3D Model Based Definition: Extracting and sharing the manufacturing information embedded in a 3D model for 3D-only collaboration
Doug Halliday has posted a blog entry on the transformation happening in the Manufacturing industry of conveying “design intent” using 3D-only processes.
3D intent information goes by a number of names : “Functional Tolerance and Annotation” (FT&A), “Geometric Dimension and Tolerance” (GD&T) and “Product Manufacturing Information” (PMI) .
But regardless of the abbreviation, the basic concept is to define multiple views of a 3D CAD model that attaches feature dimensions and tolerance specifications to specific part of the product geometry. This information can be used by a manufacturer for costing, inspection and conformance validation.
Doug points out that this kind of manufacturing specific information is typically problematic to extract from most CAD systems with proprietary formats. (i.e. PLM vendors generally are not too eager to give easy access as this undermines their ability to leverage their format as a tool to sell the post-CAD downstream applications to their CAD customers.)
Acrobat 3D Version 8 does includes the ability to extract PMI information from the main high-end CAD systems. So Doug proposes that this poises Acrobat 3D to be the defacto tool to move to a 3D-only communication workflow across the supply chain.
