What are the benefits of using 3D Technical Publications?

Benefits of 3D

• Better visualization – "Seeing is Understanding"
  
• Leverage existing CAD data from engineering
  
• Dynamic, Interactive Content – click through assembly steps
  
• Graphical selections – select on a part to view its metadata, select on a BOM item to highlight the part
  
• Less text needed – if "a picture is worth a thousand words", a picture you can move is worth many more.
  

Common Features of 3D Tech Pubs Software

• Multi-CAD Import
  
• Lightweight model creation
  
• Rendering with texture mapping
  
• Basic Kinematics
  
• Annotation & Markup
  
• Related BOM and Part Attributes
  
• Animations
  
• Output to PDF, html, xml, etc
  

Uses of Technical Publications

• NC Documentation / Setup Sheets
  
• Assembly Instructions
  
• MRO Documentation
  
• User Manuals
  
• Training Materials
  
• Product Data Sheets
  

Technical Publication Formats

• Many options exist to output standard text and graphic formats – CGM has often been preferred for graphics since it is vector based
  
• Many authoring tools can output html or other formats, but they may require proprietary viewers (usually free) for advanced 3D content
  
• AVI files aren't as interactive as specialized 3D viewers and can lead to very large files
  
• Many tools can now output 3D PDF data that can be viewed by anyone with the current Acrobat Reader – There are some limitation of using PDF w/ U3D
  
• XML shows some promise as an intermediate format between systems, but requires adoption of standards
  

Summary

• Many tools are now available to create 3D interactive technical publications and training materials
  
• Most of these applications have their own viewer software
  
• Using 3D PDF or html for final content makes a proprietary viewer less of an issue
  
• Models for use in publications should ideally be generated as lightweight representations directly from the engineering data in the PLM system
  
• There are detailed standards that may need to be adhered to – especially in Aero & Defense applications
  
• The S1000D standards are not comprehensive. They still require each company to define their own business rules.