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PLM

3D PDFs Provide Easy Way to Share CAD Data

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Earlier this week in this blog, I discussed how users can maximize their investments in 3D CAD systems by sharing their CAD data with downstream data consumers, such as documentation, assembly, manufacturing, quality, sales and marketing personnel. Sharing technical data with these people can speed up all of the supporting activities that accompany product development and assist with getting products to market successfully.

So the question arises, what is the best way to share technical data with stakeholders outside of engineering? I came across an interesting blog written by Bill Barnes of Lattice Technology that addresses this issue and I found much of it worthy of sharing.

One of the issues with sharing technical data is the fact that many of the intended recipients are non-technical, meaning they don’t use 3D CAD. The types of users involved can also vary widely in terms of the type of devices they would be receiving the data on, such as desktops, laptops or mobile devices, such as phones or tablets.

So now an organization is faced with a long list of use cases, with different type of stakeholders, needing different ways to access. With this in mind, organizations must answer these questions:

* Ease-of-use and accessibility. How do people consume this 3D data, and how difficult is it?
* Cost. How much are the licenses?
* Installation. Can you bring a new application into your current IT environment?

The solution: 3D PDF

Everyone knows about the ubiquitous PDF and how useful it is when sharing documents. In fact, everyone has the Adobe PDF reader. What you may not know is that the standard Adobe PDF Reader (that everyone has) can display interactive 3D data and can contain other related information as well – think of it as a container – more on that later.

What makes 3D PDF an ideal solution is that it is easy to use, free, already is on your computer (and apps are available for tablets), and enables anyone inside or outside of your company to easily access and use your valuable 3D engineering data via their desktop or mobile device–without additional licensing costs.

3D PDF Components

Sharing of your interactive 3D model is only the beginning. The 3D PDF is a container. Adobe designed a tremendous amount of flexibility into this powerful file format. Other data structures that might be included could be any that have a relationship to the CAD assembly model data—for instance:

* Part Lists
* Procedures for completing a task, also known as work instructions or tasks
* Snapshots and animations of the steps of an assembly process or a service procedure

Easily create 3D PDFS to share 3D CAD data, such as part lists, with others, even non-technical people using the Lattice Technologies' solution.
Easily create 3D PDFS to share 3D CAD data, such as part lists, with others, even non-technical people using the Lattice Technologies’ solution.

Using 3D PDF standalone or part of PLM/PDM processes

It doesn’t matter if you are a small engineering company or a Fortune 100 manufacturing company, using 3D PDF for sharing interactive 3D models with related information (including PMI) is probably the best way to share with any stakeholder. If you are a big company, you will most certainly have a PLM or PDM system, and the 3D PDF can easily be tucked in with all the rest of your files. If you are a small company, the 3D PDF can become a mini PDM system using its container capabilities to hold all of the above items as well as the original CAD data format and neutral formats, such as IGES and STEP.

There are many 3D PDF generation solutions on the market today — most simply convert CAD geometry– that’s all. The more robust solutions usually require scripting and programming.

Lattice Technology offers a solution that enables a person without CAD experience and without programming or scripting to easily and quickly create these powerful 3D PDFs with extended information. The solution uses a template approach, which allows users to establish standards for their 3D PDFs.

To read the entire blog, “3D PDF – Squeezing Value from CAD Models by Sharing Technical Data,” click here.

Barb Schmitz

5 Steps to Better CAD File Management

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A problem that plagues most engineering departments is a lack of any type of structured management of CAD files. Individual engineers might deploy what they regard as a very organized way to manage their own files, giving each meaningful file names and storing them on their hard drive. The problems arise, however, when those files must be shared and worked on by other engineers.

As the number of engineers working on any one project increases, managing those files in a directory structure becomes risky. Using a shared drive can result in issues related to managing multiple design iterations. Finding the most current version of a file can be problematic as can be assuring that another engineer isn’t overwriting the changes you’ve just worked hours to make.

GrabCAD's Workbench is a cloud-based file management solution that is available for users on a monthly basis for $59 (Professional) or $89 (Enterprise).
GrabCAD’s Workbench is a cloud-based file management solution that is available for users on a monthly basis for $59 (Professional) or $89 (Enterprise).

Bring order to chaos

According to several industry surveys and studies, most manufacturers have not implemented any type of organized PDM or PLM system. By continuing to manually manage CAD data, these companies face potentials risks that include lost work, poor productivity, and errors. Common reasons cited for not implementing any type of CAD data management solutions include high cost, too much complexity and a lack of IT resources.

