Reuse CAD data for technical documentation, split function and feature recognition

One challenging area in the reuse of CAD data lies in the creation of content for technical documentation purposes. Deliverables might be images, illustrations or interactive 3D geometry to be repurposed in printed manuals, online manuals or spare part catalogues.

“KISTERS’ development and enhancements always follow a customer-centric approach. After reviewing our customer’s most important requirements for technical documentation processes, we created interactive and automatic BOM ID generation.” said Robert Collins, KISTERS North American Sales Manager.

“These BOM IDs will be reused to interactively and automatically generate balloon callouts in an exploded view of the assembly. In our new version, there are multiple new options to configure the arrangement of these balloons. For example: top and bottom, left and right, or in a rectangle. For further ease-of-use, we added the option to continuously recalculate the best possible layout, while rotating the 3D model.”

“Another focus of development was to increase the value of 3DViewStation for our mold/die and casting customers. Our new splitting function is the perfect complement to our existing draft angle analysis tool.” He added. “Now you can easily determine the complexity of a tool, what will be required to produce a part and extract the face for the mold. Toolmakers will also enjoy our new feature recognition functions such as our the drill hole recognition tool. Less experienced CAD users will enjoy the new, easy-to-use import dialog. And all users will experience 3DViewStation rendering significantly faster once more.”

Known for its modern user-interface, high performance viewing, advanced analysis and integration capabilities into leading systems, 3DViewStation ships with current and mature importers for a broad range of 3D and 2D formats including i.e. Catia, NX, Creo, SolidWorks, SolidEdge, Inventor, JT, 3D-PDF, STEP, DWG, DXF, DWF, MS Office and many more.

V2019 Upgrades Include:

– New and updated file formats:
– Import 3D: Inventor 2019, SolidWorks 2019, Solid Edge 2019, Parasolid V31, Revit 2019, FBX, glTF, JT 10.2, OBJ
– Import 2D: Catia V5 R28 (V5-6R2018), Catia V6 R2017x, Creo 4.0 / ProE, NX12, SolidEdge ST10, Solidworks 2018
– Export: JavaScript for 3D-PDF, IFC, FBX, JT 10, OBJ
– New and updated functions:
– Import dialog (quick settings)
– Structure tree: Remove empty nodes
– Neutral axis calculation with tesselated data
– Real-time wall thickness measurement
– Drill hole recognition
– Split
– Technical documentation:

• BOM table: interactive BOM ID generation
• BOM table: automatic ID generation
• Ballooning: arrangement as line, rectangle, circle
• Ballooning: automatic re-arrangement during rotation
• Options for shapes and lines for balloons
• Replace existing SMG files by 3DVS counterparts, limited to supported objects & properties

– Printdialog:

• Print range
• Autorotate document
• Tiled printing

– Selection of all instances of a geometry
– Filtering option: include / exclude unvisible objects
– Rotation mode "Turntable"
– 2D text search enhanced
-Transformation: Align move circle center to circle center
– Export PNG with transparent background
– PDF template: configurable date
– New options for license borrowing
– Performance optimization:

• Tremendous increase in rendering speed of ultra large assemblies
• Calculation of Level of Detail (LoD)
• Ability to remove normals (space-saving)
• Optimization of instancing

The latest developments of 3DViewStation can be reviewed in more detail at: https://www.3dviewstation.com/blog.html.

According to Collins, the KISTERS 3DViewStation is continuously enhanced in response to customer needs and requirements. It is available as Desktop, ActiveX, VR-Edition and HTML5 WebViewer product-versions. All product flavors are intended to be used together with a PLM, ERP or other management system product configuration or service and spare part applications, providing all necessary APIs. For cloud, portal and web-solutions, there is an HTML5-based WebViewer solution available, which does not require client installation. All file formats can be used in combination with the intelligent navigation and hyperlinking features to address needs of complex integration scenarios.