Between the picture on the left and text on the right in Figure 1, which side catches your eyes first?

Figure 1. A page in the Kevin Robot datasheet.

Most of us would pick the image. Indeed, human cognition appreciates images and processes them much faster than text. Remember the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Let’s go deeper into this comparison to explore the specific advantages of images over text. After all, similar documents are frequently authored and consumed. Drowning in the flood of information, it is easy for the customer’s attention to wane.

Table 1. Cognitive comparisons between the picture and text in Figure 1.

Making use of these advantages, the Kevin Robot datasheet includes other intuitive illustrations, striking a sleek balance between images and text.

Figure 2. More straightforward illustrations in the Kevin Robot datasheet.

Thankfully, having 3D models in our hands has opened up an easy shortcut towards intuitive images, videos and 3D interactive experiences. Specifically, 3D models help us inform, inspire and interact with our audience.

What do I mean by inform?

In addition to the informative illustrations in Figure 2, 3D brings a plethora of options for insightful presentation, which would have been time-consuming and expensive to produce with physical goods—assuming it was feasible at all.

Figure 3. Illustration showing in-context height comparison.

Figure 4. In-context annotation.

Figure 5. In-context magnifier.

Apart from the cognitive appeal for the mind, there is always a longing for emotional connection that resonates with the viewers.

Now look at these stellar renderings in Figure 6. Don’t they inspire? Don’t you want to start touching and engaging with the robot?

Figure 6. 3D renderings of Kevin Robot.

I’d love to see this product in my lab!

3D models can also enable the augmented reality (AR) display on your mobile devices, so that you can see what the robot looks like at your facility right away.

“Creating digital marketing assets from design data allowed expediting Kevin’s development and garnering interest from the market before the design prototype robot was ever built,” says Tobias Brode, head of Business Unit Medical Engineering and Biotechnology at Kevin Robot.

“Traditionally, we would have had to either ship Kevin across the world, so that customers can see him in the flesh [so to speak] or bring customers to our lab. We don’t have to do that anymore. It’s a far more sustainable approach.”

Figure 7. Augmented reality of Kevin Robot.

In addition to consuming informative illustrations and inspiring visuals, our audience can now actively play with the product, upgrading one-way-push communications to bi-directional interactions.

On the 3D Kevin Robot webpage, we can rotate the robot at our discretion, examine from any perspective, and click on the yellow-circle hotspots to understand specific features as needed.

Again, it invites the audience to participate in this exploring journey together, at their pace, in a more engaging and empowering fashion.

Figure 8. 3D Kevin Robot webpage.

Is the model too heavy and slow to load on a webpage? How is the visual quality? These are common concerns.

First, the result speaks for itself. Please feel free to click on the link and scan the QR code at the top right corner, to try it out on your computer and smart phone. On my phone, the entire page with high quality renderings and 3D models takes only seconds to load.

What is the secret? Actually, the 3D model is NOT our typical engineering data any more. It represents a special type of 3D, optimized for web presence: glTF, or put simply, “JPEG for 3D.” To make it easier to remember, I created an acronym, FUSE, to convey its key advantages. (Okay, I got a bit of help from ChatGPT.)

The first letter is F, which stands for Fast. You can create a glTF file in SOLIDWORKS’ Product Communicator in minutes, and load it on a webpage in seconds.

For example, the original data of this lawn mower assembly on the left takes over 80MB, while the glTF model on the right consumes only 4MB, a 20x compression, even smaller than certain images. That’s why it loads so fast.

Figure 9. 20x file size compression in a glTF.

As illustrated in Figure 10, Product Communicator is a role on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. You can see how it creates interactive 3D content to showcase your company’s products.

It brings two browser-based Apps: xStudio for quality rendering and xHighlight for 3D presentation. The design data comes from either your desktop SOLIDWORKS, CATIA, or from other design roles on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

You can scan the QR code in the image below to learn more about it.

Figure 10. Product Communicator structure.

The next letter in FUSE is U for Universal. Similar to JPEG for images, we can universally apply glTF for 3D over the internet, which entails a natural evolution of Internet content, from text, images, audio and video, to 3D.

The S in FUSE stands for Simple. It is super simple to export this format in Product Communicator, similar to publishing a rendering as shown below. Furthermore, businesses can present it easily, and online visitors can comprehend it intuitively, similar to images or videos on a webpage.

Figure 11. Export glTF from xStudio in Product Communicator.

The last letter is key: E for Engaging. Even after the mentioned compression, the visual appeal remains uncompromised, which ensures glTF to touch the audience emotionally, with accurate, attractive and interactive 3D content.

Beyond these four key words, FUSE also implies strategic connotations: join together 3D and the Internet, and ignite excitement for and prevalence of 3D.

Now to recap, after reviewing typical communication materials and human cognition preferences, we broke down the level-up strategy into “three I’s”: Inform, Inspire and Interact.

I hope you see how 3D-empowered content will spice up your company’s products on their website.

Figure 12. “Three I’s” to level up daily communications with Product Communicator.

Lastly, if you have any questions or are keen on exploring similar discussions, please feel free to join the Product and Technical Communication community, where users, reseller experts, partners and 3DS employees are inspiring each other and sharing tips and tricks.

Figure 13. Product and Technical Communication Community.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a user advocacy manager with 20 years of experience in engineering, marketing and software. He advocates for 3D communication to accelerate human cognition and enhance the experiences.

Let’s start with a cool 3D configurator first. Figure 1 shows an example of an OMAX waterjet machine with hundreds of configurations. Please feel free to click on the link and play with various material and component options.

Figure 1. An OMAX Waterjet 3D configurator, powered by SOLIDWORKS Sell.

Now, if you’re wondering how you can build your online 3D configurator in a similar fashion in order to grow web traffic and increase your conversion rate, let’s dive into several practical, yet easy and instant tips and tricks.

At a high level, you can polish up online presentations in four areas: materials, views, environment settings and web page layouts. This article focuses on polishes after you have published CAD models online. If you are interested in how to publish your CAD models for online 3D configurators, this YouTube video list can walk you through the detailed steps.

Polish Your Materials

The first topic is materials. A simple comparison between Figures 2 and 3 illustrates the differences right away.

Figure 2. Waterjet nozzle holder with a realistic black material.

Figure 3. Waterjet nozzle holder with a plain, unrealistic material.

As you can see, the black material in Figure 2 blends better into the waterjet chamber and surrounding components. Furthermore, the sandblast surface finish in Figure 2 gives the holder a much sturdier more industrial feel than the polished white texture in Figure 3. So remember to pay attention to your material selections and their contexts.

In SOLIDWORKS Sell, it’s easy to apply materials. As shown in Figure 4, there are hundreds of materials to choose from out of the box with the software. The library also includes 269 standard SOLIDWORKS CAD materials, which will be respected and carried over automatically when you publish your components from SOLIDWORKS to the online design editor.

Figure 4. SOLIDWORKS Sell material library.

To apply your own realistic textures, you can upload texture images. Figure 5 shows the material editor, with a preview on the top after a texture image in Figure 6 has been added.

Figure 5. Add a texture image to a customized material.

Figure 6. A material texture example.

Now, you may feel the preview in Figure 5 looks too smooth and shiny. To make it look even more realistic as shown in Figure 2, let’s add a normal map (shown in Figure 7) to create the bumpy and sturdy appearance as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 7. A bumpy normal map image.

Figure 8. Add a normal map image to a customized material.

There you go! After several quick clicks, the material brings life to your 3D model right away and helps your product stand out in the marketplace.

Customize Your Views

The next sweet tip is customized views for selected components. For example, the waterjet nozzle is a small but vital part. If you configure the nozzle in the big machine overview as shown in Figure 1, the nozzle changes would become almost unnoticeable. Or you may want to switch alternative geometries of a structure in the back of a product. In this instance, a front view would hide the instant results and confuse your online visitors.

To solve these problems, you can set up customized views for selected components. All you need to do is to zoom into a target—the nozzle in this case—and click on the button “Save Custom View” on the Views fly-out menu, as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Add a customized view to the target nozzle.

Refreshing your browser will reflect the latest change. From now on, every time you or your online visitors click on the nozzle group, the 3D viewport will smoothly transition to your customized view by automatically zooming in, zooming out or rotating the model. Of course, you can also adjust or delete a customized view for a component group.

As simple as it is, this technique renders a thoughtful user experience by automatically positioning a specific configuration target to be front and center according to the online visitor’s selection. Customized views make the instant results more visible and appreciable to your audience, which is a much more effective and efficient way to articulate and present your product values. As we all know, value only matters when it is perceived by your audience.

In a similar light, you can also capture a default view for your entire product, as shown in Figure 10. This view essentially depicts a book cover for your configurator, because it delivers the first impression as the default configuration, orientation and zoom, among thousands or even millions of possibilities. When a new user visits your 3D webpage for the first time, they will be greeted with this result. This means it’s essential to remember to manage your audience’s first impression by saving a default view.

Figure 10. Save a default view for the entire product.

Fine-Tune Your Environment Settings

By the way, you may have noticed the floor shadow in Figure 10, which makes the visual very attractive. This type of environment setting can help your models pop out even further. Figure 11 lists the settings to the left and the 3D appearance to the right. in this case, the floor shadow has been intentionally turned off as a comparison.

Clearly, the 3D model in Figure 11 appears dull and unreal. It is amazing to see how much these tiny tweaks can affect the visual appeal. So have fun with the dozens of settings and fine tune your own presentations.

Figure 11. Environment settings to the left and the 3D appearance to the right without the floor shadow.

To make the fine-tuning easier and less overwhelming, SOLIDWORKS Sell provides eight polished presets out of the box per major product categories, such as Accessories, Appliances, Fixtures, Furniture, Jewelry, Structure and Vehicles. You can study these and make copies to optimize your own settings.

Showcase Your Creation with a Polished Webpage Layout

The last topic is about webpage layouts as containers of your 3D configurators. After all the cool polishes, it is time to show off your creation. Of course, you can code html webpages and embed the SOLIDWORKS Sell 3D widgets according your marketing guidelines. The software provides rich APIs for your code to call. To see some examples, this SOLIDWORKS Sell sample page lists several nice webpages.

On the other hand, sometimes you may want to compose a quick proof-of-concept before committing to sophisticated web development. As explained in a previous post, you can build a webpage layout similar to playing Lego blocks, with zero coding. Figure 12 captures the layout tool. Particularly, I would like to call your attention to the QR code widget, as indicated by the green arrows.

Figure 12. A quick webpage layout tool.

As the name indicates, a designer can embed a QR code widget in a webpage. This way, you can show off your proud creations on your phones, tablets or computers, and then let your audience quickly scan the code with their phone cameras, load the configurator onto their phones instantly and start playing on their own.

This is a great digital accelerator for your teams, dealers, customers, followers or friends to share your products in fun personal conversations or via social media channels because your audience would not have to type the link address letter by letter. Figure 13 shows the page result on a smart phone screen—you can even scan it right now as you’re reading.

Figure 13. A QR code pops up on a smart phone screen for easier sharing.

To recap: impressions and perception significantly drive web traffic and online sales. Fortunately, there are simple techniques to perfect your online presentations. Please take full advantage of them and share your comments or proud creations.

To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS Sell can help promote your ideas and products with interactive 3D online content, please visit its product page. The best way to learn is to play with live examples featured on a demo site, which includes actual client webpages.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the whitepaper Gain Competitive Advantage with Product Data Management.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a product management professional with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of 3D technologies and practical applications.

Even Subway enabled its ciabatta sandwich collection with AR, as shown in Figure 2. Imagine having this technology in all the restaurants or online shops in the future. Even if you travel abroad and do not necessarily recognize the language or special names listed on a menu, you will see what you are getting right away. Plus, the digital sandwich looks like a pretty appealing visual appetizer.

As IKEA explained, it “is shifting its business model away from pushing customers through its suburban stores toward making shopping easier online, and downtown.” The app allows “customers to shop remotely for products they can visualize in the context of their own homes, lessening the need for them to travel....”

These applications are not alone. According to Gartner’s research, “100 million consumers will shop in AR and in-store by 2020.” In response, “46 percent of retailers plan to deploy Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR) solutions by 2020.”

In fact, to scale up the 3D commerce activities and align technologies, retailers and technology companies have established a working group on the 3D Commerce standards. Figure 3 illustrates some of the participants as of August 2019. The 3D Commerce Working Group has attracted household retailers such as Amazon, Target, Crate and Barrel, Lowe’s and JD, as well as high-tech giants such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Samsung.

The benefits to online shoppers are easy to appreciate. For example, you can configure your favorite product out of millions of SKUs and see it in your own space to validate its size and style without having to travel to a store. The shopping experience feels much more fun, engaging and informed. Remember that attractive ciabatta sandwich?

However, besides better user experiences, what are some other benefits to manufacturers and retailers? It turns out that 3D technology provides noteworthy business implications as well. For instance, according to an article on Digital Commerce 360, Build.com shared that the return rate for AR shoppers is 22 percent lower than those who didn’t use the tool and bought the same product. Therefore, in one year, Build.com increased the AR-enabled products from dozens to 650, or 1,700 SKUs.

