3DMojo

Many people are familiar with this illusion of the "old lady, young lady" image. This old/new paradigm seems to be all the rage lately. On American television, we witness countless new reality shows featuring celebrities from the 80s and 90s, desperately trying to find new fame. While sometimes entertaining, there is also an embarrassing undertone to the shows, like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

It's very similar to how PTC is reviving old Itedo Isodraw references and massaging them into wonderfully new Abortext Isodraw references. These retreads from the past, pure 2D technical illustration references, are being re-framed and re-branded as great new references that are fully leveraging 3D in new and innovative ways. While these references are sometimes entertaining, they are also incredibly misleading -- they are still "old ladies".

3DVIA Composer is faster, easier to use, and far more flexible than anything else on the market, and we continue to prove that in benchmark after benchmark. Don't be fooled the next time you hear some propaganda from the competition, and be sure to put them to the test. It is the new architecture of 3DVIA Composer that is the only "young lady" in the picture.

It is a real pleasure to begin yet another year with a new amazing demonstration of the power of product information everyware, as implemented by 3DVIA Composer.

One of the questions I hear almost every time we talk to CATIA users is, "what about metadata?" How does 3DVIA Composer re-use this critical CAD data when I want to create compelling product documentation directly from my CATIA V5 3D CAD data?"

And it's an important question because that metadata -- data about the 3D CAD data -- is critical to producing accurate assembly instructions, technical illustrations and more. If you can't easily get the data about the data from the digital product definition into your deliverables, then a significant piece of effectively automating the documentation process would be missing.

As you can see in this video podcast episode, the ability to get all the metadata into 3DVIA Composer created deliverables is incredibly easy.

The fact that it only takes a minute and 28 seconds to show this is an important point in itself. A feature this important also has to be easy. 3DVIA Composer combines the functionality and ease of use people want in a modern product publishing solution.

Thanks again to Jonathan Riondet for showing us how to do this.

 

 3DVIA your iPod #56: "Using CATIA V5 metadata in 3DVIA Composer" [1:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (927)

 

 3DVIA your iPod #56: "Using CATIA V5 metadata in 3DVIA Composer" [1:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (642)

I expect that everyone has heard of Takeru Kobayashi, a Japanese competitive eater who until 2007 had won six consecutive hot-dog eating contests.

I mention Kobayashi (even though he has been dethroned by Joey "Jaws" Chestnut in the Nathan's contest) because the image of people just wildly stuffing their faces popped into my head as I read Mark Kiker's post on the caddmanager.com blog about CAD training, free food and the rules for making sure the people who come to a lunch-and-learn really are going to be there to learn.

Never one to pass up a good meal for free, even when I can't make heads or tails of the content, I kinda, sorta sympathize with Mark's plight.

On the other hand, the real cure is simple: make sure the training is something people care about.

If I got a training invite for, say, IsoDraw or unraveling a feature history, the only thoughts in my head would be "turkey or roast beef?" "Wrap or pasta salad?" That's because those technical topics would be less relevant to me than the cookies and the desert tray.

OTOH (and you can see this coming a mile away, right?) if the training were to help me make my own product deliverables directly from CAD data, and the training was geared to me, a non-engineering, non-CAD user, well, that's a different story.

I'd still try to stuff 59.5 cookies into my mouth in 12 minutes, but I'd be sitting in the first row, with every brain cell that wasn't involved in chewing focused on the training.

So, Mark, it's about the content. And about making content-creators feel useful. The food is just intellectual lubricant.

3DVIA Composer's US offices are in the Boston area. The whole New England area -- with the exception of some lost souls in Connecticut -- is in the grips of a kind of mania about the New England Patriots football team, which so far is undefeated. (For our non-US readers, this is American football we are talking about here, not what we Americans call "soccer.")

Anyway, the big news today is that a member of the opponents the Patriots played yesterday "guaranteed" that his team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, would beat the Patriots yesterday. While the game was close for a little while on Sunday, at the end the Patriots won big.

I mention this because I've been reading a white paper from PTC detailing a customer success in Austria with Arbortext IsoDraw.

(I would happily link to PTC's collateral to make it easy for you to compare them to us, but apparently everything on their system is behind a sign-in and some of the stuff I was looking at I couldn't find a second time. So, we have links to our stuff, but not theirs.)

It's pretty clear that whoever wrote this has been watching 3DVIA Composer pretty carefully -- carefully enough to feel confident in talking about PTC's solution with as much bravado as that Steeler's safety who misspoke so disastrously about his team's chances.

For example, PTC makes a big deal in the white paper about using the "magnifier" in 10 seconds. Then then it lists 10 steps. Sure.....you could do each step in a second...right.

In 3DVIA Composer? One step: press the spacebar.

No matter how much PTC wants the magnifier to duplicate the amazing functionality of 3DVIA Composer's Digger, it just can't. Any more than the Steelers can guarantee victory against a football team many are calling the greatest in history.

Arbortext IsoDraw can't ensure that it will revolutionize your product documentation processes because no matter how you slice the feature cake, Arbortext IsoDraw is saddled with its 2D heritage. 3DVIA Composer was conceived, designed and implemented as a 3D system.

This might seem subtle to some, but it's very important. If you watch the PTC video demo of Arbortext IsoDraw, you'll notice that animations are produced in the context of technical illustrations. They feel "tacked on."

Now watch the 3DVIA Composer video. In 3DVIA Composer, technical illustrations are a module -- among many modules, like BOM and high resolution images -- that are integrated into the content creator's experience. In 3DVIA Composer, these modules aren't extending a technical illustration package, they are functionality built on top of an XML-based property editor.

Like the Patriots yesterday, on the actual field of play, the real talent is pretty clear to see.