For more information please visit this site.

In conclusion, it must be noted that designers and engineers are not the only ones that need to use CAD data. For every designer that uses CAD data there are people in QA, Purchasing, Marketing, and customers that need to see this information. The only difference is that these users do not need to access all the information that is included in the CAD data.  In most cases all they need to see is what is available in Lightweight 3D formats.

- by Joseph Vera (written in December 2008)

Have you ever wondered how your company could use its CAD data to gain a competitive advantage? Actually there are several ways that this could be achieved. One of them would be to start using 3D CAD based animations to communicate your ideas and knowledge. The best part of this is that when it comes to creating animations you are only limited by your imagination. Here are some real world examples of how several companies and their customers are benefiting from animations:

1. Animated computer simulations are being added to business proposals in order to show customers a preview of how a design solution would work
2. Many service manuals now include animations that demonstrate how to repair or do maintenance on a product
3. Plant floor computers have animations that instruct production teams on how to assemble a product
4. Web based animations that demonstrate how to use a product are being created for customers
5. Animations of kinematic motion are used to help engineers improve their designs
6. FEA software can create animations that show stresses and deflections of a product under different scenarios
7. Animations of automation equipment are created to analyze how conveyors, pallets and other mechanisms move and work together
8. Animations are now required by marketing teams to present a new product or idea to customers

You probably have heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. If a still shot holds a thousand words imagine the impact that motion can bring to an image. Considering that many individuals prefer to visualize sequences or instructions rather than reading a long description instead. Also, imagine what would happen if all your competitors handed in paper proposals but you submitted proposals that were enhanced with 3D animations of your conceptual designs. Certainly this is one way that animations can provide you with a competitive advantage over your competitors.

Below is an excellent example of an animation from Teknion Furniture. This animation communicates their design concept perfectly. Images and words in a brochure are useful; however, they alone would not have been able to fully capture the ideas behind this design. At least not as quickly and with the same clarity as an animation can. In conclusion, animations not only enhance the work you do, they also allow others to visualize your knowledge and ideas resulting in a strong competitive advantage to your company.

- by Joseph Vera & Jason MacFarlane

Have you ever stopped and wondered about all the different ways that your CAD data is being used throughout your organization? There are many reasons why this is an important question. Looking for answers could yield some interesting results and empower you with valuable knowledge about your organization. If you are not sure how to begin your quest, start by asking yourself these questions:

1. Is your CAD data being used strictly for product development purposes or are there other groups such as marketing who use it?
2. Do the service manuals and manufacturing documents in your organization reuse your original CAD data for their technical illustrations or are these illustrations being completely redrawn by someone else?
3. Have you used your CAD data to create 3D animations of assembly instructions for your product?
4. Are you using 3D animations of your product to enhance your business proposals and to communicate ideas to your customers?
5. Do your product catalogues contain CAD data?
6. Are you already sending CAD files to some of your customers?
7. Are there potential customers who would like to see 3D images of your products on your website?
8. Finally, is your marketing team benefiting from CAD based renderings of your products?

These questions show us that CAD data isn’t just for product development. Certainly, product development teams everywhere benefit from using CAD data, but did you know that sharing and reusing CAD data particularly 3D data can be of great benefit to an entire organization? A good example is technical illustrations of products. Technical illustrations are used in product documentation such as service manuals and assembly instructions. Many times these illustrations are hand drawn or completely redrawn using software like Adobe Illustrator. But why redraw everything when you have already have CAD models of your product readily available? Think of the time your organization could save if you somehow reused your CAD models when creating technical illustrations. Especially when you consider that nowadays you can link your CAD files to technical illustration files in such a way that if there is a change in the CAD design data the technical illustration will update automatically. Compare this to a hand drawn technical illustration that would need to be completely redrawn if there is a change in the CAD design data.

Below is an example of a high quality technical illustration that was created with documentation software that reuses the original CAD data. Note that reusing the CAD data allowed us to create this technical illustration very quickly in approximately a couple of minutes. Consider that redrawing this technical illustration would have taken a couple hours to complete.

Here is another interesting fact: a customer once told us that they now have more computers in their plant floor than in their office. While this might be surprising to some, the truth is that computers have become indispensable in the plant floor. In fact, computers have given production teams access to e-mail, MRP software, and even electronic product documentation. Interestingly enough, this same customer told us that there is an ever-growing demand by production teams to see product documentation in lightweight electronic 3D formats that include animations, such as: eDrawings or 3D PDF.

Click here for a 3D PDF document that was created using the original CAD data. Try clicking the different views and then rotate the model. Now imagine your production team using documents like this one in addition to paper copies, or even some day replacing paper copies altogether. Below is an example of an animation of a car owner’s manual, yet another way of leveraging CAD data.

click here for “car owner’s manual” animation

In conclusion, your company’s CAD data can be reused to reduce the time it takes to create product documentation and at the same time enhance the quality of your production documents. Your company has probably made significant investments in time and money on software, hardware and designers to create your CAD data. It only makes sense to get the most value from it and to discover the hidden potential that your CAD data has to offer.  For more information please contact us here.

- by Joseph Vera