In addition, an electric switch manufacturer in Europe deployed SOLIDWORKS Sell to speed up its ordering process and reduce the number of errors in retail orders. Figure 4 shows a simplified ordering tool with the company’s proprietary information removed. Previously, due to complex design and business rules, distributors submitted a large number of mistaken orders that could not be manufactured at all. Repeatedly, orders had to be validated manually back and forth between internal teams and external customers. The process was frustratingly slow despite having four full-time employees dedicated to order management. These issues hampered the company’s business growth.

Now the rules are enforced automatically with easy drag-and-drop operations. Invalid orders are prevented altogether, so distributors can trust the tool and self-sufficiently submit correct orders quickly.

Hopefully by now we have all had a taste of the 3D commerce benefits to both online visitors and businesses. Here comes the billion-dollar question: how can you build 3D-enabled ecommerce content as well?

According to the experiences of some manufacturers, the investment could be cost-prohibitive due to the heavy contracting budget, long coding cycle and expensive ongoing maintenance. To me, a key enabler and opportunity is to make the process quick, easy and cost-effective.

Let’s break it down to three fundamental steps and look into available solutions for each.

1. Publish 3D Models Online

The source of 3D models can be CAD designs such as the furniture example shown in Figure 1, or 3D-scanned objects as shown in Figure 2. As is the case for any online activities, it is vital to optimize 3D models for fast online performance, such as the initial loading, geometry updates, material switches and transitions to the AR mode.

Figure 5 shows the SOLIDWORKS Sell Publisher inside the SOLIDWORKS environment, which can organize the product components, compress the geometries and publish the data online in several seconds.

Due to the geometry compression, the model file size has been significantly reduced. For example, the original speaker top panel CADpart is 210 KB. However, now its online low-grade mesh object takes only 2 KB as shown in Figure 6, or about 1 percent of the original CAD model, which contributes greatly to the instant online responses. Yet, the appearance of the online model still looks compelling, as shown in Figure 7.

By the way, it is worth noting that two SOLIDWORKS materials, Polished Maple and Satin Finished Maple, have been automatically carried over from SOLIDWORKS to the online environment.

2. Build 3D Content Rules and Relations

After the raw geometries are published online, manufacturers and retailers need to build rules and relations to these objects to represent a final product. For example, you may want to make sure that all the wood panels share the same material as online visitors choose between materials.

Figure 8 shows that you can simply drag and drop geometries and create a Material Link to synchronize the materials between them. Again, the key enabler here is to make the operation as quick and easy as possible, so that any user can build 3D online products, even if they don’t have any modeling or coding skills.

3. Polish Online Presentations

After the content is built, be sure to pay attention to its online presentation, because people do judge a book by its cover. A previous article, “How to Create a LEGO-like Online 3D Configurator,” shared the details that laying out a webpage in SOLIDWORKS Sell is similar to placing LEGO pieces.

Figure 9 shows the tablet layout in an editor. At this stage, you can add a QR code so that your audience can scan to access the page quickly. Or you can add a button to enable the AR mode. Notice that there is zero coding required in these steps. As a result, Figure 10 shows the iPad layout with the actual interactive 3D speaker. Please feel free to click on the link or scan the QR code to access the page and play with the product yourself. Have fun.

To recap, as the demand for 3D content grows stronger, a remarkable barrier reducer as well as a promising opportunity is to make its creation, optimization and presentation quick, easy and cost-effective.

SOLIDWORKS Sell has made a compelling case to lower the barrier significantly. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS Sell can help promote your ideas and products with interactive 3D online content, please visit its product page. The best way to learn how to use this 3D technology is to play with live examples featured on a demo site, which includes actual client Webpages. Have fun and leave your thoughts below.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a product management professional with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of 3D technologies and practical applications.

Another post, Web AR for Android Devices on SOLIDWORKS Sell, outlined the practicality and ease of use of Web AR. For instance, it no longer needs a separate QR code to indicate a physical anchor point for a digital model. Plus, you can simply kick off the AR experience from a browser. There is no need for a long list of special custom Apps in iOS or Android, except for one: Google’s ARCore library on Android devices. As a consumer or a marketer using SOLIDWORKS Sell, you do not have to code at all to enable the Web AR experiences.

Growing adoption comes with growing demands. It is great that we do not have to print and place a special QR code sheet to mark an anchoring surface, especially since this prior Web AR anchor only supported an upward-facing horizontal surface such as a floor or a table top, which does not accommodate all the various products.

A common request has been to place digital models on non-floor planes such as a wall or a ceiling. Examples include an outlet as shown in Figure 1, or a ceiling lighting fixture as shown in Figure 2.

Now with ARKit3, these recognizable anchors have been expanded to support more planes, such as walls and ceilings as shown in Figure 3.

According to the 2019 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference presentation, here is the current list of plane classifications supported in ARKit3: wall, floor, ceiling, seat, table, door and window. I hope developers can take advantage of these engine enhancements in the future.

Speaking of anchoring, Figure 4 shows another common challenge where a digital object bottom face may not be modeled at the zero height origin. When it is placed in the AR mode, it looks as though it is floating in the air, which compromises the realism.

With ARKit3, a developer can easily enable the automatic transformation to place a digital object more precisely against its anchoring plane, as shown in Figure 5.

On the topic of realism, you may have run into the unnatural scenario shown in Figure 6. A digital coffee maker looks great on a physical table, until multiple objects come into the camera feed. The previous algorithm always rendered a digital model on the top layer in front of the feed. It had difficulties in interpreting the person who should have stayed closer to the camera than the coffee maker, according to the natural depths of all the objects.

With ARKit3, Apple provides a more immersive experience, such as that shown in Figure 7. The front person clips the coffee maker, rather than the other way around. The person in the back also stays correctly behind the digital model as if the model knows its accurate depth in the field is between the two persons.

You may ask, “How did Apple do that?” Well, the illustration in Figure 8 shows the video composition process, which Apple calls “People Occlusion”.

The first step is called Segmentation, at the bottom left in Figure 8. The machine learning neural network recognizes people in the camera feed and creates a separate pixel layer containing the people. However, simply putting one layer of people in front of the digital coffee maker doesn’t cut it, as shown in Figure 9.

The person standing behind is incorrectly occluding the virtual object. So, the next step is to break down the people layer into multiple layers according to the depth estimations powered by machine learning. Next, insert the virtual object at the correct depth. The last step is to only place people who are closer to the camera in front of an AR object.

It is even more impressive to watch a person walking around an AR object and see how “People Occlusion” works dynamically.

To put it simply, it’s similar to adjusting the object display orders on a Microsoft PowerPoint slide, except that all the steps have to be done in real time without manual interventions. That is partly why ARKit3 is only available in iOS13 and requires the Apple neural engine in the A12 chips or later, found in the latest devices such as iPhone XS and XR.

 “People Occlusion” enables virtual content to be rendered behind people, and it can handle multiple persons dynamically. The neural engine recognizes fully or partially visible people, as well, such as the person in the back or even merely the palm of someone’s hand.

It’s worth noting that the people layer does not have to be broken down all the time. A developer may choose to collect people all together to enable green screen-style effects. For example, Figure 10 shows a breathtaking scene from the movie “The Hobbit.”

As a matter of fact, the background of the beautiful distant mountains and waterfalls was inserted into the green panel areas in a studio as shown in Figure 11.

The power of “People Occlusion” can help extract actors and actresses much more easily, and allow all kinds of background images or videos to be used to achieve the desired visual effects. With all the visual magic and inspiring music in the movie, it is easy to simply enjoy the scene in Figure 10 and forget about its humble beginning in Figure 11.

It is worth noting that “People Occlusion” is only the first step to solve the camera feed depth problem. For versatile physical objects other than people, such as a piano, a cabinet or a door, the recognition has to be more accommodating and versatile as well. Furthermore, the occlusions based on the depth estimations and relationship can get more complicated. I look forward to Apple’s future advancements.

To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS SellWeb AR can help promote your ideas and products, please visit its product page. The best way to learn is to play with live examples featured on a demo site including actual client webpages. Have fun and leave your thoughts below.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a product management professional with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of 3D technologies and practical applications.

I thought it was just a casual conversation, but interestingly enough, right before we left the owner asked me, “How can I show off the AR thing on my phone? I want to look smart and have some fun with friends.”

It turned out that he was using an Android device. I was glad that SOLIDWORKS Sell just added the Web AR support of Android devices in the 2.11.4 release on June 3—perfect timing for him to play.

As you may know, the Android Operating System accounts for more than three quarters of the global market share. After SOLIDWORKS Sell added the web AR support for Apple devices, as mentioned in a previous article, Try Before You Buy with Augmented Reality, there have been many user requests for support on Android devices. Now it’s available; let’s see how it works.

It’s actually quite easy. First, you need to install an Android AR component (ARCore 1.9 or later) if you haven’t already. You can see the strategic differences between Google and Apple with this step. Apple includes the necessary AR component in iOS 12 or later so that users do not have to install a separate app. I can see why Steve Jobs insisted on a “closed” system in his time, as opposed to Google’s “open” system. Personally, I like Apple’s approach better here, and think that a strategic component such as AR should be included in the mobile operating systems by default. Gartner estimated that by 2020, 100 million consumers will shop using AR. One more separate app means one more chance for user dropouts in the workflow and more support calls to brands, retailers and software vendors.

The next step is to simply tap to open a 3D configurator URL in your Chrome browser, such as an office desk, chair or this Beamy speaker/projector. Once happy with your customization, tap on the AR button at the upper left corner as shown in Figure 1. The AR button location depends on the layout design in SOLIDWORKS Sell as mentioned in a previous post, How to Create a LEGO-like Online 3D Configurator.

You can follow the on-screen guide as shown in Figure 2 to place the digital chair in your space.

You can rotate with a pinch to spin the model, pinch in or out to scale the display down or up, or double tap to restore the 100 percent actual scale.

To me, this type of simple AR application makes perfect sense because it serves a useful purpose in an easy way.

First, it’s practical. The 100 percent size of a product plays a significant role in purchasing decisions, as it allows users to see how the product would fit in the actual space. AR provides this key insight where traditional digital models and pictures alone, without a relevant context, leave a major gap.

In fact, I am often surprised by how big or small a model shows up in AR mode. The surprise here adds value, because the true size is so valuable that some software even completely disables scaling for digital models in the AR mode. In addition to the value of true sizes, AR also presents colors and textures within the physical space, so that consumers can decide whether the styles would match the actual environment.

Even better, the digital AR model can interact with the physical space by reflecting the surroundings. Figure 3 illustrates a digital cabinet’s stainless steel wall reflecting a doormat in my mudroom. It certainly adds another layer of realism.

Second, the AR mode in web browsers on smartphones is very convenient. The convenience further contributes to its practicality on the first point. Obviously, smartphones are pervasive. The mobile highway has been paved, and mobile Internet traffic has surpassed personal computers in a large number of use cases. People can simply pull their phone out of their pocket and accomplish many things. The same is being applied to AR experiences.

In contrast, virtual reality (VR) today still needs uncomfortable devices such as glasses, goggles, helmets or even theaters, often accompanied by annoying motion sickness. The state of VR right now reminds me of that of movies 100 years ago as presented in the PBS documentary The Kinetoscope. Apparently, the barrier to compelling AR experiences is much lower than VR.

Furthermore, AR software has made tremendous progress. All you need now is a web browser. There is no special app needed to experience AR (almost, except for the Google ARCore component as mentioned earlier). So the user experience has been remarkably simplified. Plus, in the early days of AR, the software used to require a separate special QR code to anchor a digital model. New enhancements have been made to recognize a floor automatically to place a model.

With that said, there are software and hardware system requirements for Web AR to work properly on Android devices. First, make sure that your device is on Google’s list of supported devices. Second, make sure that the device is using Android version 8 or later, and that ARCore 1.9 or later has been installed.

As to digital models, it is highly recommended to simplify the internal features and components before enabling Web AR. After all, most of the time, the AR mode is to help visually validate the exterior dimensions and appearances in a physical space, so internal details will not be seen anyway. Plus, too many hidden details would increase digital model file sizes and unnecessarily slow down the responses on smartphones. On a webpage, even one second of loading delay can impact the user experience and conversion rate. That’s why Google started using page speed in mobile search ranking in January 2018.

Let’s take the Beamy speaker configurator as an example. Figure 5 shows a SOLIDWORKS exploded view revealing extensive internal mechanical details. While valuable for a complete design, these details are really not necessary for an exterior configurator—let alone the inner electrical components such as printed circuit board, wiring and harnessing—because their appearances probably will not affect online shoppers’ purchasing decisions.

Therefore, the published configurator focused on the outer appearances and removed a large number of inner details. Figure 6 shows the comparison between the finished configurator and the simplified internal components and features. In fact, the total online geometry (OBJ) is only 25MB, rather than 400MB of its SOLIDWORKS assembly. This is why the online configurator and AR can work smoothly on a smartphone.

One partof the speaker model worth noting is the frame, as shown in Figure 7. The holes and ribs have all been removed to cut the geometry file size down by 70 percent. For the best AR experience, this type of cost-effective simplification is recommended.

Now let’s take a look at how to enable Web AR for a configurator in SOLIDWORKS Sell. You will need to check the box ARQUICKLOOK on a configurator tile, as shown in Figure 8 below. Web AR is not enabled for every configurator by default due to the geometry size and performance considerations, as previously mentioned.

On the Preview Web Layout editor, make sure the AR button is placed to the front for all necessary screen sizes, especially for low-resolution phones, as shown in Figure 9.

