Today 3D CAD data very often contain manufacturing information, so called PMI (Product Manufacturing Information), which replace detail views, sections, tolerances, surface quality hints of former 2D drawings. The concept is frequently called MBD (Model Based Definition), CAD vendors also talk about i.e.GD&T (Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing). As the master today is more and more the 3D model, this approach avoids the generation of 2D drawings and allows a much faster communication, also after changes.
During a lot of projects KISTERS 3DViewStation has proven as an efficient tool to support MBD initiatives. It supports many native CAD file formats like Catia, NX, Creo incl. their specific 3D annotations, but also standard file formats like JT, STEP or 3D-PDF.
“When reading these CAD data then pre-defined PMI views will be retained, after activation the camera will be positioned correctly, sections might be activated automatically and only those PMIs, which belong to the respective view, will be displayed.” said Kelly Baumann, KISTERS North America Business Development Manager. “But KISTERS 3DViewStation also allows to compare revisions, allows to create own Markups like lines, texts or balloons, update or create new views, save them out as PMIs in the KISTERS 3DVS or neutral file formats like JT, STEP or 3D-PDF.”
“There are customers just translating the native CAD files incl it’s PMIs into a neutral file format.” she added. “Finally, all 3DViewStation capabilities can be used independently or from within a leading system.”
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, Revit, JT, 3D-PDF, STEP, DWG, DXF, DWF, MS Office and many more.
The latest developments of 3DViewStation can be reviewed in more detail at: https://www.3dviewstation.com/blog.html.
According to Baumann, KISTERS 3DViewStation is continuously enhanced in response to customer needs and requirements. It is available as Desktop, VR-Edition and HTML5 WebViewer product-versions plus the online collaboration tool VisShare. 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 the needs of complex integration scenarios.