Recognizing the shortcomings and inherent risks associated with manual CAD file management is the first step. The good news is that there are a lot of options available today, including new cloud-based tools. In a newly published Tech-Clarity Insight report, “When Brute Force Fails and PDM is too Much,” the various solutions are explained in detail as well as the basic requirements of a CAD management solution.

Based on industry experience and extensive research, Tech-Clarity makes the following recommendations of organizations looking to improve CAD file management.

5 Steps to better CAD management:

1. Determine your needs. Understand the basics required to control, access, and share your CAD data.

2. Shop around. Evaluate solutions to decide which one is right for your business, based on your organization’s level of process maturity and available IT support.

3. Make it easy to share. This is important as engineers don’t work in a vacuum and must easily share files. Some solutions’ strength is in ease of sharing, while others might focus on a strong control paradigm.

4. Look to the cloud. Consider cloud-based solutions that combine ease of use, less risk, low cost and reduced need for IT resources, but are designed with CAD data management in mind.

5. Get started. In some cases, you might need a more traditional CAD file management solutions, but recognize that putting in place structure of any kind is a step in the right direction and then get going.

To read the entire Tech-Clarity report, download the full report on the Tech-Clarity website.

Barb Schmitz

Kenesto PLM Platform Re-launched

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Yesterday I had to opportunity to be reintroduced to the relaunched Kenesto, the company headed up by Mike Payne, one of the more renowned and revered figures in the CAD world, having started PTC and SolidWorks (then SpaceClaim). Pretty much anything that Mike is involved in draws interest from the industry and Kenesto is no exception.

Kenesto is a cloud-based PLM platform with its roots in workflow management. The platform is being relaunched with a renewed focus on collaboration, as companies are more comfortable owning up to needing this capability more than they are to admitting workflow issues.

Kenesto adopts OEM product strategy

Though the product has technically been around since it was introduced in 2011, in December of last year, the company officially announced that the product was ready to go to market. Nothing unusual about that though the way in which the company is marketing and selling the product is unusual. Due to the company’s relatively small size and lack of marketing muscle or resources, it is currently soliciting partnerships with third-party vendors to private-label the solution for subscription sales into their respective markets.

Logic behind the move is explained by Stephen Bodnar, senior VP of Products and Strategy at Kenesto (and former VP of PLM at Autodesk). “The framework we’ve put in place to support partners who wish to offer our technology to their customers, branded as their own, and through their own sales channels, makes great sense for us given where we are in our company’s lifecycle and the level of investment required to capture additional, much larger markets. It also makes great sense for enterprise software providers who wish to offer the kinds of cloud-based collaboration capabilities, such as those available in Kenesto’s solution, in a timely, cost-effective manner.”

Collaboration features with CAD benefits

An increasingly common acronym (we just love acronyms in the CAD industry) is Collaborative Product Design or CPD. Bodnar emphasizes that in Kenesto’s case, CPD can mean both collaborative project or product design, as he believes the software will fit just as nicely in other industries where file/task/workflow management remains a challenge, such as the insurance, mortgage and AEC industries. In fact, the company’s biggest customer thus far using Kenesto is a large PR agency.

Despite that, with the founders’ strong background in engineering design, that will the primary initial market they will go after with the product. As far as company size of target customers, Bodnar says they are primarily focused on small- to mid-sized businesses, a sweet spot for PLM vendors and a largely unserved market.

A colleague, Roopinder Tara, described Kenesto as “a Dropbox with CAD benefits.” Bodnar refers to it as “Dropbox on steroids.” Either way, you get the picture. The difference: Kenesto has discussion flows, where DropBox does not; Kenesto views 250 file types, Dropbox does not.

Kenesto can also store email conversations along with notes, text files, JPEGs, PDFs as well as CAD files. It is able to view major CAD files, both for MCAD and AEC, which the company sees as a big potential market for the product, and cloud rendering for Redit models. People receiving files via Kenesto do not have to be subscribers themselves, though the person sharing/sending the files must be a subscriber.

With Kenesto, everyone in the office can model their portion of the workflow.
With Kenesto, everyone in the office can model their portion of the workflow.