With the above checks, you should be all set with the Web AR for your online visitors.

Before I forget, during my vacation at Finger Lakes, the vacation house owner also wanted to show off his newly renovated antique boat on his Android phone with AR. I am not as familiar with scanning software and hardware. Do you have any suggestions?

To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS Sell can help promote your ideas and products, please visit its product page. The best way to learn is to play with live examples featured on a demo site including actual client webpages. Have fun and leave your thoughts below.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a product management professional with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

Materials play a vital role in configurators because they are highly visible in the appearance of a product and affect consumer purchasing decisions significantly. The web analytics data shows that about 40 percent of online clicks happen on material selections, much higher than clicks on groups or geometry variations. Therefore, materials have been a hot topic in customer requests.

This May release added 266 standard SOLIDWORKS materials to the online Design Editor material library as shown in Figure 1. Remember to switch to the Base Material subtype and scroll down to find the SOLIDWORKS material category.

This is a step forward in several ways.

1. This list provides additional materials for users to choose from. It includes popular types such as wood, metal, plastics, fabric, and rubber, which means that users can now save the large amount of time and effort required to recreate them manually.
2. The workflow is that a SOLIDWORKS model is assigned with these standard materials and then published online, where the materials will show up automatically in the Design Editor. Now the first online impression feels much more assured and empowering to users, especially those who are new to SOLIDWORKS Sell. Figure 2 shows a comparison between a speaker model in SOLIDWORKS, along with the default appearances in prior releases and in the 2.11.3 version. The default result looks more attractive than before and saves a great deal of effort in assigning materials manually. Of course, the visualization is also determined by scene settings such as lighting, perspective angles, shading and background scene images. That is why the appearance in the configurator looks a bit different from left to right, but the materials are all respected.

• If you assign one material to a part in SOLIDWORKS, but different materials to its faces to represent various finishes such as polished, matte or satin, these individual assignments will all be carried over online. It addresses the practical need of multiple surface finishes on one single component. Figure 3 illustrates that the overall speaker frame carries a polished maple wood material, while the walls are treated with a satin maple finish to make it less shiny or slippery.

• The visualization quality is consistent from SOLIDWORKS to the Design Editor, static renderings, and Augmented Reality (AR). Now companies do not have to worry about the inconsistent look and feel of materials between multiple environments.

Please note that not all standard SOLIDWORKS materials have been added at this time. For instance, the varnished maple in SOLIDWORKS is not available in the online library right now. Also this addition has not included user-customized SOLIDWORKS materials yet. For example, if you assign a SOLIDWORKS cast brass material as selected in Figure 1 to a part, but manually tweak its color to blue, this custom color will not be automatically carried over to the online configurator right now. We hope this material feature keeps improving in the future.

Materials only look as good as the geometries that carry them. Here comes another major enhancement regarding the geometry quality. Previously, cylinders may not look smooth at the Coarse publishing resolution, as shown in Figure 4.

Therefore, users had to increase the geometry resolution from Coarse to Fine to reach smooth geometries, but the Fine resolution could increase the file size significantly (2.15 MB in this case) which would slow down the online configurator responses.

This new release comes together with a new Publisher versioning at 3.2. It is highly recommended that you upgrade your SOLIDWORKS Sell Publisher Addin to benefit from the latest enhancements. Figure 5 shows the smooth geometries at the Coarse resolution and its file size is only 0.07MB, or 3 percent of the previous 2.15MB smooth result. So the online performance is much faster now even with high-quality models.

Now with high-quality materials and geometries, let’s look at how to compose a webpage to present them. As illustrated in a previous post, you can build a configurator webpage similar to playing LEGOs using the Layout Manager with zero coding. We all know the importance of responsive designs to mobile screens. The online analytics data shows that more than one third of visits come from mobile devices, which are convenient, prevalent and essential for the popular AR use cases. This is why the April 2.11.2 release started automatically providing four mobile-friendly layout sizes by default for every newly created layout. In the May 2.11.3 release, the interface is further improved to suit mobile displays. As shown in Figure 6, the various control buttons are now split up so that you can pick handy tools at a more granular level for appropriate screen sizes.

The new granular buttons include AR, Ruler, 360 View, Predefined Perspectives, Undo and Redo, and Full screen. They used to be all combined in one long control bar which you had to use or remove in its entirety. An immediate beneficiary of the new layout options is mobile display, as shown in Figure 7. Choose the indispensable AR button only and remove all other controls to make the small screen display cleaner.

Another example of friendlier mobile layouts is the direct size controls of the material icons. This tiny but handy interface has been anticipated for a long time, and has finally arrived. Figure 8 shows that you can now adjust the Material icon sizes directly on its Style Property tab. 20 x 20 pixels is fine for a small display; try to avoid big icons, 50 x 50 pixels or above, on a small screen as they will look too busy and out of proportion. Another recommendation is to check the box “Hide Materials Text” because otherwise the texts get crowded and hard to read. Plus, the material icon images visually indicate how they look, in any case.

Just in case you haven't noticed, during the 3D viewport loading, the progress bar now tells the exact status as shown in Figure 9. It is much better than the previous seemingly endless spinning wheel.

This bar displays on pages with 3D viewports as needed, such as a Preview, the Design Editor, the Material Library, and the Order Page.

To sum it up, this is a practical and handy new release of SOLIDWORKS Sell. One post cannot cover all the enhancements. The good news is that from now on, you can monitor new release notes directly on the dashboard of your Design Editor as shown in Figure 10.

To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS Sell can help promote your ideas and products, please visit its product page. The best way to learn is to roll up your sleeves and play with live examples featured on the demo site, including actual client websites. Have fun and leave your thoughts below.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a product management professional with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

Now, to an interested marketer, engineer or designer, a natural question is how to integrate a 3D online configurator onto their public websites, especially for mobile devices. Or, in another case, a user may simply want a quick mockup of a Webpage containing a configurator to pitch ideas internally. Of course, a Web developer can help with the HTML coding using SOLIDWORKS Sell server APIs and widget APIs. But what if a user doesn’t have much coding experiences and doesn’t want to bother a programmer back and forth all the time? What if a small team or startup can’t afford dedicated Web developers? Well, these are certainly not isolated cases. Therefore, it’s encouraging to see a UI-based Webpage layout editor in SOLIDWORKS Sell as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.A UI-based Webpage layout editor in SOLIDWORKS Sell.

The interface looks self-explanatory. The top section lists the basic profile information such as the name, screen size and so on. The center focus is on a preview of how a layout appears. It also serves directly as a screen sheet for users to place, drag and drop different widgets from the left hand side. You may notice that each widget on the left is labeled with a unique color. The color is used to cover a corresponding placeholder area on the preview in the middle. For example, the materials widget is labeled with a burgundy color in Figure 1. Therefore, the bottom left corner on the preview sheet in this color indicates the placeholder for the materials widget. It’s an intuitive visual cue of which element sits where and how much real estate it occupies. Then, editable properties of each widget are populated on the right hand side. Table 1 summarizes the functions of all the widgets.

Table 1. Webpage Layout Editor Widget Functions

The layout configurations, or various screen sizes, are worthy of special attention here due to the booming usage of mobile devices. Pulling out a smart phone from a pocket is so convenient that no other electronic devices have ever enjoyed such a close intimacy with everyday users. Therefore, it’s vital to make 3D online configurators mobile friendly. It’s even frequently recommended by Web designers to first design your mobile presentations. Once a mobile design is nailed down, the layouts for larger screens will become much less restrictive and easier thanks to the bigger spaces.

For example, let’s take a look at a large-screen laptop display as shown in Figure 2. It looks fine with the header, view controls, viewport, group list, materials and thumbnails at the bottom.

Figure 2. A large screen laptop display.

But how does it look on a smaller iPhone screen? Figure 3 provides the answer, showing a messy display. Obviously, all the widgets are truncated. The banner image loses the product logo, “Beamy.” The group list, material list, view control buttons and thumbnail strip all appear incomplete. For sure, no brand or manufacturer would want to present their websites to customers this way.

Figure 3. A messy display on an iPhone 6 screen.

As a comparison, Figure 4 shows a much simpler and cleaner layout. The banner displays a complete Beamy logo. The group list, part list and material list neatly include all the choices without truncating or overlapping with any widgets.

Figure 4. A simpler and cleaner display on an iPhone 6 screen.

What’s the secret then? It lies in a much different layout specifically tailored for mobile devices. As shown in Figure 5, the layout editor allows users to create or edit a presentation according to the predefined options for common mobile and computer screen widths, such as small mobile phones from 320 pixels to 375 pixels, tablets from 768 pixels to 1024 pixels, or laptops at 1024 pixels or above. A browser will automatically populate the Web content into a layout that matches the device in use.

Figure 5. Various layout sizes corresponding to common mobile and computer devices.

Let’s take a small mobile screen as an example as shown in Figure 6. It will be deployed automatically when a device screen width is between 320 pixels and 425 pixels as indicated by the configuration dropdown list. iPhone 6, 7 and 8 fall into this width range.

Figure 6. A layout of a device screen width between 320 pixels and 425 pixels.

Please notice the differences from the large screen as presented in Figure 2. First, the banner image has been manually cut down to the bare bone, which is the logo. The group list is relocated from the far right to the middle. The material list and part permutations are placed side by side right above the 3D viewport. Last but not least, the view strip at the bottom has been removed. Why? It’s because the screen is so small that prioritizing the widgets becomes extremely important.In this case, it’s sensible to emphasize the most essential 3D viewport and sacrifice the space-consuming thumbnails.

Once these decisions are made, the user experience is as intuitive as playing with LEGOs. For example, you can simply drag and drop a materials widget on the sheet to where it fits as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7.Drag and drop a materials widget on a layout.

Even better than a LEGO, each and every building block on the layout editor carriesits own properties for various adaptive presentations. Figure 8 shows the part image height and width properties that can be reduced to fit into a small iPhone screen. With these tweaks, we can reach the neat presentation as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 8.Adjust part image height and width properties for various screen sizes.

Once you are satisfied with a small screen layout, bigger screens will become much easier to manage. I’ll leave the fun for you to try it out yourself. When a layout with mobile friendly sizes is created, you can assign it to a product configurator on the Scene Settings tab and preview the result in a browser as shown in Figure 9. Your audience will be able to enjoy the presentations similar to Figure 2 or Figure 4, responsive to their specific screen sizes automatically. By the way, have you seen any coding so far?

Figure 9. Assign a layout to a product configurator and preview the result in a browser.

We are all set with this article. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS Sell can help promote your ideas and products, please visit its product page. The best way to learn is to roll up your sleeves and play with live examples featured on a demo site, including actual client websites. Have fun and leave your thoughts below.

About the Author
Oboe Wu is a product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

However, before I place an online order, there is always a doubt in the back of my mind, “What if it doesn’t fit into my environment?” For product functions and quality in general, I can examine the extensive consumer reviews, ratings and answers, which can typically provide a convincing gauge. But my environment is specific to me. General reviews cannot help much. This is why many online shoppers buy a product online, only to find it doesn’t fit into their kitchen, and then have to return it. From the seller’s point of view, a manufacturer or a distributor sells a product online, only to find it returned later. Think about the wasted time, money, and effort along with the unnecessary shipments, risks and disappointments.

To address this issue, Build.com developed a feature called “In-Home Preview (Augmented Reality)” for selected products as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. In-Home Preview (Augmented Reality)

(Video courtesy of Build.com)

According to an article on Digital Commerce 360, Build.com finds AR shoppers spend more and return less. Here are several specific metrics shared in this article:

• AR users on average visitcom’s app or site twice as often each month than non-AR shoppers.
• The average session length for an AR shopper is nearly one minute longer than non-AR shoppers.
• The return rate for AR shoppers is 22% lower than shoppers who didn’t use the tool and bought the same product.
• Therefore, in one year, Build.com increased the AR-enabled products from dozens to 650, or 1,700 SKUs.

In the same light, it’s encouraging to see that SOLIDWORKS Sell develops its own general plug-and-play AR capabilities for 3D online product configurators as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. SOLIDWORKS Sell AR Capabilities for A 3D Chair Online Configurator.

Although different from the Build.com AR application, SOLIDWORKS Sell AR looks pretty friendly to use by consumers and easy to deploy by brands. Let’s find out how it works.

First, load a configurator URL, such as a 3D chair, in a Safari browser on an iPhone, iPad, or iPad Pro with iOS 12 or above. Then customize materials, sizes or shapes across various components to your liking as shown on the left side of Figure 2. By the way, this customization step works in all major browsers, devices and operating systems, but the AR only works in Safari on iOS 12 or above at the time of writing this article.

Once happy with the appearance in the 3D viewport, you can touch the AR button at the upper left corner and it will switch to an AR preview window as shown in Figure 3. Please note that after finishing your tweaking, you may need to wait for several seconds before touching the AR button. This is the time needed for the final personalized model to be rendered accordingly in the AR mode.

Figure 3. An AR preview window of A 3D Chair Online Configurator, powered by SOLIDWORKS Sell.

Now please touch the AR tab at the top of the preview window. You may be asked to move the iPhone and scan the floor to place the chair, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Move iPhone to scan the floor and place the chair.

