Adobe Solutions for Manufacturing

If you are subscribed to this blog via an RSS reader, I would like to apologize for all the updates to the entries today. I recently replaced my PC and resulting ripple of software updates continues to move through my entire workflow process. I had to install new versions of all the applications I use, including Adobe's Contribute CS 3 for editing this blog, and just noticed that the commenting feature was not activated for blog entries. And so now it is... So, you shouldn't see so many of these updates to the same articles going forward.

Posted by Jim Merry at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Acrobat 3D,Adobe Systems,PDF,CAD,Interoperability,JT,XVL,3DXML,STEP,IGES

During the panel discussions on 'Proprietary lightweight 3D formats and standards: A collision course?" at the 2008 CIC Conf that Longview Advisors hosted earlier this month in Denver many of the audience's questions and the resulting discussion touched on 'what really is a lightweight 3D format for and when should you use it?' In thinking about it and talking with some of the other folks on the panel, it occured to me that it would be useful to look back at why the lightweight formats were introduced in the first place and how the external constraints driving the requirements for 'lightweight' have changed over time.

Historically, the primary use case driving the creation of lightweight formats has really been about collaboration, and probably the most simplistic type of collaboration at that: viewing of product data by a third party. Prior to moving to a 3D process, this was achieved by creating fully annotated, physical 2D drawings and shipping them whereever they needed to go. Today, several of the world's leading manufacturing companies are struggling right now as they attempt to shift their processes away from 2D drawings in favor of sending fully annotated digital 3D models throughout their supply chain and as more and more of the manufacturing industry follows their lead, they too will hit the same roadblocks. Sending source CAD data doesn't work because

1. CAD files are too intelligent as anyone with the source CAD assembly data can do whatever they want with the designer's IP
2. Asking everyone in your supply chain to buy a CAD seat to view data doesn't sound so good when they used to receive drawings for free
3. CAD files are too big (which is another way to say WAN network throughput is too slow and expensive)

And so many different ISVs independently tackled the problem of how to provide for free viewing of CAD data created with their tools and today you can choose from JT, 3DXML, DWF, eDrawings, XVL, and many more lightweight proprieary formats and their associated viewers. At first most of these formats were simple tessellated data organized in a node structure that mimicked the CAD assembly product structure. The key phrase here is 'at first' which brings us to the question of what changed along the way, which I will save for another time.

Posted by Jim Merry at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I will be heading to the 2008 PTC World Conference in Long Beach, CA next week where Adobe will have a booth in the vendor fair (no. 403) and I will present on Adobe's technology platform and how it works with Wildfire and can help extend the reach of Windchill. The session is part of the Windchill technical track and scheduled for Monday, June 1 at 5:15 Pacific Standard Time in room 104C in the Long Beach conference center.

Posted by Jim Merry at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The 2008 Collaboration and Interoperability Conference held in Denver, CO this year was a great success. My colleague Doug Halliday and I attended and in looking back I honestly can say it was one of the best events in recent memory.

David Prawel, of Longview Advisors, and Bill Abramson did a terrific job bringing together experts from the manufacturing and software industries in an intimate setting that really enabled a lot of informal discussions interspersed between the various presentations and panels. I participated in a panel that examined whether or not the various lightweight formats are on a collision course with the various standards efforts and was joined by people from Siemens, Right Hemisphere, Lattice, NIST and PDES, Inc. To help prepare us for the panel, David Prawel asked us all to think about several topics prior to stimulate the thought process and as these things go, the conversation amongst the panelists that ensued hit some of the topics squarely, missed many completely and merely touched on others. I really think many of the questions he posed are relevant to the manufacturing industry and will pull from my notes and the conversations with the other panelists to post several blog entries in the near future in hopes of continuing the dialogue. So, stay tuned!

Posted by Jim Merry at 10:55 AM | Permalink

Adobe Acrobat 3D,PDF,CAD Design Collaboration,CAD Data Exchange

Jonathan Bowman and I presented an hour long eSeminar yesterday on how Acrobat 3D can help manufacturing companies accelerate collaboration by making it easy to aggregate product information, including 3D assemblies, into a single, secure PDF. As promised (but a little delayed) I am posting the presentation. The last page contains a set of links you can use to find more information about Acrobat 3D....

You can download the presentation here:

Acrobat_3D_V8_080523 (pdf, 1.2 Mg)

 

Posted by Jim Merry at 01:53 PM | Permalink