Platform focuses on workflow management

Though it’s common for PLM solutions to offer file and content sharing, project organization, task management, workflow diagramming, Kenesto goes about many of these quite differently. For workflow diagramming, Bodnar says, “people in an organization know only their part of the workflow; no one person knows it all.” So Kenesto allows each participant to model their portion of the workflow. The administrator then eliminates duplicates and overlaps. This capability to track workflows creates a audit trail for managers to get a higher view of processes.

You can give Kenesto a free test drive (after registering) here.

Barb Schmitz

Kenesto Takes an Un-PLM Approach to PLM

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Though the company name might not necessarily ring any bells, a small company with some big-name backers, is posed to change the way the industry views–and implements–PLM. The company name is Kenesto and one is its co-founders, Mike Payne, might be better known for his leadership positions at PTC, SolidWorks and SpaceClaim. The product Kenesto is a cloud-based “Social Business Collaboration” platform that runs in a Web browser.

In marketing speak, Kenesto is a cloud-based Project Collaboration and Workflow Management solution that can be used for team discussions, file and content sharing, collaboration, project organization, task management, and workflow management. The idea behind the product is to combine customer-oriented collaboration technologies with a workflow engine that enables users to create both dynamic (on-the-fly) and static (pre-defined) workflows; capturing process flows while people work.

Company Adopts OEM Marketing Strategy

Another factor that sets Kenesto, the product, apart from competing PLM products is the way in which it is being marketed. In December the company announced a partnering program that would allow third-party vendors to private-label the solution for subscription sales into their respective markets.

Logic behind the move is explained by Stephen Bodnar, senior VP of Products and Strategy at Kenesto (and former VP of PLM at Autodesk). “The framework we’ve put in place to support partners who wish to offer our technology to their customers, branded as their own, and through their own sales channels, makes great sense for us given where we are in our company’s lifecycle and the level of investment required to capture additional, much larger markets. It also makes great sense for enterprise software providers who wish to offer the kinds of cloud-based collaboration capabilities, such as those available in Kenesto’s solution, in a timely, cost-effective manner.”

Consolidating Workflows

The newest version of Kenesto organizes around workspaces, teams, or communities. It is not application-centric; it is whatever-centric. “Think of DropBox on steroids,” Bodnar says in a recent interview with Ralph Grabowski, editor of upFront.eZine. For instance, Kenesto has discussion flows, where DropBox does not; Kenesto views 250 file types, Dropbox does not.

Though it’s common for PLM solutions to offer file and content sharing, project organization, task management, workflow diagramming, Kenesto goes about many of these quite differently. For workflow diagramming, Bodnar says, “people in an organization know only their part of the workflow; no one person knows it all.” So Kenesto allows each participant to model their portion of the workflow (see image). The administrator then eliminates duplicates and overlaps.

With Kenesto, everyone in the office can model their portion of the workflow.
With Kenesto, everyone in the office can model their portion of the workflow.

You can give Kenesto a free test drive (after registering) here.

Barb Schmitz

How Whirlpool uses PTC CAD and PLM technology

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Whirlpool Corp's Maytag Maxima seriesHome appliances aren’t what they used to be. Consider, for example, washers and dryers. At this week’s PlanetPTC conference, Fred Bellio, CIO of Whirlpool’s Global Product Organization, and Jeff Burk, Director of Whirlpool’s Constellation Program Management Office, described some of the complexities of his company’s Maytag Maxima line of washers and dryers. Washers and dryers from 50 years ago (when my mother was doing the family’s laundry) were mostly mechanical, with an electric drive motor, a timer, and a few switches, solenoids and relays. The Maxima line are about one-third mechanical, one-third electrical/electronic, and one-third software.

Who would have guessed that a clothes washer could have a million lines of software source code, and use WI-fi for remote diagnostics (and even electrical load shedding?)

Whirlpool is the world’s #1 major appliance company, with $19 billion in revenue, and around 70,000 employees. Its products are developed globally, and sold in over 170 countries. While it may not face the same challenges as large automotive or aerospace companies, that doesn’t mean that it’s got things easy when it comes to product development.

Whirlpool’s PLM strategy

To continue to be competitive in the appliance business, Whirlpool needs to implement a top-notch product development process. The Whirlpool program chartered to deliver that process is code named Constellation.

Constellation’s goals are to:

  • Leverage Whirlpool’s global footprint and scale,
  • Enable end‐to‐end lean product development,
  • Enhance collaboration across functions, geographies, & supply chain, and,
  • Provide a real time single source of product information.