In several seconds, the chair will pop up in your environment as shown on the right side in Figure 2. For those with experiences in the early days of AR, you may notice that it doesn’t require scanning a QR code or other prerequisite markers any more. This certainly eases the user experience.

In this AR display, you may spin the digital model by rotating two fingers together as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Spin the digital model in the AR mode by rotating two fingers together.

You can also slide one finger on the screen to push it further or pull it closer. Of course, you may go back to the configurator, choose a different appearance and project the updated chair again. For example, Figure 6 shows a different fabric material. Also note that you can scale the model up or down by expanding or pinching two fingers, similar to scaling an image on an iPhone. What’s insightful here is that the display tells the active scale in real time, 100% in this case, so that we know how the actual size would look and fit in the environment.

Figure 6. 100% scale of an updated chair with a new fabric.

That’s it for a consumer to verify the product’s suitability before placing an online order. There are no goggles, glasses, theaters, or any special equipment needed for this experience. All you need is an iPhone, which is why it’s so easy and practical for the general public to adopt.

On the other hand, what does it mean to manufacturers or distributers? Is there any heavy development needed on the seller side? The answer is no—as long as you have 3D online configurators powered by SOLIDWORKS Sell, AR can be enabled with no additional coding, which is why I call it “general plug-and-play AR capabilities.” I know some sellers are ready to get onboard. The next natural question is what are the low-hanging fruits to enable AR first. Build.com shared their experiences:

• “Products that have lower than average conversion online, but convert well at offline retailers.
• Premium products, as expensive items are often a considered purchase. AR could help give the shopper confidence.
• Same for heavy items, such as a bathtub.”

I hope that you are as convinced as I am on the values, potentials, and easy adoptions of AR. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the technologies, but I feel that I will be missing something in my next online purchase without AR. Am I alone?

To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS Sell can help promote your ideas and products, please visit its product page. The best way to learn is to roll up your sleeves and play with live examples featured on a demo site including actual client websites. Have fun and please leave your thoughts below.

About the Author
Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

The online portal is upgraded systematically by the SOLIDWORKS Sell team, similar to a Gmail page upgraded by Google regularly, so you don’t need to maintain it. On the other hand, it’s highly recommended to upgrade the Publisher add-in installed on your local computer to the latest version. You can find the version information on the online portal as shown in Figure 1. The versions are captured as of the writing of this article, so what you see may be different from this image. The instructions on this page can walk you through the upgrade steps. This post will focus on the latest Publisher 2.2.3273 released Oct. 10, 2018.

Figure 1. SOLIDWORKS Sell Publisher and Online Editor versions.

A common SOLIDWORKS design practice is to store product size and shape variations in one file, such as a series of similar but different office desks or factory valves. These variations are a perfect geometric source for online 3D-configurable products. However, it can be tedious, labor intensive, slow and error-prone to publish these configurations manually.

For example, Figure 2 shows a simple office desk design in which the desktop part alone contains 25 configurations. In other words, it provides five sizes, and each size includes five shapes to cater to various consumer functional and esthetic needs.

Figure 2. 25 Configurations of a desktop part in a simple office desk design.

To manually publish them, a user has to activate a configuration, launch the Publisher command, select the target geometries into corresponding groups, click the green check mark and wait for the models to go online. Then, he or she has to repeat these steps again and again to cover all the configurations of this desktop. By the way, please don’t forget other parts such as the left, back and right panels. Each of them also includes 25 configurations. Individually, these add up to 100 part-level permutations as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Desk Geometric Variations at The Part Level

Selecting several parts to publish together in one command can help reduce the total number of publishing command from 100 to 25. Still, this multiple-step procedure has to be repeated at least 25 times on this simple desk example. I spent several hours going through this process myself a while ago and absolutely hated it. Due to the similarities between configurations and the boring repetitiveness, I lost track of what had been covered and what had notyet for several times. I wasted at least 30 minutes in my own confusion, not to mention the agony of waiting to activate every configuration and publish each one online. Despite all of the above effort and patience, when the number of configurations of a part reaches hundreds or thousands, manual publishing becomes prohibitively impractical.

Therefore, it is a relief to see that the latest Publisher release added the capability to publish configurations automatically. Figure 3 shows the new interface. A user can now check the box “Publish configurations” as pointed by the green arrow. The software will iterate through all configurations under a selected part or sub-assembly and publish them in one command.

Figure 3. Publish all configurations of a desktop automatically.

Figure 4 shows the command progressing through multiple configurations and groups. Since the iterations are executed in one command, it doesn’t need my attention or intervention in between. I can simply kick it off, let it run and go away to have a cup of tea. Actually, it ran faster than my tea time, taking only about 15 seconds rather than minutes or hours.

Figure 4. The Automatic Configuration Publishing Command is running through multiple iterations.

It’s time to check the online results as shown in Figure 5. Please note that all the sizes and shapes of the desktop have been uploaded online, saving me hours of time.

Figure 5. The online results of automatically published desktop configurations.

What about other groups such as the left, back and right panels? Please take a look at Figure 6.

Figure 6. The online results of automatically published back panel configurations.

There are only five shapes within one size. Why are all other sizes missing? Let’s go back to the SOLIDWORKS model as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Five configurations of the back panel at one size.

Aha, there are only five shape configurations at one size at this moment. Other back panel sizes are driven by the desktop sizes in SOLIDWORKS, so they are not active. It looks like this automation hasn’t taken account the interactions between components yet. It’s only processing the configurations directly listed under each component. For now, to add all the missing side panel sizes, I can activate a different desktop size that will lead to the matching size of all three side panels. Then, I can use this automation again to process all the shapes within this active size. Figure 8 shows an example at the smallest size.

Figure 8. Automatically add all shapes of all panels at the smallest desk size.

Ideally, it would be able to cover all other sizes of the side panels automatically at a command runtime driven by the desktop sizes beyond what’s statically listed under each component. Although not a 100 percent complete automation, it can still save hours of time per online template in this desk design because it cuts the number of publishing rounds from 25 down to 5. It’s worth noting that the current level of automation can be extremely empowering if there are a large amount of configurations directly under each component, such as dozens, hundreds or even thousands of variations across multiple components. I hope the software keeps improving and will process the interactions between components in future releases.

Here are several concluding comments:

1. This automation only works with native SOLIDWORKS configurations.
2. It’s disabled if you select the “Merge into single part” publishing option because merging geometric variations into one part doesn’t make business sense.
3. Once the parts are online, it may be a good idea to give them descriptive names, so that they are easily recognizable to be organized into logical groups as needed.

I hope this new release update is helpful. Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS Sell can help promote your ideas and products, please visit its product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

Figure 1. Estimated quarterly e-commerce retail sales in the United States from 2004 to 2018(in millions of dollars.)

Source: The U.S. Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce.

Online shopping brings remarkable value to daily consumers due to its easy access, competitive prices, vast selection and speedy delivery. However, on most e-commerce websites, there is an amazing lack of 3D online product customization options. Actually, manufacturers have accumulated a wealth of 3D CAD data authored by their design and engineering teams. Today,these data are primarily used to guide manufacturing. From time to time, designers and engineers are asked by sales and marketing teams to take a screenshot, render an image, or create a product video. But that’s far from reaching the full potential of 3D CAD. Therefore, as shared in a previous post, “Shop Customizable 3D Products Online? Of Course!”, an increasing number of manufacturers, such as Urb-E, Posh Shed and Leisure Creation, have made their product web pages 3D-aware, interactive and customizable. Figure 2 shows an example of an online 3D shed customizer by Posh Shed.

Figure 2. An online 3D shed customizer by Posh Shed in the United Kingdom.

Consumers can choose their favorite build level, size, door hinge side, glazing option, furniture color, window side and roof finish. These choices are reflected instantly on the 3D shed model on a webpage that you can pan, zoom and rotate. The model even allows you to look inside the shed as shown in Figure 3. Furthermore, you don’t need to install any software to enjoy the benefits of 3D. An Internet connection and a browser are all you need, which means you can use a computer, a tablet or a smart phone to customize sheds or other products.

Figure 3. An inside view of a Posh Shed 3D online product.

Of course, these features are invaluable for both consumers and manufacturers. The question is how you can use them. This article will walk you through several major steps.

A key distinction to remember is that online 3D models must be lightweight so that they can load quickly and update on a webpage. Otherwise, consumers’ patience may run out and their shopping carts may be abandoned. Therefore, 3D CAD data have to be simplified and optimized for an online presence. SOLIDWORKS Sell provides a dedicated Publisher for this task. It publishes only essential CAD model pieces online to lightweight mesh bodies or OBJ files. The mesh file sizes often account for only a small fraction of the original CAD file sizes, so this can greatly speed up the online model loading and update process, as well as ensure a sleek consumer experience. On the other hand, the online mesh bodies include only graphical information. They don’t contain your detailed CAD proprietary information, which can ease concerns about intellectual property protection.

Figure 4 shows the SOLIDWORKS Sell Publisher add-in, which can be used to help market this simple kitchen table online. By the way, the CAD data don’t have to be in native SOLIDWORKS formats or include multiple SOLIDWORKS configurations. As long as SOLIDWORKS can open non-native solid bodies in the graphics area, the Publisher can pick up the data from the current display and process them into online mesh bodies. As you may already know, SOLIDWORKS 3D Interconnect can help bring in all the major proprietary and neutral formats.

Figure 4. SOLIDWORKS Sell Publisher.

Here you may notice a dedicated SOLIDWORKS Sell command bar with only one button. Additional buttons and functionalities may be included in the future. On this note, the software updates frequently, sometimes as often as a couple of times per month. So, it’s recommended that users check and install the latest version regularly to enjoy the software’s most recent enhancements. Actually, because of how frequently the software is updated, you may find that your version of the user interface looks a bit different from what is shown in the screenshots in this post, but the main concepts won’t be very different.

First, click on the Publish button on the command bar,and you will see the Property Manager on the left side of the screen. From the top, first up is the Template section. A template in the context of SOLIDWORKS Sell is an online product presence, which captures its components, group structures, materials, assemblies, scene settings and rendering options. Please click on the New Template button to create a new template for this kitchen table as shown in Figure 5. You may rename or delete a template from the context menu as needed.

Figure 5. A new kitchen table template.

Now, let’s move on. It may be a good idea to fold several user interface sections so that the Property Manager doesn’t become too long and require you to scroll up and down frequently. As you can see in Figure 6, I have folded the Templates and Options sections by clicking on the arrows shown in the green circle. The focus now is on Group, which means a collector of components that share the same properties, such as materials and functions. I have created a group called Top and then selected the table top for this collector. You can select geometries from the graphics area, the object list on the Property Manager, or the SOLIDWORKS feature tree.

Figure 6. A group for the table top.

Similarly, you can create other groups such as Legs and Supports as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Top, Legs and Supports groups ready to be published.

The numbers under group names, such as 1 in the Top group or 4 in the Legs group, stand for the number of solid bodies picked up for a specific group. Besides the cross highlighting in the graphics viewport, selected solid bodies are also indicated in a bold font on the object list. Please note that these objects have not been published to the online template yet, so the box of Parts in the group doesn’t contain anything at this point.

One section worth mentioning is Resolution after Groups. It controls how coarse or fine online mesh bodies will be. For simple geometries that are similar to this table, the coarse resolution should suffice. For artistic products such as jewelry or apparel, you may need finer resolutions to match the exact curves and surfaces of the objects. Obviously, the finer a resolution is, the bigger the mesh file size will be, and the slower a 3D viewport webpage will load.

With this simple group structure and the default settings, you can now click on the green check mark on the Property Manager to publish this template. Depending on the complexity of the model, the resolution settings, and Internet speed, it may take several seconds or minutes for the Publisher to simplify and optimize the geometries into online mesh bodies.

You may wonder why this table doesn’t have any SOLIDWORKS materials assigned to it. The reason is that the SOLIDWORKS Sell online portal provides a rich material library along with specific settings optimized for website displays and renderings. For example, I have assigned several materials to the three groups as shown in Figure 8. You can switch between these materials and enjoy the instant configuration updates for the table top, legs or supports in a browser.

Figure 8. Kitchen table with assignments to the Top, Legs and Supports.

That concludes this article. We walked through several key steps on publishing CAD data into online configurable mesh bodies. As you can see, the user interface looks intuitive and the workflow is straightforward. You can produce a simple 3D online configurator for this kitchen table in several minutes. I hope that you will find this tutorial helpful. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS Sell can help promote your ideas and products, please visit its product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

We found ourselves in a showroom describing our ideas to an attentive sales lady. She would shuttle between the showroom and warehouse to bring out one pile of catalogs after another while we were waiting. We would pick several pictures from the piles of catalogs, and she would locate the part numbers and look up the prices of various arrangements on her computer according to the part numbers. After several hours, we came away with a piece of hand written paper listing prices of several components as shown in Figure 1. Of course, after getting home, we wanted to explore more ideas but couldn’t find updated product information or pricing. The shopping experience didn’t motivate us much to go back, so we had to “shelve” this purchase. We haven’t bought a bookshelf yet.

Figure 1. A handwritten piece of paper with bookshelf quotes.

