It should also be noted that the previous certification exam was especially difficult and did have very low pass rate.  Using the feedback that was given the 3DVIA team improved the entire exam and formatted the questions to be much more concise.  Additionally, throughout the whole test more emphasis was also placed on how 3DVIA is used in “everyday” practice and much less on specific functions often not used.  If you are interested in taking this new certification exam please visit http://www.3ds.com/education  to find out more information.

It’s here, just in time for the holidays… Santa has visited us early and stuffed our software stockings with another impressive release of 3DVIA Composer, full of breakthrough technology and fun-to-use features. You could shake the box and try to guess what’s inside… or take the easy way and watch the preview for more info.

My personal favorite new feature is Smart Outlines. What’s yours?

Enjoy!

Our development team has done it again! It’s here — the newest and most impressive release of 3DVIA Composer yet — V6R2012! Some amazing enhancements, I just can’t say enough good things about this release:

• advanced rendering capabilities
• smooth animation paths
• UV texture support from 3DXML files
• cutting plane enhancements for tech illustrations
• enhanced navigation controls for interactive experiences
• custom built-in HTML templates

Just to name a few of the dozens of new innovations and enhancements to the product. Check out the video and see for yourself…and be ready to be as impressed as our team is with this release!!

And if you want a more detailed description of the new features, watch an interactive presentation here:

http://www.brainshark.com/3dvia/composerv6r2012

Password: “3dviacomposer”

This announcement was posted a few days ago:

“Un Techo Para Mi Pais,” (UTPMP), recognized by the United Nations as one of the non-governmental organizations best suited for public-private partnerships, gives disadvantaged families a new start by offering the security found in a new home,  along with the social, educational and micro-financing services needed to create a responsive community or “barrio” where they can thrive.

But like many volunteer organizations, UTPMP faces the challenge of how best to train new volunteers while capturing the lessons learned by others leaving the organization.  To do this, UTPMP is creating a real-time and online 3D community for sharing and retaining organizational knowledge.

3DVIA Composer to the rescue! This sort of remote training is ideally suited for strong “Product Explanations” by empowering non-CAD experts with 3DVIA Composer to enrich 3D data — to easily build interactive and animated experiences and deliver them to remote support personnel:

With 3DVIA Composer, UTPMP can efficiently facilitate volunteer training through the use of the latest technical documentation and 3D animation technologies. Leveraging these forms of visual communication enables UTPMP teams to more clearly understand technical content. This also helps UTPMP create online communities that have easy access to project content such as training guides, service and maintenance manuals, and assembly instructions.

You can read the full press release here.

In case you missed it, here is a press release from our SolidWorks team that mentions how 3DVIA Composer is being used by “Design That Matters” to help their efforts in developing countries:

Design that Matters, a non-profit product design group, used 3DVIA Composer to develop high-quality visuals of a phototherapy device to treat jaundiced infants in developing countries. The images enabled the design team to quickly gather feedback from, and gain acceptance by physicians in Vietnam, where it would initially be produced and used in hospitals that may not be able to afford traditional western machines.

Talk about global collaboration! That’s the power of interactive 3D — overcoming international language and cultural barriers:

“We are dealing with a different language, culture, and financial understanding,” said Will Harris, a product designer with Design that Matters. “The only way to overcome these barriers is visually. A photorealistic rendering is the next best thing to putting the device in their hands, and with 3DVIA Composer, they can see how the device goes together. These visualization tools were critical to the success of the project.”

The full press release can be read here.

Embraer has been working with various DS brands, including 3DVIA, to significantly enhance their manufacturing planning and production operations. See the press release link here.

A quote from Marcelo Lemos, our GM in Latin America:

“Embraer is tapping into advanced technology solutions to help achieve significant savings by integrating key engineering, design and manufacturing operations into a single 3D model. These savings allow Embraer S.A. to re-invest resources in new industry opportunities and initiatives”

Well it is here, V6R2011, and I must admit I’ve been excited to tell you about the cool new features for some time…

Check out the highlight video here. (I’ll get that onto the YouTube channel soon…)

Magnetic lines, drag-and-drop interactivity, and many many more… you’ll have to check the new-and-improved release notes for all the details.