Whirlpool PLMThe Constellation program provides Whirlpool with a year-by road-map for implementing PLM technology. This year there are projects related to CAD, core PLM, design quality, cost management, product & portfolio management, service, strategic sourcing, and product quality. It’s not a trivial amount of work. (You can look at Whirpool’s PlanetPTC presentation on Constellation here.)

Ultimately, the benefits Whirlpool hopes to gain include:

  • Shorter product development cycles,
  • More consumer relevant innovation,
  • More product variants from fewer platforms, and,
  • Best cost and best quality position.

Whirlpool and PTC

Whirlpool has been a long-term PTC customer, first using Pro/E in 1986, and standardizing on it in 1990. The company entered into a strategic relationship with PTC in 2010, and currently uses a wide variety of PTC products, including ProE/Creo, Windchill ProjectLink, Windchill PDMLink, WQS, MathCAD, Integrity, PPMLink, Arbortext, Isodraw, and Product View.

My sense is that Whirlpool is a very good example of an ideal PTC customer. Their particular combination of needs are a great match for PTC’s technology. (That may be because PTC pays attention to their customers’ needs when planning their technologies.) Two PTC technologies of special note for Whirlpool are likely to be application lifecycle management (ALM), and service lifecycle management (SLM.)  I’ll be writing more about those two technologies in the near future.

While you could make an argument that Whirlpool could be as well-served by any number of other CAD programs (including SolidWorks, Inventor, and Solid Edge) as they are by ProE/Creo, I think there’s an equally strong (or  stronger) counter-argument. Creo 2.0 includes some capabilities of great value to a company such as Whirlpool. The thing that comes to my mind first is integrated parametric, direct, and organic subdivision surface shape modeling. But the hot ticket is the new Creo 2.0 Options Modeler, which, when coupled with Windchill, is the no-brainer choice for building multiple product variants on a single platform.

Even good examples have flaws

Listening to Jeff Burk describe Whirlpool’s Constellation strategy at the PlanetPTC conference, it occurred to me that the company does seem to have a solid grasp on where it’s going with PLM. I’d expect this: Bellio was the PLM Practice Director at Mercury Marine’s PLM Services group (a company that Siemens PLM highlighted at their recent customer conference.) He also worked in PLM strategy and deployment at Bombardier—and aerospace is where the rubber meets the road for PLM (to strain a metaphor.) Burk has 25 years at Whirlpool, and knows what makes the company tick.

Still, I was curious: Whirlpool has been using Pro/E for 26 years. Do they have the CAD portion of their PLM strategy down? I asked Bellio and Burk about three product design-centric best practices that are generally thought to make a big difference in time to market, cost, and quality: systems engineering, model-based development (e.g., no drawings), and up-front CAE.

Bellio and Burk agreed that each of these are of real value, and that Whirlpool is very interested in them. But, Whirlpool isn’t doing any of them yet.

Why? Start with model-based development: (MBD): It’s simply difficult to change from a drawing-centric to a model-centric culture. Even if good software tools for doing 3D GD&T are available (and they are available for ProE/Creo, both from PTC, and from third-parties such as Sigmetrix), engineers are comfortable with drawings, and aren’t inclined to change, if they can help it. The only industries in which there is widespread adoption of MBD are aerospace and, to a lesser degree, automotive. (This will change over time: MBD is a hot industry trend.)

Similarly, implementing systems engineering and up-front CAE require cultural and process changes that are not natural for CAD users (and particularly ProE users) who’ve invested a lot of time and effort in learning how to do it the way they’re doing it now. You can’t just “install” these practices in a product development process, and expect everyone to jump into using them.

This stuff takes time, and commitment

Looking at Whirlpool’s example, I wonder: do any of PTC’s customers take “full advantage” of all (or even most) of the technology that PTC has to offer? I suspect the answer is “no.”

As a start, PTC offers a lot of technology. A lot of it overlaps with technology offered by competitive companies—and many customers use a mix of tools from a number of suppliers.

Yet, beyond issues of scale, the process of implementing PLM in a company, whether small or large, takes time and commitment, no matter which technology suppliers you use.   There is no magic bullet that will make the process easy.  My sense is that the folks at PTC are focused on doing what they can to make the process easier.  While I still think PTC has a long way to go in making their technology more accessible for non-experts, I’ve seen enough progress that I’m encouraged.

