Cost Efficient Model-based Engineering at J3D

J3D is an independent consultancy specializing in 3D design and imaging services, primarily for concept development, product development, and marketing. They supply modeling and surfacing expertise where styled components are important, plus extensive visualization services, including photo-real stills, animation, and interactive content to support their customer’s projects.

One of the exciting possibilities V6 opens up for us is the potential to have perhaps an employee, a partner or a customer hook-in to securely defined areas of a V6 project remotely, collaborating on the same assembly or part in real time.

Managing Director, J3D

J3D’s relationship with CATIA started whilst working with an enthusiastic V5 user. “It soon became apparent how powerful a CATIA platform potentially was for my business,” the Managing Director at J3D explains. “I approached TECHNIA following a glowing recommendation, and after a period renting the tools needed, it was very easy to make the decision to invest in a permanent system.” Over the years, J3D has added CATIA’s specialized ICEM surfacing tools along with 3DVIA Composer, and recently decided to migrate from CATIA V5 to V6.

The real-world benefit of working with a model-based definition

Like many developing businesses, J3D faces the challenge of assimilating new technology benefits quickly without having to completely overhaul their way of working. The design component of V6 has been specifically created to feel very much the same as it did in V5. The core interface has obviously moved on, particularly the graphics capabilities; however, it still seems very familiar to a V5 user. Under the skin, the main difference in V6 is that it’s built from the ground up on a database-driven rather than file-based foundation.

In a graphical-visual business, J3D really appreciates 3D Lives’ full 3D view of the database, rather than using Windows file-based systems or even a traditional PDM. “Having a 3D window into the database underpinning our projects and so tightly incorporated with both CATIA and Composer opens up a whole new way of working, which we have found extremely practical.”

Searches are performed from the familiar CATIA interface rather than a separate program. This allows for more powerful filtering, such as by volume (dragging a cube or sphere over portions of an assembly to isolate only the parts within) or by objects with a similar shape to a specified model, for example.

Lightweight 3D thumbnails of items are generated automatically and can be viewed with no need to load a separate viewer. The unique Compass utility, present in all V6 products, provides instant color-coded feedback on attributes such as PLM state, mass, last modified, and how fully constrained parts are to further clarify the visual presentation.

Quick creation of 3D shapes

CAD systems typically use processes geared towards generating sophisticated 3D models. Whilst this is required for precise model definition needed in production design, the methodology can make the tools awkward when a more flexible 3D model is required for concept design.

To address this, CATIA V6 includes the Live Shape workbench designed to allow models to be created quickly using context-sensitive commands and gestures, rather than expansive toolbars. For a company like J3D, such models allow quick mock-ups of proposed designs, delivering quicker responses to customer inquiries and rapid generation of proof-of-concept models.

“Dumb models” are a particular bugbear at J3D. Often treated as a single entity by most CAD systems, they do not contain construction features or history-making editing, making it virtually impossible. Not so with Live Shape, as it recognizes protrusions and depressions and can reposition them as desired, even creating constraints with other features of a model. Additionally, new features can be added as if the model were a native part.

With model-based engineering, the difference is detail

“We receive a significant amount of dumb data, particularly with the visualization work we do. We often need to enhance this data, for example, by adding detail to what was perhaps a basic package model, making it suitable for high-quality images or animation. The ability to recognize basic features, organize, and manipulate them gives us another aid to speed up these steps.”

Providing a safe test environment for CATIA V6

Having been used to a file-based system in V5, J3D didn’t have the server-based infrastructure required for a V6 system. To allow them to evaluate V6 without committing to this investment upfront, TECHNIA provided a virtual server. Virtual servers function in exactly the same way as physical servers, except that they don’t have their own hardware. Both the client system and the server, with their own separate operating systems, can run on the same machine, a standard workstation in J3D’s case.

This allowed the team to try out all the features, evaluating what the software could offer, and exploring server management before making a decision to proceed.

Flexible and cost-effective model-based engineering

A significant benefit of V6 to larger enterprises is that it enables extended teams of people to collaborate both locally and globally. V6 is extremely scalable and well optimized when needing to work securely over the internet. This functionality also has key benefits for much smaller companies like J3D.

“One of the exciting possibilities V6 opens up for us is the potential to have perhaps an employee, a partner, or a customer hook in to securely defined areas of a V6 project remotely, collaborating on the same assembly or part in real time. For us, our team will consist of a relatively small number of people, but even so, the key is not necessarily needing to accommodate everybody in the same physical space – this obviously has benefits in terms of time and costs for a small business like us. We can tailor the right mix of skills and manpower around a particular project, but without the traditional overheads, all very welcome flexibility.”

In the short term, having secure access to their database remotely also allows J3D to work on-site with a customer where required. If data needs to be transferred, entire products can be exported as pre-packaged 3DXML files, loaded into a customer’s own V6 database, and used as if they were created within that database, complete with full design history.