Like virtually all engineering software, metrology (measurement) software has made and continues to make giant strides for manufacturing organizations seeking the best path to a comprehensive digital transformation. For metrology, one of the companies leading this charge for digital transformation is InnovMetric.
We recently spoke to Marc Soucy, President of InnovMetric about his company, new and improved technologies offered by his company, and his take on the state of metrology software.
InnovMetric considers itself the pioneer of point cloud-based inspection that invented the concept of a universal 3D metrology software platform.
Soucy kicked things off by saying, “We are an independent software development company, and we empower manufacturers of every size to digitally transform their 3D measurement processes. We revolutionized 3D metrology with the introduction of point-cloud-based dimensional inspection in 2000, and the concept of a universal platform in 2006. Today with over 20,000 customers in 100 countries, including the largest industrial manufacturers that have adopted our PolyWorks solutions as their standard 3D methodology software platform. We are focusing on creating next-generation digital data and process management technologies. We are a multinational organization with 550 employees dedicated to bringing 3D measurement data at the heart of enterprise manufacturing processes.”
MCADCafe Interviews Marc Soucy, President, InnovMetric
Since it began in 1986, Spatial has developed software components – modular software packages that perform a set of specific and related functions. This class of software is designed to work as a functional component of a larger application, such as CAD, CAM, CAE, Additive Manufacturing (AM), and Building Information Modeling (BIM). The goal of component software is to standardize the interfaces between software utility functions so that they can work together efficiently and cohesively.
In developing its software components, Spatial has always realized, too, that the best engineering software excels at optimizing imported data for data reuse. Spatial understands that design data reuse is much more than just data exchange.
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a very interesting event called the 3D Collaboration & Interoperability Congress 2016 (3D CIC) that was hosted by our colleagues at Action Engineering. The actual conference event was two days, but was preceded by a SOLIDWORKS user group meeting that focused exclusively on model-based definition (MBD) for an entire day. Myself, along with about 60 other attendees got a good look at MBD, not just SOLIDWORKS’ perspective, but a broader view, as well.
I was fortunate to sit next to Oboe Wu, product manager at SOLIDWORKS who is a huge proponent of MBD. With SOLIDWORKS MBD, you can communicate product and PMI directly in 3D, bypassing time-consuming 2D processes, in other words, drawings.
SOLIDWORKS MBD sets data such as product models, dimensions, geometric tolerances, surface finishes, welding symbols, bills of material (BOM), callouts, tables, notes, Meta properties, and other annotations within the SOLIDWORKS 3D environment in 3D PMI. Because all the information needed to guide the operation is integrated with the 3D models, traditional 2D drawings are no longer needed (at least in theory).
With MBD, 2D drawings become less necessary and meaningful. Instead of having a 3D model and a 2D drawing in a traditional workflow, the model is the drawing in an MBD workflow. The MBD approach provides a direct connection and single digital data thread from design to engineering to inspection.
Remember a long time ago when the so-called “paperless office” was just around the corner. Well, we’ve all turned a lot of corners over the years waiting for the nirvana that still seems to be “just around the corner.”
Of course, strides have been made for a way to communicate design engineering information in a paperless manner, but one of the most promising developments has been model-based definition (MBD) and model-based engineering/enterprise (MBE).
We spoke with Aaron Kelly, SOLIDWORKS’ Vice President, User Experience & Product Portfolio Management about many things regarding the SOLIDWORKS 2015 portfolio launch, including a brand new offering called SOLIDWORKS MBD. It is designed to help improve communication between design and manufacturing teams by enabling them to communicate product and manufacturing information (PMI) in 3D. The intent here is to use Model Based Definition and to no longer use 2D drawings to define products.