Aerospace and defense companies standardize data management system

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The companies opted for PTC’s Windchill software for their engineering product data management strategy. To build on its strong history of delivering a range of products and services for air, land, and naval forces, BAE Systems is moving away from a number of disparate, disconnected databases.

Windchill delivers a platform for access to product data and design to enable collaboration across sites and partners, support effective change and configuration management, and improve CAD data management in order to quickly respond to customer requirements.

PLM systems enable digital automation of product development and program management processes, as well as complete visibility and control over program information for secure, collaborative product development.

PTC

www.ptc.com

Leader in hydropower equipment seeks world-class advantage

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The Flovel Group is a hydropower equipment supplier that provides turnkey solutions for small- and medium-sized hydropower projects. Business units include Flovel Energy Pvt. Ltd., which specializes in the entire range of hydropower equipment and services for design, engineering, manufacturing, installation, and servicing for all heads and outputs covering all types of turbines, and TB Hydro Flovel Valves Pvt. Ltd., which designs and manufactures a variety of inlet, shut-off, regulating, and air valves for turbines.

At one point, Flovel’s management began to look for product development technology that was adept at accelerating the release of highly customized, innovative new products to market, while at the same time being able to ensure the high quality and rigorous accuracy required by its customer base.

To meets its requirements, Flovel selected  products from Siemens PLM Software including Solid Edge, Teamcenter Express, NX, and Femap with NX Nastran. Solid Edge is used for CAD to design complex turbine parts. Flovel based this decision on the software’s ability to handle sophisticated designs, 2D functionality, and sheet metal handling capabilities. Based on the successful use of Solid Edge at Flovel, the company is looking to leverage the product in other areas, including CAE, CAM, and product lifecycle management (PLM).

Using Solid Edge, Flovel has improved its overall design methodology (concept to prototype to product) and cut costs (due to a better understanding of 3D conceptual prototypes). The company cites outstanding ease of use compared to traditional approaches to design, noting that the user-friendly Solid Edge is fostering idea generation and innovation. Flovel also gives Solid Edge praise for superior searching options for making assemblies and points out that the visualization capabilities of Solid Edge measurably accelerates the handling of large assemblies.

Once Solid Edge was in place, Flovel implemented the second step in its product development initiative by adopting Teamcenter Express as its collaborative product data management (cPDM) solution. The goal was to establish a scalable cPDM solution that would facilitate collaboration between all of the key disciplines in the company’s product development operations. The procurement team selected Teamcenter Express for its visualization and collaboration capabilities, strong multi-CAD and multi-site support capabilities, and the ability to streamline the company’s design process. With Teamcenter Express, the company wanted its planning, design, engineering, and production departments to establish a synchronized engineering database with design information that users could easily access, share, and exchange on a secure and controlled basis.

Other goals for Teamcenter Express included establishing drawing number controls and materials codes, identifying the latest versions of their design information, and disseminating information in standard workflow-driven design processes. The company wanted standard, up-to-date information, such as what is contained in product catalogs, quality standards, manuals and plans, to be kept in Teamcenter Express for immediate access. Beyond this, Flovel engaged Teamcenter Express to manage released design information so that it can be leveraged by all of the company’s business units and their manufacturing operations for purposes of improving its CAM and CNC machining processes.

Flovel has extended its design process capabilities by implementing NX which is enabling designers to model difficult surfaces such as runner blades more easily. The company has also implemented Femap with NX Nastran. The intent of this deployment is CAE design optimization.

Currently, Flovel is using Femap with NX Nastran to analyze complex components. The company is performing finite element analysis (FEA) on turbine components for customized applications and operating conditions, as well as using the software to verify designs developed using conventional design tools. In addition, Flovel plans to extend its use of Teamcenter Express to other organizations and integrate the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system into its product development initiative.

Siemens PLM Software                       

www.siemens.com/plm

Flovel

www.flovel.com

Aras Announces Availability of Formula and Recipe Management Solution

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Aras announced the availability of an enterprise solution for Formula and Recipe Management. Created by Aras partner PSC Group for food and beverage, and fully extensible to consumer packaged goods (CPG), health and beauty / cosmetics, life sciences, chemical, and other process industries, the Formula and Recipe Management solution is designed for global companies that need an advanced, end-to-end PLM solution. Formula and Recipe Management provides management of specifications, formulas, recipes, tooling, processing, packaging, labeling, artwork, bar coding, QR coding, quality, regulatory compliance, and intellectual property (IP) across the enterprise and the extended supply chain.

