Web-based access, visualisation and inspection tool for any type of product data

Citation

(1999), "Web-based access, visualisation and inspection tool for any type of product data", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 71 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.1999.12771cab.023

Web-based access, visualisation and inspection tool for any type of product data

Web-based access, visualisation and inspection tool for any type of product data

Keywords Division, Inspection, Internet, Software

Division Group plc recently announced the European launch of dV/ProductView; a Web-based tool which integrates disparate digital product data and allows any user with a Web browser to access, visualise and inspect the integrated virtual product.

In today's highly competitive manufacturing environment, significant business advantage can be gained by enabling all people involved in the product development life cycle to easily access, view, understand and collaborate on product design data as soon as those data are available. The problem to date has been the technical, economic and usability barriers of integrating multiple proprietary data sources, and enabling easy access within different departments to users not skilled in the specialist software that created the data.

dV/ProductView revolutionises the ability of manufacturers to provide enterprise-wide access to product information by delivering a low-cost, easy-to-manage solution for accessing, visualising and inspecting digital product data using a Web paradigm.

"Our customers' experience indicates that for each author of design-related data there are typically 20-30 consumers of that information", said Dr Norman Schofield, strategic development director, Division Europe. "Areas within a company such as marketing, sales, support, quality assurance, manufacturing and assembly, all have unique needs for product information. Using dV/ProductView anybody who has a Web browser can view, understand and collaborate on design data. The whole product development lifecycle becomes compressed through increased productivity."

Navigating via a simple client application which extracts product structure from the user's own PDM systems, dV/ProductView users can access any product information, inspect it, mark it up (redline) and distribute markups for review. dV/ProductView will view all types of data including native 3D CAD data, 2D drawings, documents, audio and multi-media files, real time simulation data from Division's dV/MockUp tools and product meta-data. The possible sources of these data are varied, and dV/ProductView has direct interfaces to a wide range of PDM systems and other database systems. dV/ProductView supports major CAD systems such as Pro/ENGINEER, CATIA, CADDS, Unigraphics, Solidworks and AutoCAD in addition to data management systems such as Optegra, Pro/Intralink, Sherpa, Matrix, and Metaphase. Its platform independence enables users to have a common interface, access both PDM and CAD data from within one package and to view, in one single assembly model, geometric data from more than one CAD system.

"We designed dV/ProductView to provide users with far more than a snapshot of proprietary 3D data," added Schofield. "Imagine the power of anybody with a Web browser being able to remotely query a part from a PDM system and have the 3D geometry instantly retrieved from the native CAD system ... or taking a dimension across the boundaries of two CAD systems using the native CAD geometry."

In addition to viewing the information, users can perform measurements accurate to the native CAD designs, query mass properties and communicate with other people in a collaborative environment. dV/ProductView enables users to mark up any 2D and 3D data through a variety of drawing, highlighting, and annotation notes that can be stored back in to a PDM system or published to the Web. dV/ProductView also supports full sectioning, multiple rendering modes (shaded, wireframe, meshed, see through, hidden line removed), exploded views, drawing comparison, watermarking and batch printing. dV/ProductView also allows real-time fly-through and manipulation of large assemblies created in DIVISION's dVfMockUp. This enables assembly/disassembly sequences, maintenance operations, assembly plans, operator instructions, sales and marketing animations, or any functional simulations to be accessible via this easy-to-use application.

dV/ProductView is based on a client/server architecture and supports all major platforms including: Macintosh, Windows 3.1/95/98/NT, Macintosh, IBM RS/6000, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Silicon Graphics. The dV/ProductView client can run in any browser in three modes; zero client, where no processing is performed in the Web browser; thin client, where a Java plug-in provides enhanced user interface functions; and thick client, where full data manipulation is performed by the client. The dV/ProductView Engineering Data Server, runs on a Windows NT server and manages the collection, integration and distribution of product data using Object Adapters which provide data access, security, version concurrency, and data compression for each data source. dV/ProductView clients only require access to the URL of the Engineering Data Server for remote installation and configuration.

Details from Division Limited, Tel: +44 (0) 1454 615 554; Fax: +44 (0) 1454 615 532.