We were certainly not alone in this case. In the fast adoption of e-commerce these days, online shopping has become part of our daily lives. Roughly 70 percent of my household purchases are done online, and it’s growing. Yet, it is amazing to see the lack of online consumer goods customization options. Yes, you may be able to switch between several window curtain pictures and sizes on a webpage, which may show you the updated prices, but a limited number of product webpages or online stores are equipped with this capability. And, remember, these pages present static images only. Yet, we live in a 3D world, and most products are designed in 3D models. Wouldn’t it be nice if a consumer could simply interrogate 3D-product models on a webpage, customize desirable options to their likings in an online catalog, and make informed decisions right away on a computer anywhere and anytime?

Well, that is indeed nice, and you can now do it. Check out the SOLIDWORKS Sell demonstration site showcasing nine online 3D-product configuration examples, as shown in Figure 2, on a wide spectrum of consumer goods including jewelry, furniture, eyeglasses and refrigerators.

Figure 2. Nine online 3D-product configuration examples powered by SOLIDWORKS Sell.

For example, Figure 3 shows an online catalog of URB-E lightweight, foldable electric vehicles. You can select colored materials of various components such as frames, baskets, fenders and inserts from the list on the right side. The 3D bicycle updates automatically per your selection in the viewport on the left side. Right in your browser, you are presented with an enormous digital catalog including hundreds or even millions of choices. Your tweaks are instantly reflected in the 3D-product model, which can be rotated and zoomed in and out for interactive and immersive interrogations.

Figure 3. URB-E 3D online catalog allows you to customize your own lightweight, foldable electric vehicles.

You can also add or remove components such as tail light, fenders and baskets. Figure 4 shows a detailed view on the tail light. Just click on “Tail Light: No” pointed by the green arrow to remove it.

Figure 4. A detailed view of the tail light.

Configurable components are selectable from both the list on the right side and the 3D viewport on the left side. For example, after I clicked on the top frame in the viewport, it was selected and highlighted with a light blue outline, as shown in Figure 5. The active component on the right side list automatically switched to the top frame to present the most relevant options. Components without configurable options by a manufacturer’s design will not be selectable, either in the viewport or the group list, such as the seat in the URB-E case.

Figure 5. Selecting a component in the viewport automatically activates the corresponding component in the group list on the right side.

This leads to a frequent question I hear from manufacturers. What if a consumer picked a configuration that a factory couldn’t build? Don’t worry. All the options, even millions of them, are completely controlled by a manufacturer, which decides what is allowed for online customization and what is not. In other words, the degree of customization enabled is only a reflection of the manufacturing profitability, capability and capacity. It won’t go boundless—although it may seem close for consumers thanks to the rich selections. Furthermore, it can be adjusted as circumstances change. For example, if URB-E finds the business case justifiable for more seat options beyond the current fixed one, it can easily add more.

On the other hand, manufacturers can remove options based on online catalog analytics to optimize business performance. For instance, if the fender customization resulted in expensive additional manufacturing costs, then it would be natural to ask the question: “Is it worth the cost?” An online A/B test can help gain insights. Two catalogs, with and without the fender customization, can be loaded on a webpage to two randomly selected visitor groups of the same quantity during the same period of time. If there was not much difference in the online traffic data or revenue, then it may mean the fender customization did not drive as much value as expected, despite the costly production introduced by multiple varieties. URB-E may decide to make fenders as a fixed single option. Of course, a similar test can be done easily to see whether the fenders should be removed completely for the best business return.

Coming back to my bookshelf purchasing experience, I didn’t know SOLIDWORKS Sell back then but literally suggested a similar idea to the diligent sales lady. The selection, customization, part number lookup, quoting and purchasing could have been much more streamlined if their furniture information was digitally available online in 3D-configurable products. The consumer shopping experience would have been much more empowering, convenient, interactive and immersive. In the fast development of e-commerce in the internet age, what percentage of your shopping is done online now? How do you see online 3D configurations applied to your products?  You are welcome to leave your thoughts in the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS Sell can help promote your ideas and products, please visit its product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

First of all, the SOLIDWORKS World 2018 proceedings are available to the public now. You can create an account and login as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The SOLIDWORKS World 2018 Agenda page.

Once logged in, you can watch presentation videos and download slides as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Watch the presentation video and download the slides on a session introduction page.

The proceeding site is a gold mine of insights and you can watch all of the presentations online at your own pace. Obviously this article can’t cover everything, so I’ll just drill down to several examples, one of which is “Me and My MBD; Learning to Make MBD Your Friend”, presented by Casey Gorman.

One chart I enjoyed particularly is shown in Figure 3, “Overview of the use of an MBD Model”. Gorman pointed out the importance of checking model integrity. In 2D drawing processes, you check drawings to make sure the design requirements are closely conveyed. In model-based processes, this step should not be overlooked. It is still necessary to ensure high quality model definitions, because the ultimate goal of a definition is to guide the actual production. Either conveyed in 2D or 3D, the guidance must be accurate. You can review the model integrity visually in 3D, in a way similar to 2D drawing inspection. You may also utilize software tools to help check models automatically on various aspects, such as interferences, hole alignments, and annotations.

Figure 3. Overview of the use of an MBD Model. (Image courtesy of Casey Gorman.)

Gorman shared a fun story of his handling of MBD objections 10 years ago. To make the purchasing team less reluctant, he had to provide the machine shops with 2D drawings, but his team also quietly started attaching STEP models in addition to drawings. A couple of months later, the purchasing guy came back and said, “That MBD stuff just doesn’t work. But whatever you are doing, the suppliers really like it. So, keep it up.”

In essence, what Gorman was doing was actually one way of model-based communication. Therefore MBD isn’t as far away as many people might perceive. To handle potential objections, please don’t get hung up on the name “MBD” itself. As long as there are convincing adoptions and benefits based on models, you can call it whatever you want.

Another presentation I highly recommend is “Creating a Digital Thread with SOLIDWORKS MBD” by Denise Fitzgerald, Assistant Group Leader of Mechanical Engineering with MIT Lincoln Laboratory. I was struck by her before-and-after comparison of the engineering workflows. Figure 4 illustrates the previous flow, in which heavy manual information recreation is needed. The team found out that 90 percent of the errors occur in creating and modifying drawings or generating data cards.

Figure 4. Previous engineering workflow. (Image courtesy of Denise Fitzgerald.)

Figure 5 shows the new workflow, which uses the model data to drive downstream documents and processes automatically with SOLIDWORKS PDM.

Figure 5. New engineering workflow. (Image courtesy of Denise Fitzgerald.)

The benefits are remarkable. On one frequent task to update the export control notes, it used to take three people several weeks to complete more than 500 models and drawings. Now, that task only requires one hour of human intervention and one overnight of running an automation. So, the human hours are reduced from 360 (assuming three working-weeks before) down to only one, not to mention better consistency and happier employees. I don’t know who would feel thrilled at manually and repetitively updating notes in hundreds of documents.

As you may expect, the above two presenters received lots of questions in their breakout sessions. To address more questions and facilitate a more interactive conversation, I organized a panel discussion on February 7^th (Wednesday).Casey Gorman and Denise Fitzgerald were on the panel. In addition, William Cockrell, with Raytheon Defense, and Dave Woulf, with Disney Imagineering, also joined. We were very fortunate to have the panelists share their first-hand experiences and the audience ask touch questions.

Cockrell noted that the Change Notice (CN) creations were significantly dropped from drawing-based processes to model-based processes. Plus, the suppliers are not calling (or bugging) Raytheon engineers as frequently as before, because suppliers can now spin and query the models directly in 3D PDF themselves. Reflecting on the MBD journey at Raytheon, Cockrell cautioned manufacturers on the automation efforts, as shown in Figure 6. His recommendation was to worry about automation only after proving out capabilities to get MBD off the ground.

Figure 6. Don’t let automation derail the MBD initiative.(Image courtesy of William Cockrell.)

Woulf pointed out that getting the MBD thought process going within a large enterprise, such as Disney, could be very challenging. Therefore, his advice was to make sure the groundwork is solidly prepared. For example, bring all the team members up to speed with SOLIDWORKS DimXpert (a 3D annotation tool) and build up the appropriate part and assembly templates ahead of time. The more variables you can eliminate upfront, the easier it will be.

Besides all the presentations and discussions, there was also a model-based shop floor showcase to drive the talks into actions. Figure 7 shows a shifter arm assembly commonly used in automotive gear boxes. The design requirements are annotated to the model directly using SOLIDWORKS MBD. Then it was sent to SOLIDWORKS CAM for Numerical Control (NC) programming and then SOLIDWORKS Inspection to extract the key characteristics for inspection sheets.

Figure 7. An annotation shifter arm model in SOLIDWORKS MBD.

In Figure 8, you can see the part being machined in an NC machining center. The key throughout the shop floor is that every step is based on the model, rather than 2D drawings.

Figure 8. A shifter arm being machined.

From presentations to a shop floor showcase, from talks to actions, I hope that you can gain more insights in MBD implementations from SOLIDWORKS World 2018 and its proceedings. Again, this article touched only a few points. Many more gems are awaiting your own exploration and applications. The resources are publicly available, but only you can find the most relevant and actionable information for you.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS MBD can help implement your Model-Based Enterprises, please visit its product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

The previous article talked about several obvious benefits. For example, it can help save the 3D annotating time and effort by exposing the existing sketch annotations. This approach can also help avoid the potential inconsistencies between sketch annotations and other annotations in tools such as DimXpert and Reference Dimensions. Therefore, this practice may be able to give you a head start toward the 3D drawing direction.

However, MBD is way beyond 3D drawings. Now let’s look into the areas that you may need to be aware of when reusing sketch dimensions.

1. Sketch Dimensions Are Not Aware of the Features

To build a feature in SOLIDWORKS, typically you start with a sketch in which you can add sketch dimensions and tolerances. Then you can extrude, cut or revolve, along with many other tools to turn a sketch into a 3D feature. But it’s important to realize that a sketch is just a constructing element of a feature in the early phase. It doesn’t know what a final feature will end up with. Therefore, sketch dimensions can’t convey the full meaning of features. Figure 1 shows one instance in which the sketch dimensions are exposed in 3D to define a countersink hole.

Figure 1. Sketch dimensions are exposed in 3D to define a countersink hole.

It may seem fine, especially from the 2D drawing convention perspective. Many users have got used to this type of presentation and corresponding interpretations. The 90 degrees probably refers to the countersink angle. The 20mm diameter defines the countersink opening and 14mm diameter defines the hole. Also you may guess this definition is applicable to a series of identical holes along the border, although you may not be sure how many instances it covers without a careful manual count.

By the way, there are likely to be many sketch dimensions once you show them in 3D. So please control their visibilities carefully by hiding unwanted ones and organizing them with annotation views. Otherwise, the view may look busy and even overwhelming. Figure 2 shows one example.

Figure 2. A busy display with multiple sketch dimensions visible at the same time.

As a comparison to Figure 1, Figure 3 shows a different way in which all the instances of a countersink hole pattern are defined in one combined callout.

Figure 3. A countersink hole pattern is defined by DimXpert.

Here the 30X clearly indicates the instance count. The V-shape symbol tells that it is a countersink. Plus, selecting the callout highlights the entire pattern that has been defined by the callout. The DimXpert annotation is added after the pattern has been constructed, so it can convey the pattern definition more comprehensively. The comparison between Figure 1 and Figure 3 illustrates a difference between 3D drawings and MBD.

2. Sketch Dimensions Can’t Necessarily Guide How a Feature Should Be Manufactured or Inspected

The purpose of a sketch in parametric modeling is to construct features geometrically in 3D. However, a sketch is not fully aware of the feature to be completed afterwards, so the dimensions and tolerances in a sketch can’t necessarily be used to guide manufacturing or inspection. For example, Figure 4 shows the sketch dimensions of a circular hole pattern.

Figure 4. Sketch dimensions of a circular hole pattern.

If your milling operation is based on linear x, y and z coordinates, then these sketch dimensions may work fine. However, if you index this circular hole pattern on a rotary table for drilling such as the one shown in Figure 5, what you conveniently need is probably the dividing angles between the hole instances and their pitch circle diameter.

Figure 5. Index a circular hole pattern on a rotary table for drilling.

Therefore, the polar dimensioning style using DimXpert as shown in Figure 6 may come in handy.

Figure 6. Define the polar dimensions of dividing angles and the pitch circle diameter using DimXpert.

Furthermore, this way of drilling may work faster and reduce the scrap and rework, because you only need to rotate the table by certain degrees to drill the next hole once the pitch circle diameter is locked down. You don’t have to move the drill bit at all. In contrast, to machine according to the linear dimensions as shown in Figure 4, you will have to adjust the x and y coordinates of the drill bit for each hole instance.

Another case is to provide key information for inspection. Let’s again take the sketch dimensions in Figure 4 as an example. We located the counterbore holes but didn’t tell an inspector the wall thickness, or the distance from the biggest hole to the outer diameter, should the thickness become a concern. Therefore, you may want to add a DimXpert annotation to call out a wall thickness as shown in Figure 7. Please note that you can adjust the arc conditions on the property manager to retrieve the minimum distance between the outer cylinder and the counterbore cylinder.

Figure 7. Adjust the arc conditions to retrieve a wall thickness using DimXpert.

Similarly, in the context of a manufacturing process, due to the lack of 3D feature awareness, sketch dimensions don’t support geometric dimensioning and tolerancing(GD&T) definitions such as datum features, datum targets or feature control frames, nor do they support surface finishes or weld symbols. These definitions are best conveyed in 3D models to convey instructions and requirements unambiguously. After all, 3D features are up to multiple modifications and refinements after the sketches are defined. Therefore, the initial sketches may not be accurate or actionable any longer for manufacturing and inspection.

