Working in the manufacturing industry requires exchange of CAD designs such as 2D CAD drawings or 3D CAD models. It is very common to either export to standards like STEP, 2D and 3D PDF or to leverage free viewing applications, such as eDrawings. However, there are a couple of drawbacks to this approach:
- For security reasons, emails cannot contain self-extracting archives any longer, resulting in the need to download a corresponding viewer for each file format received
- Free viewing applications provide limited functionality and all differ in their UI
- Due to attachment file size limitations, emailing large CAD files is not an option
- As soon as files are exchanged, control is lost. So – how is the data protected against unauthorized access? How are outdated files replaced with more recent versions? How is file activity, such as opens, tracked?
“3DViewStation allows you to automatically remove internal parts and lets the user determine what objects will be sectioned.” she added. “Furthermore, with a simple click, you make reverse engineering through measurement impossible. How? We subtly distort the underlying geometry of certain parts, with changes that are invisible to the human eye.”
Known for its modern user-interface, high performance viewing, advanced analysis and integration capabilities into leading systems, 3DViewStation WebViewer 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. The server can be installed on premises or in the cloud.
The latest developments of 3DViewStation can be reviewed in more detail at: https://www.3dviewstation.com/blog.html.
According to Baumann, the KISTERS 3DViewStation is continuously evolving 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.