I also want to direct your attention to SOPAL, a Tunisian manufacturer of complex and distinctively styled kitchen and bath fixtures. They have been doing some cool things with 3DVIA Composer and 3DVIA.com (and 3DVIA Mobile). The full PR is here, but to save you time here is the 3DVIA Composer part:

With trends in faucet design changing often, SOPAL felt it had to remain flexible and reactive to market demand.

“Knowing how to detect new trends and delivering products that respond to these changes is of prime importance. Part of bringing the right product to market, while shortening delivery times as much as possible, is being able to see that product first, in a lifelike experience,” said Moez Regayeg, manager, SOPAL.  “We used the lifelike visualization enabled by V6 to create an interactive 3D experience.  We even went one step further with 3DVIA Mobile, and published the actual lifelike models of our products for viewing on customers’ iPhones.”

SOPAL chose 3DVIA Composer to quickly and easily document the assembly process, and deliver it in an interactive 3D experience, complete with animated procedures. SOPAL uses 3D animation to explain to architects, construction companies or the final customer how their products should be installed and how they function. To gain worldwide exposure, SOPAL recently published its product portfolio on the 3DVIA.com website, the DS online solution for searching, uploading & sharing ideas in 3D. “3DVIA will help promote our products worldwide,” said Regayeg.

Want a new faucet and want to impress the wife? Use 3DVIA Mobile on your iPhone to grab one of the SOPAL faucets, and super-impose it onto a photo of your aging sink… then back that up with a real purchase (once you get her approval on the design, of course! )

Find out more @ billions.3dvia.com

“We are delighted to contribute new interoperability capabilities to this latest release of 3DVIA Composer.” said Trevor Leeson, Product Manager at Theorem Solutions. “The integration of Theorem’s JT CADverter technology makes the benefits of 3DVIA Composer V6R2010x available to a whole new community of users.”

I pulled that quote, because it is the framework in V6R2010x that has made the integration between Theorem Solutions CADverter JT products into 3DVIA Composer. More on that topic can be found here.

You can also visit www.3dviacomposer.com/v6r2010x for a video introduction to the main highlights of this release, and to learn more about the 3DVIA Composer portfolio.

And by the way, you will love the new user interface!

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

Along with using SolidWorks for their design, they are using 3DVIA Composer to more quickly create technical illustrations for installation manuals that get delivered around the world. How much more quickly? How about an 80% time savings! Pretty impressive!

According to DLP Technical Author Paul Smith:

3DVIA Composer allows us to export high quality technical line drawings for producing detailed installation instructions. By creating these technical views quickly and exporting them in a simple usable format, we have saved most of the time it had taken us to create views manually in SolidWorks.

AKW Mullen Shower Base

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnk-mArc2Ow

So just what is 3DVIA Path Planning?

This latest press release explains that it is a totally seamless integration between 3DVIA Composer and the Kineo CAM path planning engine, enabling the automatic creation of non-colliding animated sequences.

It is really amazing technology for situations when you have some tight-fitting parts and need to explain how to manipulate them for assembly or service instructions. These are the types of procedures where an animation is the ideal way to deliver precise information — but creating these animations is often tricky and time consuming (if you want to get it right).

3DVIA Path Planning automates this work, so you can provide a “lifelike experience” about how to remove or assemble parts to ensure complete understanding. Check out the video podcast for a few examples of 3DVIA Path Planning.

Over the years, you have seen that 3DVIA Composer has many uses across many industries. Here is another usage in the Energy industry:

CHIDI, which is recognized as one of the world’s major hydropower R&D organizations, has played an intrinsic role in the design and development of many of China’s most famous hydropower plants, including Ertan Hydropower Plant, currently the highest dam and largest hydropower plant built in Asia, Xiluodu Hydropower Plant on the Jinsha River, the world’s second largest hydropower plant, and Jinping Stage 1 Hydropower Station, the world’s highest arch dam with a height of 305m. To expand its reach and reputation, CHIDI decided to implement a PLM solution to improve its design quality and overall project management proficiency.