More details about GD&T in the MBD context can be found in Three MBD Advantages over 2D Drawings in GD&T Compliances and Ensure Solid GD&T Datum Practices with SOLIDWORKS MBD.

3. Sketch Dimensions Can’t Efficiently Drive Manufacturing Automations

In a previous article, I summarized the top 5 reasons to use MBD. In my opinion, the most significant benefit of MBD comes from the manufacturing automations, not from 2D drawing avoidances. For instance, based on the intelligent feature-based 3D annotations, machining and inspection software applications, such as computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) or coordinate measuring machines (CMMs),can make automatic decisions and cut programing time from hours to minutes. Figure 8 shows one example of the automated CMM programming and a quality heat map per 3D GD&T annotations.

Figure 8. Automated CMM programming and a quality heat map per 3D GD&T annotations.

This type of automations depends on the feature awareness, so sketch dimensions may fall short. However, in the future, maybe SOLIDWORKS can provide a capability to convert sketch annotations into intelligent feature-based annotations when certain sketches are representative enough of the 3D features. But for complex features heavily morphed away from basic sketches, sketch dimensions may not lead to meaningful actions worthy of any conversions.

I hope that this article clarifies the areas to be careful about when you are trying to reuse sketch dimensions. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS MBD can help implement your model-based enterprises, please visit the product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

However, as I explained in a previous article, reusing sketch dimensions is derived from a 3D-drawing approach, therefore it can’t realize the full potential of model-based workflows. In this article, let’s start with 3D drawing use cases and review several SOLIDWORKS techniques to serve the various need.

To begin with, as shown in Figure 1, you can check the line to Show Feature Dimensions as pointed by the green arrow. Here, Feature Dimensions include both sketch dimensions and feature dimensions. In my opinion, the categorization and naming are a bit confusing and could certainly be improved.

Figure 1. Check the command line to show feature dimensions.

The other way to control the display settings all together is the dialog as shown in Figure 2. You can invoke this dialog by clicking on the Details command line on top of the context menu, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 2. Check the box of feature dimensions.

Now with all the annotations and dimensions selected, Figure 3 shows the graphics area.

Figure 3. The graphics display with all the dimension and annotation types selected.

By default, sketch dimensions, such as the 45-degree close to the shaft shoulder, and reference annotations, such as the NOTES at the top of the image, are in black. Feature dimensions are in blue, and DimXpert annotations are in green. Lastly, reference dimensions are in grey, such as the seal grove annotations R0.20 and R1 on the left.

Now with everything shown, you may find the viewport very busy and hard to digest. Let’s take the thread example on the right side and organize its annotations for easier consumptions.

First, zoom into the helixcoil feature to show its thread characteristics. As you can see, the annotations overlap on top of each other. Some are even buried in the model.

Figure 4. A messy display of the annotations.

To clean up the display, let’s hide the reference dimensions, DimXpert annotations and reference annotations by unchecking their line items as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Uncheck irrelevant annotation types to clean up the display.

Next, you can selectively hide sketch and feature dimensions to focus on the helix coil. For example, Figure 6 shows that I selected the 50 mm feature dimension of an angled hole length. You can make it invisible by clicking Hide on its context menu.

Figure 6. Hide an irrelevant feature dimension.

Figure 7 shows that I’m trying to select the 8.40 mm shoulder width sketch dimension. However, because the Instant3D feature is turned on by default, a single-click selection activated this annotation for editing because sketch dimensions are driving, not driven dimensions. In this case, turn off the Instant3D feature to avoid unintended modifications.

Figure 7. A sketch dimension is activated for modification unintentionally due to Instant3D.

Next, repeat the step as shown in Figure 6 to hide irrelevant annotations. You will find a much cleaner view as shown in Figure 7. One point worth noting is that I didn’t find a way to select multiple annotations and hide them together, so I had to hide them one by one. It’d be great if multiple sketch and feature dimensions could be hidden together.

Figure 8. A cleaner view after irrelevant sketch and feature dimensions are hidden.

Now, you may find the text size too big for this detailed view. The software provides a quick setting to always display text at the same size, as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9. A cleaner, more properly displayed detailed view of the thread and its sketch dimensions.

Once you are happy with the current display, remember to capture it as a 3D View so that you can quickly retrieve it later. Figure 10 shows a 3D View named as Thread_FeatureDim with a thumbnail at the bottom.

Figure 10. Capture an organized display into a 3D View.

It’s nice to see that the setting, “Always display text at the same size,” is specific to the 3D Views. We had it checked in the 3D View “Thread_FeatureDim.” You can also uncheck it and have it remembered in another 3D View. For example, in a zoomed-out overview, as shown in Figure 11, you may want a bigger text scale specific to this view.

Figure 11. The display setting is remembered in specific 3D Views.

By the way, if the text size looks too big in Figure 8, but too small in Figure 9, you can also adjust the text font sizes individually as shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12. Adjust the sketch dimension font with multiple selections.

The good news here is that you can hold the control key to select multiple annotations and adjust their fonts together. Go to the Other tab on the property manager and clear the “Document font” checkbox to overwrite it. Then click on the Font button to modify the font.

By the way, if you need to add tolerances to certain sketch dimensions, you can modify them directly in 3D without having to edit the sketch. Figure 13 shows that a 2 mm distance is selected, and its tolerance is set to symmetric on the property manager.

Figure 13. Modify sketch dimension tolerances in 3D directly.

Now that we have fine-tuned the sketch dimensions, tolerances and display, you can export the model to STEP 242 or 3D PDF files. The sketch dimensions are supported in the neutral formats. Figure 14 shows an imported STEP 242 file in SOLIDWORKS MBD. You may notice the annotations and views preserved in the export and brought in again by the import.

Figure 14. Sketch dimensions and views are exported in STEP 242 files and can be imported back again into SOLIDWORKS MBD.

I hope that this article is helpful. It is important to point out that reusing sketch dimensions is just to serve the 3D drawing needs at the initial phase of MBD implementation. This practice doesn’t support geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) definitions. The sketch dimensions are the constructing elements of features, so they are not fully aware of the manufacturing features. Therefore sketch dimensions can’t effectively support the manufacturing automations based on semantic 3D annotations. First identify short-term and long-term goals and use cases of your MBD implementations, then you can choose the 3D annotation strategies accordingly.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS MBD can help implement your model-based enterprises, please visit its product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

We can begin by asking the question: Do you see any problem with the GD&T definition in Figure 1? In the figure, datum symbol A is attached to a centerline and then is referenced in a total runout tolerance.

Figure 1. A problematic GD&T definition. (Image courtesy of a Tec-Ease GD&T tip video.)

This actually turned out to be a million-dollar problem. The original part by a customer was a lens barrel in a space telescope on which the opening at the left interfaced with a lens, which is why the total runout tolerance was controlled tightly at 0.0006 inch. Figure 1 is a simplified illustration of the part.

A tight tolerance is fine as long as the product function justifies it. The real problem with this part is the datum label attached to the centerline on the customer drawing, because it didn’t specify which tangible feature would serve as the datum feature to inspect the tight tolerance. A centerline is theoretical and intangible. In the actual production, the supplier inspector didn’t have definitive instructions on how to hold the part. Figure 2 shows an exaggerated example of a machined part by the supplier. Clearly, the smaller cylinder on the right of the figure was misaligned.

Figure 2. An exaggerated example of a machined part.

If the supplier grabs a convenient feature such as the larger outer cylinder on the left, spins the part, and then inspects the runout, the part is good as what is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Inspecting the total runout by holding the convenient larger outer cylinder.

Unfortunately, the customer held the barrel in the way it would assemble in the lens mount. As a result, the smaller cylinder on the right should be spun to inspect the part based on the intent of the design. Now, as shown in Figure 4, the total runout is violated and the part should be rejected. This ambiguity led to a lawsuit of nearly$8 million.

Figure 4. Inspecting the total runout by holding the smaller outer cylinder.

This problem could have been easily avoided if the symbol was specifically defined to an intended tangible feature, rather than an ambiguous geometry. Figure 5 shows the recommended definition using SOLIDWORKS MBD. In this approach, you can select the smaller outer cylinder to define the feature. The software then highlights the actual face once a label is selected and automatically aligns the datum symbol to the size diameter and tolerance callout.

Figure 5. A recommended datum feature definition.

This lens barrel case demonstrates the costly downside of ambiguous GD&T definitions. Although this issue can occur in both 2D drawings and 3D annotations, some MBD software guides the definitions with built-in GD&T rules to ensure solid practices. For example, Johnson Controls estimated significant value benefits with improved GD&T practices in the CATIA MBD environment.

Similarly, SOLIDWORKS MBD follows the ASME Y14.5-2009 GD&T standard closely. For instance, according to this standard, the datum feature symbol B in the two figures when compared to Figure 6 conveys two completely different design requirements. The one shown on the left indicates that datum feature B is the width feature because the label B is aligned with the width dimension line, while the one shown on the right indicates that datum feature B is only a single face because the label is not aligned with the width callout.

Figure 6. A drawing comparison between a width feature as a datum feature (left) and a single face as a datum feature (right).

In order to avoid this common confusion, SOLIDWORKS MBD automatically aligns the label to the width feature size dimension line as shown on the left of Figure 7. If the design requires only a face as the datum feature, then you can define a face, rather than a width.

Figure 7. An MBD comparison between a width as a datum feature (left) and a single face as a datum feature (right).

By the way, a width datum feature gives the middle plane between the two opposing faces as the theoretical datum. I hope this answers the frequent question posed at the beginning of this article. You can find more about the differences between datum feature and datum here.

Let’s expand to several other examples. Figure 8 shows the datum features A, B and C on a shifter stick. A is the width size feature, B is the two coplanar shoulders as highlighted in green, and C is the pattern of two mounting holes that is supported by a new enhancement in SOLIDWORKSM MBD 2018.

Figure 8. Datum features A, B and C on a shifter stick.

In this ABC datum framework, I added the Maximum Material Boundary (MMB) modifiers to A and C, which are size features. This allows datum shifts to accept more good parts. However, if I were to add MMB to datum feature B as shown in Figure 9, the software would flag it because B is not a feature of size and maximum material boundary doesn’t apply in this case.

Figure 9. A warning message against using an incorrect MMB modifier.

You may also notice that when a feature control frame is selected, the coordinate system as defined by the ABC datum references is automatically created and highlighted in green in the graphics area. This provides an instant visual confirmation that makes interpretation easier. It also helps automate the coordinate system alignment for other downstream manufacturing software.

On this GD&T editing dialog, if a user forgets to type in a primary or secondary datum letter before a tertiary one in a feature control frame, the dialog automatically displays a warning message to alert the user as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10. A warning message about missing primary or secondary datum letters.

Besides the manual annotations, the software follows the GD&T rules in the automatic dimension creation as well. Figure 11 illustrates an error in which the two datum features in the red box share the same axis. The features are defining the same theoretical datum, so the tool catches their unnecessary duplication.

Figure 11. An unnecessary datum feature duplication caught in the automatic dimension scheme.

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, when interpreting a GD&T definition, a user first needs to remember the datum references. So, a handy command is to automatically highlight the associated datum symbols and features. The 3D PDF generated by SOLIDWORKS MBD provides this command shown in Figure 12. You can right-click on a feature control frame and click on the context menu command “Highlight associated datums.” I hope that a similar handy capability can be added to the SOLIDWORKS environment in the future.

Figure 12. Highlight associated datum symbols and features for a feature control frame.

With that, let’s conclude this article with several key points:

1. Datum features are the foundation of GD&T definitions.
2. You should define datum features on tangible faces, rather than intangible ambiguous geometries.
3. SOLIDWORKS MBD builds GD&T rules into the software to help detect violations.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS MBD can help implement your Model-Based Enterprises, please visit its product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

1. Define features directly and unambiguously.

One of the requirements in GD&T practices is to define features directly rather than geometries because, ultimately, it’s the features that deliver the product function. Also in the actual production, features are what get machined or inspected. On the other hand, geometries, such as edges, centerlines or middle planes, are only derivatives of features. Some are even intangible and difficult to control.

Figure 1 illustrates one difference. The drawing on the leftattached a datum feature symbol B to a bottom line. We may be able to assume that the bottom line represents a bottom mounting face. However, we are not sure if this part should be mounted to this leg alone or to the bottom faces of all the legs. The model on the right removed this ambiguity by clearly specifying all the bottom mounting faces as datum feature B.

Figure 1. A comparison between a datum feature definition in 2D drawing and MBD.

Using SOLIDWORKS MBD, you can create a compound plane by selecting multiple coplanar faces as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Create a compound plane by selecting multiple coplanar facesto define datum feature B.

An even more confusing case is all-around profile tolerances. Figure 3 shows a comparison.

Figure 3. A comparison between 2D drawings and MBD on an all-around profile tolerance.

The drawing on the left defines an all-around profile tolerance. However, it doesn’t clarify whether the side faces on the thinner fin are subjective to this control. Two possibilities are clarified in the models. One controls 26 faces and the other controls 36 faces. The model-based approach directly specifies the exact features to be controlled.

