12.02.2013

PLM-integrated visualization power provided by Kisters 3DViewStation technology

PLM-integrated visualization power provided by Kisters 3DViewStation technology


Aachen, 2013/02/12: KISTERS has announced the latest update V11.4 of the 3DViewStation ActiveX integration kit. The KISTERS 3DViewStation ActiveX product is designed for in-place integrations into PLM, ERP and any other mechanical data management systems. It provides high performance native and neutral CAD visualization in combination with a rich set of functional tools to view, analyze and communicate 3D-data. The KISTERS 3DViewStation ActiveX product allows deep and seamless integrations into the user-interface of the leading application, role-based PLM clients, information at the fingertips, resulting in a higher quality of processes and quicker task completion times.

One core-functionality of PLM-systems is visualization, which is used on a daily basis. Frequently free software is used to display a single file-format. The integration level is low, as the free-bee is typically just called to open a file. This is easy, available for anyone of the enterprise, does not cost a lost, but does have only a little benefit for the user and generates almost no ROI for the enterprise.

Here the KISTERS 3DViewStation ActiveX product helps: in a single tool, it allows to read not only it’s internal 3DVS file-format very fast, but also native 3D-CAD-files from Catia, ProE / Creo, NX, Inventor, SolidWorks, and neutrals like JT, STEP and 3D-PDF. Also export is possible into i.e. STEP, 3D-PDF, Parasolid and more. Leveraging the API of KISTERS 3DViewStation it is possible to do a tight and seamless in-place integration into the user-interface of any PLM-system. For UI customization, the integrator is able to use KSTERS 3DViewStation UI elements like icons, but it is not necessary. The API allows loading standard CAD assembly files as well as individual parts, which will be positioned via transformation matrices. The latter we also call ‘virtual products’, which are ideal to manage versions of a product, variants and configurations. KISTERS 3DViewStation has true MultiCAD capabilities as it can load CAD-data of different sources into s single context without any translation in advance.


To design role-based PLM-clients it is not only necessary to customize the UI, but also to care for different behavior of the application. To give an example: a purchase guy needs information about stock, last supplier and last price of a part. With KISTERS 3DViewStation ActiveX it is possible to provide this information at the fingertips: by clicking on a part, it is possible to retrieve and display this information. It will be always current and there is no way to make a mistake by entering a wrong number in another form of the ERP. Also via the KISTERS 3DViewStation API it is possible to use color-codes to indicate the available stock. There are similar use cases for other processes, i.e. to use colors to indicate the release status of each part of an assembly or to create dynamic hyperlinks from an assembly to its maintenance documentation. Such tight integrations of the KISTERS 3DViewStation require some implementation effort and will cause costs, but at the same time it will care for safer processes, less human errors, much better linking of geometric and related information, like meta-data, ERP-information and documents. This will lead to much quicker results and finally to significant cost savings.

The KISTERS 3DViewStation is developed very closely to customer requirements, available as Desktop and ActiveX product-version, 32-bit and 64-bit, shipping with a modern and intuitive Office 2010 compliant user-interface. It supports many 3D-CAD-formats and provides a rich set of functionalities to view, analyze and convert data. There are seat and floating licenses available.
Many features of the KISTERS 3DViewStation can be reviewed in our BLOG.

KISTERS is a worldwide growing IT-company which has been founded in 1963 as an engineering agency. Its 500 employees develop resource management systems for energy, water and air, and information systems for the area of environment protection and safety. Professional competence and operational experience with more than 3000 customers and more than 150.000 installed licenses make KISTERS an internationally sought-after partner for software solutions.
One core focus of the IT-solution department is the development and sales of visualization solutions for CAD-data and documents including ECM and PLM integrations. To satisfy the various market requirements KISTERS offers solutions of several best-in-class vendors as well as own developments. Customers appreciate 20+ year experience in this area.

Contact:
Kisters AG
https://viewer.kisters.de/en.html
sales-viewer(at)kisters.de
https://blog.kisters.de
https://www.youtube.com/user/KistersViewer