Aras Innovator Integration with 3DViewStation

When visualizing 3D CAD data within Aras Innovator, the problem arises today that the standard viewing solutions offered can only partially accomplish the desired tasks.  There are problems with performance even with normal assembly sizes, but also with the insufficient range of functions for many tasks.

The solution for all Aras users is the Kisters 3DViewStation:

It is very fast and can handle various native 3D & 2D CAD, standard formats and also office formats.  The 3DViewStation is fully integrated into the Aras Innovator user interface as a WebViewer version. This provides all users with over 180 functions & features, offering a complete range of functionalities from the usual measuring, dimensioning, cutting, creation of new views to advanced analysis: 3D comparison and Digital MockUp (DMU). It is also worth highlighting that the Aras Discussion Thread is fully supported. However, not only snapshots of the current view are generated, which can be annotated. If these snapshots are clicked on again later in Innovator, the 3D model is loaded again in 3DViewStation WebViewer in exactly the same view and is therefore fully editable again in 3D.

Customers from the aerospace and automotive industries use Kisters 3DViewStation together with Aras Innovator. Also with extensions that allow full configuration within Aras Innovator - or from a visualization session with a complex assembly that a CAD system could never fully load, to pass only certain objects to a CAD system for editing.

Kisters and the Aras Community

Kisters has been known to the Aras community for many years. Aras quickly recognized the potential of Kisters 3DViewStation, which led to the first integration, at that time with 3DViewStation Desktop. With Leonardo Helicopters, then Agusta Westland, the requirement was to fully dynamically load even complex products, such as a helicopter consisting of several million components. First, it was proven that 3DViewStation could load such a complex assembly in a matter of seconds. Then Aras Innovator was adapted so that the configuration of the helicopter variants could be done in the PLM system. The result has since been made available in 3DViewStation as a viewer. 

This project has made 3DViewStation well-known in the Aras environment. Kisters has been sponsoring the Aras ACE events for years and has demonstrated its skills in the legendary Rapidfire demos. During these live demos, only 5 minutes, customers and interested parties could witness live how the Kisters 3DViewStation became faster every year. In the first year, an assembly line from Airbus, where the wings are assembled, was still loaded in 13 seconds. And was met with fascination. In the following years, the loading time was gradually reduced to just 1 second, which is now taken for granted. We have known each other long enough. The good performance development is accompanied by the steady functional development.

A few years ago, the then new 3DViewStation WebViewer version replaced the desktop integration with the WebViewer version. Since Aras Innovator is web-based, this integration was obvious. Especially with extremely large assemblies, the advantage of server-side rendering can be fully exploited. But also to protect one's own data when external business partners are connected (IP-protection). Because it is purely browser-based, the 3DViewStation WebViewer version does not require any client installation, making the solution even easier to deploy and administer. 

Google, Data, Products, Projects

If you ask Google, Kisters 3DViewStation is ranked high in the media wire as a CAD viewer with Aras. The combination of PLM with Kisters View is ideal because it links data with projects and products. The software offers real added value. Add value like view services for PLM, PDM, variant and configuration management, and after-sales use cases, which Microsoft employees confirmed at an Aras ACE. Say Stop / Cancel to half-hearted decisions that ultimately don't help users do their jobs. The professional 3D CAD viewer Kisters 3DViewStation pays for itself after a short time. In the age of industrial information, it is impossible to imagine product lifecycle software without 3DViewStation.