Category In the News

Recently I was interviewed by Beth Stackpole of Design News. The topic was about 3D Visualization and I did my best to explain why that term is no longer adequate, and that we are are doing in 3DVIA (and in Dassault Systemes) is all about 3DEXPERIENCE.

Take a look at this link to the article, let me know if it makes sense!

Shuji, from our Japan team, wanted to explain to us the sequence of events leading up to the hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima reactor. He found a 3D model of the reactor and loaded it into 3DVIA Composer. He then merged in some additional geometry (piping, rods, etc), and quickly built an animation detailing the various technical details that occurred after the catastrophic earthquake a few weeks ago.

Using 3D animations in this way — to educate and explain technical concepts — provides a simple and compelling way to quickly create and information. Thanks to Shuji for preparing this information in 3DVIA Composer, it is very interesting to understand the sequence of events describing this very unfortunate disaster.

So we’ve been a little bit quiet here at 3dmojo the past few months… but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been busy!

We’re in the process of making some enhancements to the site — layout, searching, new videos, etc. We have a lot of content to share, and be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed to get regular updates.

For now, I wanted to share with you a screenshot of 3DVIA Composer running on a 65″ monitor at the CAPINC show. Thanks to Michael LaFleche for sharing the photo.

Yes, the blog has been quiet recently… it’s been a pretty busy spring, we are preparing an exciting new product release for June. We continue to provide nice innovations and new tools to help you get your job done more quickly.

Expect a lot of activity, along with the new release of 3DVIA Composer, we have been creating a LOT of video tips over the past year, and they will be available very soon.

In the meantime, did you know that 3DVIA has a powerful gaming engine, that can be used for both casual gaming, as well as “serious games”? And did you know that it has some very interesting uses in the Life Sciences industry to help people learn about health concerns and to actually help them with phobias and other health challenges?

Check out this mention from the Boston Globe:

In other game...

A few weeks ago I was interviewed for an “ask the experts” series on Enterprise Technology Magazine.

Here is the on-line version of the magazine, see page 50 for the transcription of the interview.

The questions I was asked:

• Can you give our audience a brief overview of 3DVIA and 3D – how does it work?
• What are the main benefits for businesses that are looking to implement this type of technology?
• I’d like to touch on the bottom line because I know it’s still a concern for most businesses today. How is 3D a cost saver?
• Can you give us a case study that highlights how 3DVIA works and what it has achieved so far?
• Now let’s look to the future. What will you be focussing on this year, and where do you see 3D going in the future?

Only a couple of typos in the transcription… see if yo...

I saw this article from Lou @ SolidWorks:HEARD!

My favorite quote:

If you are using an older build of 3DVIA Composer, V6R2010X is a must have upgrade especially for those of you that use both SolidWorks and 3DVC.

I can’t argue with that! We’ve received a lot of great feedback about this latest release. Read more about it here.

Now you can generate spart parts catalogs directly from SolidWorks and CATIA data, or any other 3D data that can be brought into 3DVIA Composer.

Thanks to Docware, a supplier of spare part catalog solution called PARTS-PUBLISHER, they have developed a robust integration to the 3DVIA Composer Player.

Here is a link to their press release from last week, announcing the new offer of their DocWare PARTS-PUBLISHER product fully integrated with the 3DVIA Composer Player.

Check it out! Click here for a nice review by Desktop Engineering.

A quote from the author, Anthony Lockwood:

…3DVIA Composer is, of course, more than a tool to interact with a bunch of images. It’s a robust, flexible toolset for making communications and collaboration easier, better, and sane. It’s a product that brings all of us a big step closer to the promise of product lifecycle management for the everyone in the enterprise.

Today Theorem has announced the availability of CADverter JT for 3DVIA Composer! 

The press release can be found here on MCADcafé, here on Tenlinks, and here on the Theorem website.

Theorem’s Product Manager Trevor Leeson comments “There is a fast growing trend for the re-use of 3D design data across business enterprises. Wider use of 3D data brings tangible business benefits and we are delighted that Theorem technology is being applied from within 3DVIA to make this happen” 

We are excited to welcome users of JT format into the world of 3DVIA Composer! 

Theorem CADverter JT for 3DVIA Composer

What do you think? I can’t take credit for this “Bionicle Assembly” — it was uploaded yesterday to YouTube by dzigner09.

KaVo is one of the recognized leaders in the global dental equipment marketplace, and they are using 3DVIA Composer to realize some very powerful productivity gains. If you missed their presentation at ECF in November, you can learn more about their story by reading this case study put together by our friends at IBM.

They are using 3DVIA Composer to more quickly produce and update assembly instructions, and to provide clearer, more comprehensive information to the shop floor associates — which they expect will reduce errors and improve product quality.

IBM was able to deliver an integration directly with ENOVIA LCA and their ERP system, collecting the intelligence needed by the manufacturing and technical publication teams while enabling the automatic creation of 3DVIA Composer files upo...

Check out this article from the September edition of Medical Design Technology magazine, about “Perspectives on Manufacturing Technologies, Part III” — if you scroll down you will see a bit about 3D interactive documentation.

Enjoy!

  

Arburg, a leading manufacturer of injection molding machines in Germany, is using 3DVIA Composer and other Dassault Systèmes products to achive some interesting gains. Click here to see the entire article @ Product Design & Development to learn more.

