From CAD User Mechanical Magazine Vol 18 No 04 - APRIL/MAY 2005
Immersive Design brings the Adobe Acrobat embedded 3D capabilities to life, with user controlled animations, and linked text.
Spare a thought for us poor journalists as we trudge around trade shows,
looking at the a couple of tweeks added to this bit of software here, a couple
of new functions added to that, a different layout for the tools for another –
all of which we are supposed to greet with astonishment and enthusiasm, as
though we were being presented with the ‘NEXT MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH’ in software
design and were privileged to be at its’ birth. Of course, this doesn’t relate
to any of the great new products in this issue – or to any of the hard working
exhibitors at the Solid Modelling Show in a couple of weeks time. Perish the
thought!
Some products do take you by surprise, though, and none more emphatically than
Interactive PDF being shown by Immersive Design at SolidWorks World. It was not
just what the software can do, but its potential in the market above and beyond
what was being demonstrated by Greg Smith on the exhibition stand. It’s not even
unique, as other companies have addressed the same function, albeit in slightly
different ways – see Actify in this issue.
In plain terms, Immersive Design has taken the nascent 3D function in the latest
version of Adobe’s Acrobat 7, and allowed the software to publish interactive 3D
documents in PDF format – viewable by just about anybody who can download the
free Acrobat 7 reader form the Internet. Within the PDF document, therefore,
viewers can manipulate the 3D image in much the same way as they would using the
original CAD software, or using a CAD viewer developed by any number of
companies, for which they will have probably had to pay for.
Not only can he rotate, zoom in and out of, and otherwise inspect the model, but
he can section the model or remove components to view the insides of a model, or
change some of the parameters – colour, lighting etc. And, if the originator of
the model sets it up correctly – no more than preparing an exploded view of the
model – he can view animated activity that he is able to control using the
descriptive text alongside the 3D image!
Think of the many uses for such a tool! Using Adobe’s Acrobat as a design review
tool is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Acrobat is so widely used that it
is becoming the absolute standard for sending a variety of documents to anybody
else, with the assumption that they are bound to have one version of the
software installed. You don’t even ask, any more. And with a free reader,
anybody can view CAD documents without even needing the CAD software, or the
Acrobat PDF composer. Adobe put in the 3D capability, but not being CAD
specialists, didn’t really know what to do with it. It has taken companies like
Immersive Design to kick the feature into life.
Now interactive 3Ddesigns can be shared by anyone. Maintenance engineers can be
presented with animated 3D images on their laptops, and, by clicking in on the
instructions for the piece of equipment they are faced with, they can watch an
animation of each job unfold before them on the screen. Or they can merely
select each component on the accompanying parts list and watch it being highlit
on the 3D model. Salesmen can allow their clients to explore the latest car,
conservatory, whirlpool – whatever, and allow them to click through the
instructions at will – changing the color scheme, opening and closing doors,
looking at it from all directions, replacing stock wheels with alloys – puts the
buyer in command of the sales situation – supposedly.
It even sparks up design review sessions, as it can be used in NetMeetings
whilst the interactive animation is in progress, and links in the accompanying
text can be provided to associated websites. And, as a further incentive to
using it for design review sessions, the PDF files are a mere fraction of the
original 3D model in CAD format.
IPA by Immersive Design
The name of the software supplied by Immersive Design to publish 3D images in
PDF format is IPA, an acronym I haven’t yet deciphered, but which provides all
of the tools to for animation, visualisation, publishing documents to the web,
modifying lighting and changing camera angles, and creating assemblies. It’s
available from the web as a trial version (www.immdesign.com). A wide variety of
CAD and other file formats can be handled, including SolidWorks, SolidEdge, PTC
Pro/ENGINEER, I-DEAS, STL, as well as the standard bitmap. JPEG and other
standard imaging formats. Output is also available in numerous formats, as well
as PDF.
Files are converted to the increasingly popular U3D format for publishing within
a PDF document. Incorporating U3D images in Acrobat is very easy – merely a
matter of opening an assembly within IPA using the File>Open command, then
exporting it with File>Export and dropping it into a previously drawn rectangle
to position the 3D View within the document.
There is, obviously, a bit more to creating Interactive 3D PDF Files, but
nothing complicated. The first step is to create a Microsoft Word document which
will be the basis for the interactive file, and then to open the Publish>Wizard.
As with all published documents, you have to assign an author to the piece, and
then insert the file, and an instructions Word file into an existing Word or
Framemaker document so that the 3D information can be re-used. Give the file a
name, and click on finish.
The Word document is then converted to a PDF file using PDF>Convert to PDF.
Don’t use the File>Print command here, as it will not convert the links that you
need for the interaction. After creating the PDF document, run Advanced>IPA3D
tools>IPA 3D PDF Convert, and the conversion tool will insert the 3D file and
link up the text to the 3D view. Couldn’t be simpler. Save the file, and send it
off to whoever you like, so that they can view it with the free Acrobat viewer.
When they receive the PDF file with the embedded 3D view, they merely have to
click on the image, or click on the parts or instructions lists, both of which
are linked to the 3D view – and right click on the mouse to find out what
commands they can use with the view.
Conclusion
The NEXT MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH? Well, I hate to be so dogmatic, and will leave it
to your judgement. As we are tending to communicate electronically a lot more,
any tool that not only facilitates the process, but makes many types of paper
documents slightly irrelevant, has got to be significant. Irrelevant? If you can
provide your maintenance engineers with interactive demonstrations that they can
carry round with them, on a relatively cheap laptop, showing them precisely how
to handle a job, and produced with little extra effort by the designer of the
product they are working on - would you use a printed manual instead – something
that has to have a means of identifying and including every successive
modification and upgrade – and something prone to misinterpretation and error?
‘Course you wouldn’t!
AVIs don’t cut the mustard, either, as they are not interactive. They don’t
allow the engineer to go at his own speed, backtrack, repeat steps they are
unsure of.
It’s not only design engineers who will find the software productive. Architects
are already producing PDF walkthroughs in large scale projects, and fly-overs of
3D landscapes. Size is not an issue. As well as visiting Immersive designs
website, type in 3D PDF in your Google search bar, and you will find quite a few
fascinating examples – and most of them will allow you to download the Acrobat 7
Viewer as well – if you don’t already have it.
www.immdesign.com
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