PDF, CAD rendering and HTML5

June 20, 2011

I’m spending this weekend in Israel these days. My visit is mostly personal because of Bar Mitzvah of my older son, Jonathan. At the same time, I had a chance to have a lunch and interesting conversation with David Levin, founder of LEDAS, the person behind PLM portalisicad.ru and the author of two popular blogs – DL (in Russian) and Not just Russian CAD/PLM. Because of few travel, I had during the last few weeks, the number of unread RSS messages in my reader grown a bit. I was screening them during the last evening. One of them in RWW blog caught my attention – Mozilla is woking on a code allowing native rendering of PDF files within HTML5.

Mozilla is working on technology that will allow PDF documents to be rendered within the browser, rather than utilizing a browser plug-in or an external app to open them. On his blog, Mozilla researcher Andreas Gal has described the project to build a PDF reader in HTML5 and JavaScript.

It made me think about few things: PDF rendering in PLM projects, 3D PDF, and CAD rendering in HTML5.

PDF and 3D PDF files rendering

PDF used by lots engineering and manufacturing companies as a de-facto standard for neutral format representation. Many applications developed in this space used PDF rendering for multiple purposes. How future broader usage ofHTML5 can change existing projects, plug-ins and other applications? This is an interesting question to ask, in my view. The topic of 3D PDF required some validation too. After Adobe lost their interest in PDF and moved this business to TechSoft, there still many companies thinking about 3D PDF rendering. What happens with them and how future HTML5 revolution can change them?

CAD Files Rendering in HTML5

This topic seems to even more interesting that PDF for a long run. How we will be able to render CAD drawings and models in the future in HTML file compliant browsers? Would it be possible to develop a better rendering and lightweight technology for rendering? What will be the dynamic and the opportunity to create HTML5 based rendering and viewing services?. Will changing interest to Flash (caused by the absence of Flash support in Apple tables) drive some additional interesting to HTML5 based rendering? What future technologies will hold in this space?

What is my conclusion? I think, some shakeup is going to happen within a browser based applications. New devices and standards going to drive some changes. Higher diversification of platforms and devices (especially tablet devices) creates additional opportunities here. I’d be interested to know more about new technologies and product developing coming this space.

Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Posted by olegshilovitsky

Shoult we “pack” PLM into 3D PDF?

May 4, 2011

The ability to use PLM in downstream applications was always a challenge. There are multiple reasons for that – complexity of products, expensive licenses, long implementation cycle. At the same time, the value of downstream application is huge. The amount of data that organization can proliferate downstream is growing – it is 3D/2D CAD models and drawings, manufacturing planning information, technical documentation, RFQ for suppliers and many others. I had a chance to readCAD CAM News few days ago. The article is how PROSTEP develops of 3D PDF generator to facilitate information exchange in the organization. The title was catchy – PROSTEP packages the whole world of engineering in a 3D PDF document. Here is my favorite passage:

PROSTEP PDF Generator 3D allows the server-based extraction of all types of engineering data from the respective CAD, PLM or ERP systems and the embedding of this data in 3D PDF documents. In addition, the container function allows native CAD data, Word documents, pictures and video clips to be added to these documents. Depending on the rights granted by the document owner, the contents can be visualized, copied, printed and/or annotated with Adobe Reader. “Intelligent” templates allow information to be entered into fields on forms or incorporated in dynamic bar codes so that it is automatically evaluated upon return and transferred to the backend systems.

It made me think about the approach. Data is extracted from files, PDM/PLM and ERP systems. The 3D PDF file is generated. Then files can be distributed downstream in the organization and among suppliers. Adobe reader is the only application that needed for this purpose. You can navigate to the following link to see examples of 3D PDF file generated for different purposes.

The advantages of this approach is clear. Files can be sent everywhere and accessed by any person in the organization. No need for licenses. Adobe interface is simple enough. However, what is the potential downside? In my view, connectivity (or potential "dis-connectivity") is one of them. Information "packed" into 3D PDF file is similar to the other file-oriented solution (i.e. Excel files with Bill of Materials). The ability to have an updated information re-packed again can be critical to provide "timely" information downstream.

What is my conclusion? To find a reliable way to make the information available downstream is critical for many organizations. 3D PDF seems to be as an option. The file-orientation paradigm helps current users to achieve their goal in an easy way. However, the "packing" a whole system into set of files seems to me problematic. The synchronization, run for updated information can become a nightmare. Just my thoughts… What is your opinion?

Best, Oleg

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Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM Prompt: Kindle DX for PLM downstream applications?

June 15, 2009

Prompt note on Amazon Kindle DX announcement. Look Kindle DX review. It includes embedded wireless support and new native PDF support. Just my 10 cents… Think how many PDF business documents and drawing you can make available in your organization? Possible target is manufacturing, shop-floor, consumers? What do you think?

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Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM Persistent Content and Dynamic 3D PDF

January 7, 2009

When I posted about my Dream PLM Technologies for 2009 , one of them was  Persistent Content. In today’s word, I think that PDF is the most widely used format to keep information for a long period of time. Combined with 3D capabilities, 3D PDF is a very attractive option for users for this purpose.

Adding 3D to the latest capabilities of PDF have allowed 3D PDF to be dynamic make and even more exciting than before. Not only can you retain information, but your users can browse this information dynamically.

Now, let’s get back to Persistent Content. Dynamic 3D PDF allows the resolution of many issues related to the presentation of product information:  visualization, finding relationships using bookmarks, and browsing capabilities. From this standpoint, 3D PDF is a good candidate. So what’s missing from this option, you may ask? In my opinion the advantage of PDF as a widely accepted file format – is also its disadvantage! It’s still a file! So, if we continue to package product information into PDF files, we will end up with a huge amount of files to manage.

 I predict that the future will bring some enhancements that will allow us to manage information in multiple PDF files , but currently, this is still not something available out of the box. I have seen some examples of PDF usage for content storage. SolidWorks Labs released Presentation Studio for SolidWorks, allowing you to create 3D content in PDF format. 3DVIA Composer allows you to publish lots of content into PDF. Other PLM companies also provide capabilities for transferring content in PDF. Another interesting example I found is being able to keep non-traditional 3D Content (i.e. as a molecular structure) in dynamic 3D PDF files produced by companies in the life science domain. With the emerging PLM influence in this industry sector, I expect an increased customer interest in having 3D available for a long period of time.

 

 I believe that customers and companies have developed capabilities of larger content storage in PDF. If you have this experience I’d appreciate it if you share your comments and other thoughts on this topic.

 

12 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank, Technology | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

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