They are using 3DVIA Composer for technical documentation, spare parts lists, and 3D repair instructions. A snippet from the article regarding 3DVIA Composer:

“We generate the technical documentation directly from the CATIA files using 3DVIA Composer, which saves us a lot of time,” says Klaus Mayer, Head of the CAD/CAM Development department. 

In addition to three-dimensional repair instructions, 3DVIA Composer also automatically generates spare-parts lists that customers can access for online ordering. 

Whi...

I was just watching the “Texturesaurus Rex” texturing tutorial on 3dvia.tv. Then I saw a tweet from @SolidWorks announcing the winner of the Week 3 Photoview 360 2010 Beta Rendering contest and had to take a look.

To my pleasant surprise, I saw something familiar! Nice work by Scott Woods! Congrats.

FULL DISCLOSURE NOTE: I had nothing to do with picking the winner!

Last week we launched 3DVIA TV (www.3dvia.tv), our online video channel where you can get access to all things 3DVIA.

We’ll still be posting 3DVIA Composer video podcasts to 3dmojo and to our YouTube channel, but with our growing list of web resources and communities, we thought it would be convenient for everyone if we collected everything into one site. It’s really about the “3DVIA network” where you can go and tune into different “channels” based on what you’d like to watch.

Thanks to Josh for breaking the news yesterday on the SolidSmack blog.

[Josh, I'd have given you 5 stars if you had linked to a Composer video!]

 

I found this article yesterday from Your Renewable News and thought I’d share it with you.

It mostly talks about the application of Dassault Systèmes software in a very sophisticated and experimental fusion energy devices called JET and its soon to be built ITER. Here’s an explanation from the article about this really cool sustainable energy device:

JET (Joint European Torus), located at Culham, UK, is a an experimental fusion energy device in which, by creating temperatures greater than that of the sun (around 100 million degrees C) and applying magnetic confinement, fusion of atomic nuclei takes place. The next stage of fusion technology development has started with the building of ITER, which is eight times larger in volume than JET...

Ever had the need to document something in 3D, but not had the data in electronic, 3D format? Do you wish there was a better way to work with that data without having to spend hours re-modeling it in CAD?

Creaform used an innovative hand held scanning approach to combine existing CAD and physical data into a solution to meet a very demanding timeline to produce interactive assembly instructions for an aircraft OEM.

Click here and go to Page 16 to check out the article in this month’s digital edition of Design Product News.

Click here for a 3DVIA Composer review from Jason @ rocksolid on April 25, 2009. My favoriate quote from his post:

This tool is a must have if you create a lot of technical publications.

’nuff said!

Thanks to Jason for his great review.

Interesting editorial in the Military Embedded Systems Technology Feature, written by Jeff Covert. There is a 3DVIA Composer video sample in the side bar.

I like his introduction to the side bar:

Gone are the days of trial and error, along with expensive mistakes and long training periods inherent in using static data. For example, when the avionics module is redesigned, the changes are automatically updated in the training materials. That means zero rewrites, quality checks, or out-of-revision documentation. This completely efficient process is made possible by leveraging the data found inside your PLM system.

The rest of the article is also interseting, and covers several other use cases.

The connection of PLM to the product documentation offers one additional benefit: the ability to hav...

ModernTech won top honors for selling the most 3DVIA Composer in North America for our SolidWorks channel. They received this sales award at SolidWorks World 2009.

So here’s a shout out to the team @ ModernTech! Many thanks for all of your hard efforts in 2008, and here’s to an even better 2009!

Happy New Year everyone!

Take a look at this article about Creation, a UK-based company that is making great use of 3DVIA Composer to bring real-time on-demand service instructions to in-service vehicles. (That’s my attempt for the New Year to link as many hyphenated words together in once sentence as possible!)

As mentioned in the article:

3DVIA Composer coupled with on-board vehicle breakage detectors provide condition reports and repair instructions that are also transmitted to base. 3D animated repair options are presented to the crew providing them the information they need to make better decisions in the event of breakage. This application of 3DVIA Composer is based on the same technical publications data that accompanies the vehicle into service to provide Z fleet operators with lower through life costs resulting from this advanced source of information.

It is...

SolidSmack blogger and Desktop Engineering contributor, Josh Mings, took 3DVIA Composer for a test drive and has written about it in the latest issue of Desktop Engineering online.

The new release of 3DVIA Composer V6R2009x is being launched this week as part of the overall V6 portfolio update. As part of the press release, we have updated our website. Let us know what you think!

Information about the new 3DVIA Composer enhancements can be see here, and will be available on Friday for general distribution.

Yesterday, IBM formally announced that it will sell and support Dassault Systèmes V6 portfolio, including 3DVIA Composer. Check out the press release here.

For those of you non-French-speakers who could not enjoy last week’s radio interview with Bernard Charlès, here is a short video of an interview he gave to CNN — this time in English. What is interesting in this video is how Bernard talks about the French software industry trying to find ways to take technology start-up companies and transform them into sustainable businesses. In case you have not been keeping track: before we were acquired by Dassault Systemes, Seemage was a tiny startup based in southern France. So we know what he’s talking about, and we are one of the success stories — thanks to our great founders, great leaders, superbly great developers, and great fellow employees across the company. And most importantly, thanks to our great customers!