From a 3D CAD model to an electronic parts catalog

The increasing availability of 3D CAD data raises the question of efficient further use of this data in other areas of the company, such as Technical Documentation. However, the path to a complete process chain culminating in an electronic parts catalog is toilsome and involves often a lot of extra work for the Design department. IsoDraw CADprocess promises the greatest possible independence for the automatic creation of illustrations from CAD data. As finesse, interactive objects with hotspots for an electronic parts catalog are generated at the same time.

Meanwhile, many companies have 3D data from design systems such as Pro/E, CATIA, Unigraphics, Solid Works, etc. available that could be used for illustration. The use of this data offers for sure the highest saving potential in the creation of illustrations. In practice however, 3D data is rarely used because the effort for the design department is substantial. The documentation department rarely has direct access to the CAD system. Therefore, the preparation of the data, such as the isolation of the needed part or its assembly, the rotation into the desired position, the explosion, the deletion of hidden lines etc., is one someone's desk in the design department. In this situation, neither the expectations of the management ("Our CAD system must be able to do everything!") nor the promises of whole sales teams ("Our CAD system does everything with one click.") are really helpful. The investment for a CAD system and the training of a design engineer is often high. Therefore, the companies want to make sure that these workstations are used for design instead of being blocked by other tasks.

Besides, the conversion of 3D data into a 2D illustration is only the first step. After, the illustration has to be further edited according to the requirements in documentation (line thickness, colors, deletion of details, preparation for electronic delivery, etc.). Experience from a variety of companies has shown that this editing work amounts to several hours per illustration.

Conclusion: 3D CAD systems offer extensive data preparation possibilities for documentation, but the effort for the design engineers is substantial. There should be a solution that relieves the design engineer and allows the documentation department to manipulate the models themselves, according to their needs, without purchasing an additional CAD seat. Besides, it is important to reduce the subsequent further editing work and to prepare the illustration for electronic delivery without major effort.

From 3D CAD automatically to Technical Illustration

A solution to this problem is offered with IsoDraw CADprocess by ITEDO Software. It automatically processes 3D design data into technical illustrations. As the structures of the CAD files are also read, the illustrator can decide which assemblies or parts from the CAD data he wants to use for a spare parts catalog or other illustrations. Without the help of the Design department, the illustrator can place single parts or groups and rotate them into the desired perspective. A large number of functions allow the illustrator to work on the parts while still in the 3D window. In this context, the explosion function offers a special productivity advantage: the illustrator can "explode" parts along an axis.

3D surface data will thus be converted into high-quality technical illustrations. Apart from the hidden line removal, the illustration will automatically be displayed with thick and thin lines, according to the stylistic rules of Technical Illustration. Thus, the preparation work in Design department is reduced to a minimum: the data must now only be exported to IGES format. In most CAD systems, this can be done in batch mode.

Direct use of data in electronic documentation

Most companies consider the delivery of an electronic spare parts catalog on CD or via Intra/Internet. Therefore, the illustrations should be prepared in a way that they can be used without problems for electronic distribution. Special attention should be paid to the navigation between the assembly part in the illustration and the parts list. Hotspots are needed to take the user to the corresponding parts list entry with only one click. This kind of graphic navigation allows an easy and correct identification of a spare part. In the past, however, the preparation of these graphics demanded extensive time.

When importing 3D CAD data, IsoDraw CADprocess automatically creates an object info with a hotspot for each assembly part. Later, the user can click on the part in the electronic spare parts catalog and receive the corresponding parts list information. The manual effort to create hotspots is eliminated and for the first time, the structures of the CAD data can be used in documentation.

In this context, a connection to a database application that administers the parts lists could be considered as well, i.e. SAP. This would allow consistency checks and help to avoid mistakes in the catalog.

Conclusion

With the use of high-quality technical illustrations, documentation such as operating manuals, assembly instructions and parts catalogs can be created in an easily understandable way. The creation of these graphics was until now considered to be a cost-intensive factor. The reuse of existing 3D CAD data offers an enormous saving potential in this area. Today, this process is almost completely automated. At the same time, the illustrations are automatically prepared for use in electronic parts catalogs. The effort for both, the Design and the Documentation department, can be substantially reduced by using IsoDraw CADprocess.