 

Specifically for 3DVIA Composer:

In addition, CHIDI is using 3DVIA Composer to produce 3D documentation for publications, ensuring effective communication with proprietors and construction units.

 

The quick summary: The Taiwan Overseas Chinese University has selected 3DVIA Composer in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management (IEM). The department’s hand-selected students will use 3DVIA Composer to present their system integration ideas and plans professionally and with the ability to be exported into various widely accepted formats.

According to Professor Wang Tsung-Jung

With this new product documentation tool, our students are able to go beyond CAD capabilities and deliver quicker and more advanced projects,” said Professor Wang. “With 3DVIA Composer, students will understand how having an advanced technology can improve the product and process design while decreasing time-to-market. The department is very practice-driven and foresees that 3DVIA Composer will help students gain important hands-on experiences, thus increasing their job opportunities.

Hello all! This press release was announced today, full details can be found from 3ds.com News by clicking here. (NOTE: Link updated September 3, 2009.)

They will initially be using 3DVIA Composer for assembly instructions, to help leverage their CATIA data and provide enhanced assembly documentation and communication. This will speed the time to manufacture as well as improve overall quality. These types of benefits –  enabled by Composer — will naturally progress into extended uses in service and maintenance documentation, dealer and operator training, and marketing.

My favorite quote from the announcement:

“It can be quite complicated to set up our machines. With moving images instead of the previous sketches on paper, the production process becomes much easier and leading to much better results”, says Maria Larsson, CAD manager at Komatsu Forest.

Komatsu Forest makes some pretty interesting machines, and their website is pretty cool too.

We’re happy to welcome Komatsu Forest into the 3DVIA Composer community!

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!]

Here we go again, poised for another successful showing of 3DVIA Composer at SolidWorks World 2009. Like last year, we will be within the SolidWorks booth area, with a very large monitor to serve out information to the masses that are certain to be swarming the booth.

Ok, I know it’s impossible to compete with Sir Richard Branson, so after you’re done with that general session, be sure to stop by and see what we’re all about, or just say “hello” if you’re already one of the many new Composer customers that have joined us this past year!

We would like to welcome Felder KG to the growing community of companies that have chosen 3DVIA Composer to enhance their assembly documentation and become more competitive.

My absolute favorite quote from the press release is when a SolidWorks VAR introduced Felder to 3DVIA Composer:

…our previously installed documentation solution didn’t have a chance, because it was an isolated application.

’nuff said about that! See the SolidWorks press release from last week for the full details.

A warm welcome to Felder!

I am extremely pleased to announce that this past weekend, we have surpassed 100,000 downloads of our 3DVIA Composer video podcasts.

Just over 2 years ago, I was crashing a trade show and needed a way to show prospects something about our product. Something visual and portable that I could use to highlight some interesting capabilities and examples of 3DVIA Composer. Toting my laptop around was not an option, and I thought to myself “if only I could hold something in my hand and show some examples of interactive documentation and animations”… and then I it hit me that I could use Composer to create some AVIs, and then convert those AVIs to iPod format and download them to my new video iPod. And thus our podcast series was born, with our very first podcast on November 6, 2006.

Now, over 80 podcasts later and 100,000 downloads in the past 2 years — and some copycat activity from our competitors — I can safely say that this has been a phenominal success!

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

You can view the press release here.

Join us at week’s COE 2008 Industry Workshop – Automotive in Troy, MI!

On Wednesday, October 15 @ 4:40 pm, visit Jean-Jacques Grimaud, Tod Cruikshank, and Abe Sahi as they discuss technical documentation challenges in the automotive industry, and propose solutions using 3DVIA Composer.

On Thursday, October 16 @ 8:00 am, sign up with Tod and Abe as they take you on a guided tour of 3DVIA Composer in the Hands-On Test Drive workshop. Sign up early, as space is limited!

You can also get one-on-one time with the team at the Dassault booth during the SolutionsFair.