2. Ensure compliances with built-in GD&T intelligences.

Based on the solid foundation of feature definitions, SOLIDWORKS MBD built in GD&T intelligences to provide instant feedback. A previous article, “Check Your Grammar: Verifications for GD&T in MBD,” shared several checks in the software. Let’s examine more examples here.

Figure 4 quotes a method from the ASME Y14.5-2009 standard about bidirectional positional tolerancing. It defines a rectangular tolerance zone in which the tolerances are different from one direction to the other.

Figure 4. Bidirectional positional tolerancing in ASME Y14.5-2009.

Figure 5 shows a simplified model with the bidirectional positional tolerances in accordance to the standard. The tolerance status is in green, indicating the definitions are in good condition.

Figure 5. A simplified model with bidirectional positional tolerances.

However, if I were to tweak the feature control frames as shown in Figure 6, the software would flag several issues, and the tolerance status would display violations.

Figure 6. GD&T violations flagged according to ASME Y14.5-2009.

First, the diameter symbols in the feature control frames specified cylindrical tolerance zones, which conflicted with the bidirectional rectangular zone intention. Additionally, please note that the original lower compartment.010-inch tolerance, as shown in Figure 5,didn’t include any datum references. It only refined the relationship between multiple instances in a pattern. It didn’t need datum references. In Figure 6, the positional tolerances doesn’t show 3x, so only one hole instance is defined rather than the pattern. Now the .010-inch tolerance has become independent, so it would need its own datum references. That’s why the software displayed a warning message against a missing primary datum feature, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. A warning message against a missing primary datum feature.

It’s interesting to see that seemingly tiny changes matter significantly in the definitions. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, GD&T is a language. Similar to any language, small details can convey different meanings. Therefore, the challenge is to detect and avoid violations in small details besides the complicated rules.The good news is that we can leverage the strengths of software. SOLIDWORKS MBD can help automatically monitor significant details that could be easily overlooked by human eyes.

For instance, just by looking at the model on the right without reading the warning message on the dialog, as shown in Figure 8, we may not be able to catch the violation in this simplified case.

Figure 8. A warning message against a straightness on a hole feature.

The original design intent was to control the straightness of the derived median line from the hole feature. However, in the actual definition, an important modifier—a diameter symbol—was missed in the tolerance value box. Fortunately the software caught it because straightness of a derived median line from a cylindrical feature needs a cylindrical tolerance zone. A simple fix is to add the diameter modifier, as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Resolve the issue by adding a diameter tolerance zone modifier to the straightness tolerance.

Just a side note, another way to address the warning message in Figure 8 would be to delete the Maximum Material Condition modifier. But that would mean to control the straightness of the line elements on the hole surface, rather than the derived median line.

3. Facilitate design interpretations with visual aids.

As explained on the previous two points, GD&T rules are complicated and can be hard to interpret, especially when a manufacturer is working with a spectrum of suppliers at different skill levels. SOLIDWORKS MBD provides visual aids to facilitate interpretations.

For example, Figure 2 showed that when you select a feature control frame, such as the profile tolerance, all the controlled faces are highlighted. This makes the understanding much more accurate and easier. Figure 5 showed the tool to check the tolerance status, which presents a direct color scheme of how well each feature is toleranced. Then in Figure 7, when you selected a feature control frame, the coordinate system XYZ determined by the datum references A, B and C was created and highlighted automatically.

In the 3D PDF published by SOLIDWORKS MBD, you may use the context menu commands to highlight associated datums or basic dimensions as shown in Figures 10, 11 and 12. Unfortunately these commands are not yet available in the SOLIDWORKS environment. I hope they will come in future SOLIDWORKS releases.

Figure 10. Context menu commands to highlight associated datum features and basic dimensions.

Figure 11. Highlighted associated datum features in red.

Figure 12. Highlighted associated basic dimensions in red.

To summarize this article, I listed three advantages of applying GD&T to 3D models:

1. Define features directly and unambiguously.
2. Ensure compliances with built-in GD&T intelligences.
3. Facilitate design interpretations with visual aids.

Please notice that these advantages need a digital environment to take place. None of these would be possible on a static paper document. Although an MBD implementation doesn’t have to exclude hard copy printouts, a digital environment with appropriate software can certainly help realize these advantages. On the other hand, an MBD implementation doesn’t mean that you have to digitize everything either. You may identify several pilot workflows with digital software and hardware to test the water. Based on the accumulated experiences, you can gradually expand the pilot.

I hope that this article is helpful. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS MBD can help implement your model-based enterprises, please visit its product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

In previous articles we discussed applications that can make use of the MBD data. For example, you can program the numeric control (NC) code automatically based on 3D surface finishes using SOLIDWORKS CAM. Besides the semantic or software consumptions, there are use cases of graphical consumptions. For instance, you can help suppliers intuitively grasp design requirements across multiple configurations conveyed in a dynamic 3D PDF so that they can accurately and quickly reply with their machining cost estimations. Similarly in this article, let’s look into another important use case of the MBD data: inspection reports.

Manufacturers committed to the model-based approach have been facing a dilemma. If you defined everything in 3D such as the geometries, dimensions, geometric tolerances and surface finishes, there was no way to easily extract the characteristics from the 3D annotations and generate an inspection report. On the other hand, there are inspection software applications on the market that can automatically pick up the characteristics from 2D drawings, but they didn’t support 3D annotations. Therefore, if you had to create 2D drawings just for inspection reports, it would slow down the model-based production workflows and derail MBD implementation. Which way should a model-based manufacturer go for the inspection procedure, 2D or 3D? You don’t have to hesitate any more. SOLIDWORKS Inspection 2018 can help extract the characteristics directly and automatically from the 3D annotations.

Let’s take a look at one of the NIST 3D annotation validation and conformance test model in Figure 1.

Figure 1. A model defined with 3D annotations.

Size dimensions and geometric tolerances have been defined semantically to the model. For example, selecting the .025 inch runout tolerance referencing a compound datum feature A-B highlights the target two partial cylinder features. After defining these 3D definitions, you can use SOLIDWORKS Inspection 2018 to automatically extract and balloon these requirements. First, start an inspection project as shown on the SOLIDWORKS Inspection command bar. For now, go with the default project settings and click the green check mark to proceed as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Create a new inspection project to extract characteristics from 3D annotations.

Figure 3 shows the next page with the general settings. In this exercise, you don’t have to change anything. Just hit the green check mark again and leave the job to the software,which will automate the characteristics extraction and ballooning as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 3. Accept the general settings and click on the green check mark.

Figure 4. A size dimension and tolerance are automatically extracted and ballooned.

For example, the balloon number 5 is designated to the width size dimension and tolerance with an ST symbol or statistical tolerancing requirement. On the property list, as shown in the green box in Figure 4, the Quantity and Value—including the special ST symbol, Unit, Sub-Type, +/- Tolerances and Upper/Lower limits—have been recognized, collected and calculated.

Another example, as shown in Figure 5, is the runout tolerance indexed as balloon 6. Please notice that the properties are extracted per the semantic definitions, such as the Sub-Type as a Runout or the Upper/Lower Limits as .025 to 0 inches. In mere seconds, all the characteristics are collected and organized in the tree. This automation can save hours of selecting and ballooning time in the manual process.

Figure 5. A runout tolerance is automatically extracted and ballooned.

If you select a characteristic on the tree on the left, the graphics area will automatically jump to an appropriate view to highlight the target 3D annotation as shown in Figure 6. Visa versa, if you select an annotation in the graphics area, the tree will jump to the corresponding node automatically as well. It’s a handy usability treat.

Figure 6. Selecting a characteristic from the tree automatically switches the graphics area to an appropriate view.

What if there is a change to the requirement? Let’s say you add a surface finish annotation to the datum feature a cylinder as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Add a 3D surface finish requirement to the end cylinder.

You can simply update the project as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Update the inspection project to accommodate 3D annotation changes.

Notice that the characteristics tree has added an item at the bottom in green indicating that it’s new, as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9. A new surface finish characteristic is added to the tree upon a project update.

His new item doesn’t have a balloon number yet because it’s waiting for your acceptance. If you approve this change, right click on the additional item and click “Accept this annotation change” as shown in Figure 10, or you may choose to accept all the changes. In a similar fashion, if you delete certain annotations on the model, the characteristics tree will update to highlight removed items in red. You can choose to accept or reject the changes.

Figure 10. Accept the annotation change.

Now the new surface finish requirement is ballooned as shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11. The new surface finish characteristic is ballooned as number 11.

Once satisfied with the characteristics and balloons, you can output the data to an Excel spreadsheet, eDrawings, 2D PDF or a 3D PDF for those who may not have SOLIDWORKS Inspection installed on their computers. For example, Figure 12 shows that you can select an AS9102 inspection report template to export a spreadsheet.

Figure 12. Select an Excel spreadsheet export template.

Figure 13 shows the blank inspection report in a spreadsheet including all the characteristics from the 3D annotations. Please note that the newly added surface finish has been listed at the bottom.

Figure 13. A blank inspection report listing all the characteristics from the 3D annotations.

With that, let’s conclude this article with several key points:

1. SOLIDWORKS Inspection 2018 can automatically extract the characteristics defined in 3D annotations, which can save hours of manual time and further support your model-based production.
2. Changes to the 3D annotations can be automatically reflected in the updated extraction and balloons.
3. The software can export characteristics to an Excel spreadsheet, eDrawings, 2D PDF, or 3D PDF for quality inspectors who may not have SOLIDWORKS Inspection
4. The 3D annotation extraction capability requires the SOLIDWORKS Inspection Professional

I’m glad that this new capability has been added to the SOLIDWORKS portfolio. It filled a major gap in model-based workflows. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS Inspection can help implement your model-based enterprises, please visit its product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

Figure1. A snapshot of the NC code for a milling machine.

I hope that you never have to deal with this type of code manually. However, 20 years ago, I had to calculate the cutter moves and write the code manually. It wasn’t fun. Literally, I had to write the texts line by line, such as “Select this milling cutter, move in X direction by 0.5 mm and in Y direction by 0.25 mm or retreat rapidly to the origin…” A simple machining operation such as drilling several holes can easily lead to hundreds of lines of texts.

Of course, my code was full of miscalculations and I had to debug it on the fly with a simple milling machine. Why didn’t the cutter move? Why didn’t it rotate? Why did it move so slowly? Why were the cutter and the part so far apart? These were the typical puzzles I had to figure out, if the cutter hadn’t destroyed the machine itself by cutting into the workbench yet.

Let’s say that I finally manage to finish all the lines perfectly. Here comes the worst part. The designer decides that one hole needs to be smaller or a face needs a finer surface finish. Then I have to recalculate manually, add necessary operations and rewrite many lines of the code to accommodate the changes. Please remember that all the operations are sequential. For example, the cutter doesn’t jump. You have to hold its hand and tell it to move from the X, Y, Z location of (0,0,0) to (1,0,0) and then to (1,1,0) and finally to (1,1,1), rather than directly from (0,0,0) to (1,1,1). Of course, here I mean “hold its hand” metaphorically, not literally. You don’t want to get anywhere close to a rotating cutter in a NC machine center.

Fortunately, that was 20 years ago. Nowadays, with the Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software algorithm, all my previous experiences have become history. These days, CAM software applications can automatically program NC code according to 3D Computer-Aided Design (CAD) models. Updating the code in response to a new design can be as easy as a click of a button.

From the manual NC code programing to the automatic programing based on 3D models, it was a major breakthrough. Then what is next? CAMWorks and SOLIDWORKS provided their answer: Tolerance-Based Machining (TBM). In fact, SOLIDWORKS 2018 released a dedicated CAM package called SOLIDWORKS CAM powered by CAMWorks, which features TBM. The idea is quite simple. Taking a natural step further beyond the model-based NC coding, the software now can interpret and act upon the tolerances defined in 3D annotations directly integrated with a model.

As we all know, tolerances convey the key design and manufacturing requirements. If any manufactured size, location, form or orientation on a part is beyond a tolerance range, the part has to be rejected. Therefore, letting the tolerances automatically determine machining strategies does make sense. The benefit is compelling. First, a machinist doesn’t have to look back and forth between a 2D drawing and a CAM program to read the drawing tolerances manually and type them into the software. Second, the software can now analyze the integrated 3D tolerances and adjust the machining strategies automatically to avoid manual tweaks and oversights. The programing time can easily be cut from hours to minutes. Figure 2 shows a screenshot of the SOLIDWORKS CAM TBM.

Figure2. SOLIDWORKS CAM TBM.

Now let’s take a look at how it works. Figure 3 shows a part with multiple holes and pockets defined by 3D annotations including dimensions and tolerances.

Figure3. A semantically defined hole pattern callout.

Please notice that the annotations are all semantically defined. For example, selecting a 26-instance hole pattern callout highlights all the 26 instances. Also the callout parameters are listed on the left of Figure 3. They can be adjusted through the designed software user interface and queried via the SOLIDWORKS API. None of them contain hard-coded texts. For more details about semantic annotations, you may refer to a previous article, A Solid “STEP” Towards MBE: STEP 242.

Figure 4 shows the TBM settings dialog, which defines the rules to drive the machining strategy selections.

Figure4. Existing rules set on the TBM settings dialog.