The Formula and Recipe Management solution provides a single view of the truth with a centralized repository for all product-related information, and cross-functional business process workflows for research and development (R&D), marketing, quality and regulatory, manufacturing operations, procurement, global suppliers, and outsourced manufacturers. The solution enables process manufacturers to achieve faster time to market and better quality, productivity, and batch traceability.

Aras’s PLM platform provides flexible, extensible and integratable out-of-the-box functionality, making Formula and Recipe Management a unique solution in its class. As with all Aras solutions, the Formula and Recipe Management solution can be used as a comprehensive independent system or any subset of functionality can be used in a seamless and secure federated integration with leading ERP systems.

The Formula & Recipe Management solution enables process-based companies to control critical product information and respond quickly and accurately to changes for improved compliance and reduced potential of costly recalls.

Aras

www.aras.com

PTC Releases Windchill 10.0

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PTC announced the release of Windchill 10.0, its product lifecycle management (PLM) software. With new capabilities that focus on product analytics and quality management, Windchill 10.0 allows you to define, manage, and validate complete bills of material (BOMs), providing linkages across domain-specific views of product structures throughout the entire lifecycle. The product is said to be easier to use and maintain. Users managing product structures in Windchill 10.0 can take advantage of embedded visualization.

Windchill centrally manages all product deliverables including MCAD, ECAD, documentation, and service information. The product unifies its ECAD data management capabilities to offer a common user experience, consistent with its existing approach for MCAD data management.

When combined with Creo for 3D illustrated and animated service instructions and parts lists, and Arbortext for technical communications creation and delivery, Windchill supports a complete service information solution. The software supports business process optimization, most notably for Detailed Design, Variant Design and Generation, and Verification and Validation.

With Windchill 10.0, PTC’s Relex and Insight product lines have been rebranded as part of the Windchill product family to better reflect their availability as both a stand-alone offering as well as part of a comprehensive Windchill solution. 

Windchill Quality Solutions (including the former Relex products) help improve next-generation products, prevent repeat errors, and build reliability and risk management into the product development lifecycle. New offerings include solutions for CAPA (Corrective Action Preventive Action) to accelerate problem resolution through improved monitoring and root cause identification. 

Windchill Product Analytics (formerly InSight) provides early knowledge of product performance and includes new solutions for cost visibility and carbon footprint analysis. These enhancements bolster an already rich solution for materials and substance management, which includes reporting against compliance specifications such as REACH and RoHS. These solutions help companies understand environmental impacts and address potential points of failure before they occur. 

PTC

www.ptc.com

Adding multimedia Sopal Selects V6 PLM Express and 3DVIA Composer

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Dassault Systèmes announced that SOPAL, a Tunisian manufacturer of complex and distinctively styled kitchen and bath fixtures, is using V6 PLM Express and 3DVIA Composer to cover the entire development process of its line of faucets and related equipment. Based on the V6 platform, SOPAL has adopted a PLM strategy for all of its products, from initial styling of new equipment to product phase out and end of life. Using Dassault Systèmes’ solutions, SOPAL can manage all of its product information, such as technical specifications, design data, manufacturing data, regulatory constraints, and sales throughout the entire lifecycle.

SOPAL chose V6 PLM Express for its handling of and lifelike visualization of sophisticated surfaces, enabling its designers to create the complex shapes in CATIA V6 that give its faucets a distinctive and attractive look. DELMIA’s V6 Machining Solution will be used to produce their tooling and speed up the entire process. This multi-brand implementation of V6 PLM Express allows SOPAL to keep track of each product and makes the data available to anybody in the company with a need to know. With trends in faucet design changing often, SOPAL felt it had to remain flexible and reactive to market demand.

SOPAL chose 3DVIA Composer to quickly and easily document the assembly process, and deliver it in an interactive 3D experience, complete with animated procedures. SOPAL uses 3D animation to explain to architects, construction companies, or the final customer how their products should be installed and how they function. To gain worldwide exposure, SOPAL recently published its product portfolio on the 3DVIA.com website, the DS online solution for searching, uploading & sharing ideas in 3D. 

Dassault Systemes

www.3ds.com

Sopal

www.sopal.com