Take a look at what Acqualux, a UK based company, has been able to achieve with 3DVIA Composer. The full press release can be viewed here. The following is a notable highlight from this announcement:

“We have to provide layman-level instructions to the end customer as well as detailed instructions for our service and quality control people so they can walk consumers through the build when they don’t understand something,” said Aqualux Design Manager Neil Harrison. “3DVIA Composer was a huge leap forward for us in producing documentation. Before, we had to bring isolated views from SolidWorks into an illustration program and clean them up to show the tools and the bathroom views so customers could see them in context. That was very labor-intensive and time consuming. 3DVIA cuts 25 to 40 percent from that process, depending on the product, and with much less aggravation and higher quality manuals with extra instructions and graphics.”

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

3DVIA Composer will be presented in three separate sessions at DEVCON next week in Paris.

On Tuesday June 17 at 4:30 pm, take a hands-on test drive of 3DVIA Composer with James DUGALAIS and Christophe DELFINO as your guides. James is head of our R&D and a founder of Seemage. Christophe is a senior member of our professional support team, and is an application engineer extraordinaire. Don’t miss this chance to learn about 3DVIA Composer and talk with our experts James and Christophe.

If that session is full, at 5:20 pm you can see Eric PICCUEZZU discuss the topic of “Lifelike experience with 3DVIA for collaborators and creators“. Eric is not only our distinguished product manager; he is also a founder of Seemage. You won’t want to miss this session! (Unless you are one of the few lucky ones to try our product with James and Christophe.)

On Wednesday June 18 at 10:40 am, Eric will be in another discussion and demonstration entitled: “3DVIA Composer and 3DLive End-to-End Product Demonstration“. Learn how these two impressive technologies can be used together to find, access, and add relevant context to your product data, so that you can create great 3D interactive applications and keep them updated with the latest product design.

It looks to be an exciting line-up of events at this year’s DEVCON! We hope to see you there.

I am pleased to announce that 3DVIA Composer can be seen at the upcoming ENOVIA Customer Conference Europe (ECC Europe), June 3-4 in the Hilton Munich Park, Germany.

Please be sure to stop by the 3DVIA booth at the ENOVIA Customer Conference Europe. Also, on Wednesday, June 4 @ 10:30 pm, stop by the Enterprise Business Process Collaboration track for a 3DVIA Composer presentation and see how you can integrate 3D into your after sales process.

 

I am pleased to announce that 3DVIA Composer can be seen at the upcoming ENOVIA Americas Customer Conference, May 6-9 in the Orlando World Center Marriott.

Please be sure to stop buy the Dassault Systèmes booth at the ENOVIA Americas Customer Conference. Also, on Tuesday, May 6 @ 2:30 pm, stop by the Solutions Theater for a 3DVIA Composer presentation.

Newsflash: 3DVIA Composer has been added to the breakout session grid at COE!

Chris Williams, the General Manager of 3DVIA Enterprise, will host an in-depth session titled Revolutionizing Design Communication: Creating Product Information with 3DVIA Composer. This presentation and discussion will begin on Tuesday, April 29 at 4:30 pm, as part of the “COE Briefing Center #1” track, in the Australia 3 room. This news is so late-breaking that the COE website has not yet been updated with this information.

In the session, Chris will talk about two different companies that have implemented 3DVIA Composer and how they have revolutionized their use of 3D CAD data for product publishing throughout their enterprises. You will learn how the democratization of 3D beyond engineering has generated significant results for these companies – for example, learn how 3DVIA Composer can help you to eliminate costly training programs and still achieve a 20% improvement in manufacturing first pass yield rates.

So, be sure to mark your calendars for the afternoon of April 29 at 4:30pm to hear these amazing 3DVIA Composer successes. And remember to take this great opportunity to have an elightening conversation with our insightful leader, Chris. This is bound to be a sell-out, so arrive early and get a good seat.

As mentioned in an earlier post, be sure to look for 3DVIA Composer in the Dassault Systèmes booth in the Technifair exhibit hall.