The upper portion of this dialog lists the recognizable features by SOLIDWORKS CAM such as holes, counter bore holes and rectangular pockets. The lower portion shows the machining strategies assigned to each feature. For example, if the allowable tolerance range of a hole is from 0 to 0.0001 in, the requirement is extremely tight. So the strategy is set to Bore by default for Undersize, Nominal and Oversize tolerances. An undersize tolerance implies that the mean of the upper and lower limits is negative, which intends to cut the actual hole smaller than the nominal size. In the same light, you can understand the meanings of the other two types, Nominal and Oversize tolerances. Similarly for other tolerance ranges, the default methods can be predefined accordingly. Of course, you can customize the strategies in accordance with your machine shop’s preferred practices. In this article, let’s stay with the default settings for now.

Next, please make sure the “Recognize tolerance range” box is checked as shown in Figure 5.

Figure5. Check the box to recognize the tolerance ranges.

Then switch to the second tab “Tolerance Range (inch)” and click on the “Extract Machinable Features” button as shown in Figure 6.

Figure6. Extract machinable features.

Please notice that the machinable features and assigned strategies have been created automatically as shown in the feature tree in Figure 7.

Figure7. The machinable features and strategies have been created automatically.

Let’s verify the hole pattern highlighted in Figure 3. As you can see in Figure 8, the tolerance range is from 0.000 to +0.001 in, which falls into the window of 0.0001 to 0.002 in as predefined in Figure 4. The oversize strategy for this range is Drill. Therefore, Drill has been assigned automatically as the machining method as shown in the feature tree on the left in Figure 8.

Figure8. Drill has been automatically selected as the strategy according to the tolerance range for a hole pattern.

What would happen if a designer modifies the design as shown in Figure 9?

Figure9. An updated design.

To accommodate the design changes, a machinist has to face several challenges. First of all, just by looking at Figure 9, can you tell what has changed? Even if your eyes can catch the tiny tolerance modification of the 26-instance hole pattern from a tighter +0.001-in upper limit to a looser +0.01 in, how can you be sure that was the only change? You would have to examine all the features and annotations visually. In other words, design changes could lead to machinist oversights, quality issues and prolonged cycle time.

However, this is exactly where SOLIDWORKS CAM can add values. The software can quickly examine the model along with all the key requirements, identify all the changes and adjust machining strategies accordingly. As shown in Figure 10, just rerun TBM and you will find the machining strategy has been automatically updated to Ream. As shown in Figure 4, Ream is the predefined method for the updated tolerance range +0.01 in, which falls in the window of 0.002 to 0.02 in and the oversize strategy.

Figure10. The machining strategy has been automatically adjusted according to the updated tolerance requirement.

With that, let’s quickly recap this article. SOLIDWORKS CAM 2018 features TBM, which can analyze and act upon 3D tolerances to automate NC programing. This is a major step forward after the breakthrough from manual programing to 3D CAD model-based programing. However, please note that in the 2018 release, the recognizable tolerances are limited to surface finishes and size tolerances such as hole diameters and pocket widths. I hope that the software can add the support of 3D Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) in the future.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS CAM can help implement your model-based enterprises, please visit its product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

Figure 1 shows a mold design for an electric power drill housing.

Figure 1. A mold design for an electric power drill housing.

The surface quality of the mold will determine the plastic housing surface quality of the final product. Then how can you specify the quality requirements? In 2D drawings, you may define the surface finish symbols with 2D annotations as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Surface finish symbols on a 2D drawing.

The challenge is that these annotations are attached to lines and curves projected on a 2D sheet, rather than attached to the desired target features on a 3D model. So it’s difficult for a machinist to fully understand which surfaces the symbols are controlling, especially for irregular or organic shapes in this power drill housing example. Furthermore, even if a machinist can understand the requirements, he or she has to look back and forth between a 2D drawing and 3D CAM program to manually extract the parameters and enter them into a CAM program.

SOLIDWORKS MBD and SOLIDWORKS CAM Tolerance Based Machining have provided a 3D angle to tackle these challenges. Figures 3 and 4 show the 3D Surface Finish Symbol tool from the Annotations menu command and the SOLIDWORKS MBD command bar.

Figure 3. The 3D Surface Finish Symbol tool in the Annotations command under the Insert menu.

Figure 4. The 3D Surface Finish Symbol tool on the SOLIDWORKS MBD command bar.

With this tool, you can define the surface finish symbols to the desirable faces directly on the 3D model as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Define a surface finish symbol directly to the desirable face.

What if there are multiple faces sharing the same finish requirement? Figure 6 illustrates that you can show the leader line of a symbol and then drag and drop its anchor point to multiple desired faces.

Figure 6. Show the leader line, and then drag and drop its anchor point to multiple desired faces.

With that, we can complete several surface finish definitions to the target faces as shown in Figure 7. Please notice the cross highlighting from the symbols to the controlled features, which provides an intuitive visual confirmation of the design requirements.

Figure 7. Cross highlight from a surface finish symbol to multiple controlled faces.

Now that the 3D specifications are defined, we can move on to the machining step. On the SOLIDWORKS CAM TBM command bar, please first click on the Settings button as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8. The Tolerance Based Machining Settings button on the SOLIDWORKS CAM TBM command bar.

On the settings dialog, as shown in Figure 9, please switch to the Multisurface Features tab.

Figure 9. Multisurface Features Settings.

You may notice the surface finish ranges, corresponding strategy and the color coding. Let’s modify these settings to better reflect the mold design requirements in this case. Figure 10 shows the dialog to adjust the ranges.

Figure 10. Adjust the surface finish ranges.

To delete a range boundary, hit the Delete key on the keyboard. To add a new boundary, type it in and hit the green + button. What’s nice here is that the boundary series is sequenced automatically.

Next, let’s adjust the strategies assigned to these ranges. You can simply choose from the strategies in the dropdown list as shown in Figure 11. These current strategies are driven by the SOLIDWORKS CAM technical database, which can be customized to allow more options. Of course, these strategies will lead to corresponding operation plans such as tool selections, speeds and feeds.

Figure 11. Assign the machining strategies for the new surface finish ranges.

To differentiate the surface qualities on different faces, I recommend a clear color coding. You can easily adjust them as shown in Figure 12. For example, I set tight requirements in red or orange colors just to catch machinists’ attention.

Figure 12. Adjust the color coding to differentiate the surface qualities.

Now let’s run the software to automatically assign the machining strategies and color codes according to the specific surface finish requirements. First, click on the Run Tolerance Based Machining button on the command bar to invoke the dialog as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13. The Tolerance Based Machining Execution dialog.

Please notice that the ranges, strategies and color codes are inherited from the settings dialog as shown in Figure 12. However, you can still make adjustments for this local execution from the overall settings. Also among the five ranges, the black text lines indicate that the software has found surface finish requirements in these ranges, while the magenta text lines signal that none of the surface finishes fall into those ranges.

Next, switch to the Run tab and ensure these boxes are checked: “Recognize tolerance range,” “Recognize multisurface features based on surface finish,” “Apply color to multisurface features” and “Automatic Feature Recognition.” Figure 14 shows the necessary check boxes.

Figure 14. Necessary check boxes on the Run tab.

Now it’s time to hit OK and let the software automatically recognize the 3D surface finish symbols. Figure 15 shows the manufacturing feature tree and color-coded surfaces. Please notice that the 32 finish face is the tightest requirement and has been painted red. Its tree node show “Fine” as the machining strategy. The 63 finish face is painted orange, and its strategy is set to Area Clearance, Z Level. The 125 finish is a loose requirement, so it is painted green and shares the Area Clearance, Z Level method.

Figure 15. Automatically assign machining strategies, color codes according to the 3D surface finishes.

With the rule-based software, engineering changes are quick and easy to accommodate. For example, let’s say you add several more faces to a 200 finish requirement as shown in Figure 16.

Figure 16. Add more faces to a new surface finish symbol.

Just rerun the Tolerance Based Machining and you will see the updated result in Figure 17.

Figure 17. Updated machining strategy and colored faces.

You may find the new faces have been painted blue and linked to a tree node with a Coarse strategy in response to the 200 surface finish symbol.

To conclude, let’s remember that SOLIDWORKS allows 3D surface finishes to be defined to target features directly on a model. Then SOLIDWORKS CAM Tolerance Based Machining can analyze and act upon these surface finishes to automate the NC programing. You can customize the rules yourself, such as the surface finish ranges, matching strategies and color codes. Then the software can read the specific annotations attached to specific features to assign the strategies and color coding accordingly. Upon design changes, updating the machining preparations, operation plans and NC code programs can be as easy as a rerun of the Tolerance Based Machining tool.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave the min the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS CAM can help implement your model-based enterprises (MBE), please visit its product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.

The same strategy can be applied to Model-Based Definition (MBD) implementations. Let’s face it. 2D drawings are not going away anytime soon because most manufacturers’ production processes are based on them. Internal guidelines, recommended practices, employee trainings, shop floor communications, supply chain collaborations and software customizations area few examples that may be tightly tied to 2D drawings today. Most manufacturers cannot force their teams to stop using 2D drawings right away.

Accordingly, especially at the start of an MBD implementation, please don't position it as drawing less or getting rid of 2D drawings. These may be catchy phrases, but are far from reality for most of the manufacturing industry.Rather, let's position MBD as a complementary approach to 2D drawings that can further automate manufacturing procedures, reduce ambiguities and simplify processes.

A sensible transition strategy from 2D drawings to MBD is to encourage defining 3D content first. When 2D drawings are needed, the 3D content should be easily reused in 2D drawings to minimize the time and effort in 2D detailing. The goal is to gradually shift focus and effort from 2D to 3D. Similar to the PayPal debit card strategy, the easier it is to reuse 3D annotations and MBD views to create 2D drawings, the more comfortable and open engineers and designers will feel about MBD.

In this context, SOLIDWORKS MBD 2018 built a bridge to reuse the 3D model views in 2D drawings. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate an example.

Figure 1. A 3D model view is captured in SOLIDWORKS MBD from the front perspective.

Figure 2. Reuse the front 3D view captured by SOLIDWORKS MBD in a 2D drawing.

First, you can create comprehensive 3D model views to bookmark the configurations, display states, display styles, annotation views, position, orientation and zooming factor. A prior blog post shared more details: Building a Photo Storyline of Your MBD Data with 3D Views.

Then in the 2D drawing environment, you will see these 3D views listed after the annotation views and several frequently used pre-predefined perspectives on the view palette on the right side. To differentiate them, you may notice that the 3D view names start with (3D) and annotation view names start with (A). The advantage of 3D views over others is its comprehensiveness, which means that it remembers more settings as listed above than other views. As a result, the 3D views on a drawing sheet can match what you captured in the model environment and help you minimize further manual adjustments.

Now you can simply drag and drop a 3D view to the drawing sheet. To import the 3D annotations, you can select a view and check the newly added “3D view annotations” box on its property manager on the left as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Import annotations to a 3D view on a 2D drawing sheet.

This check box is a handy shortcut to match what has been presented in 3D views regardless of the annotations tools such as DimXpert, Reference Dimensions or sketch dimensions. Of course, you may choose to bring in annotations by the types listed above this new option. A nice handling here is that checking multiple boxes won’t introduce duplicate annotations.

By the way, to learn more about the differences between various annotation tools in the software, please refer to Table 1 in a previous article, Detect and Correct Model Quality Issues with SOLIDWORKS Design Checker. Now to tie these steps together, Figure 4 shows a more complete workflow in a quick animation.

Figure 4. Reuse captured 3D views with imported annotations on a 2D drawing.

I hope that you find this new feature relevant and helpful to your practices during the transition from drawings to MBD. Aker Solutions in Norway shared its transition experiences in a blog post, Compared Drawing-Based and Model-Based Workflows.

Meanwhile, it’s important to note several limitations of this bridge in the 2018 release. The reused 3D views cannot display annotations if the views are not orthogonal. The common 2D perspectives such as Front, Top and Right are fine to present annotations properly, but Isometric, Trimetric or other axonometric projections are not able to yet. SOLIDWORKS drawing does not yet have a mechanism to support this combination of axonometric views and annotations. Similarly, 3D views that capture cross sections are not supported, hence not listed on the drawing view palette. A workaround is to reuse the annotation views that do support section cuts in both 3D and 2D.

In short, this new enhancement comes with several compromises toward the ideal outcome: what you capture in 3D should show up exactly the same in 2D. I hope the software can keep improving in future releases. Speaking for improvements, it may be interesting to take a look at the track records. SOLIDWORKS 2018 brought the bridge to reuse 3D model views, but in prior years, SOLIDWORKS has built other vehicles to reuse the 3D content. For example, you can import DimXpert or Reference Dimension annotations, reuse sketch or feature dimensions, and reuse annotation views. Therefore, bridging 3D and 2D seems to be an ongoing strategy of the software, which makes good sense to me.

Now let’s recap. 2D drawings are not going away anytime soon. Therefore, it’s more practical and less risky to position MBD as a complementary approach to drawings. It’s encouraging to see that SOLIDWORKS 2018 keeps the strategy of bridging 3D and 2D by reusing the 3D model views in 2D drawings. However, from the MBD implementation’s standpoint,although drawings can be easily created as a derivative from models, please take the models as the master if there is any discrepancy between 3D and 2D. Don’t rely on 2D drawings as the authority any more.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave the min the comments area below. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS MBD can help implement your Model-Based Enterprises, please visit its product page.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.