PDT for the CAD/CAM Industry

As the CAD Industry Undergoes Technological Advancements...

The Computer Automated Design (CAD) industry is being reshaped by technological advancements in collaboration, Internet, graphics and mobile technologies. The emergence of new technologies has impacted areas such as large drawing and image handling, Product Lifecycle Management and workflow design.

Designs are Becoming More Complicated and Existing Viewing and Editing Tools are Proving to be Inadequate...

CAD designs can consist of many components. Currently, CAD specialists often need to use a combination of wire frame, shading, and clip plane features as well as employ a significant number of keystrokes to access a particular component of interest. Given their existing viewing and editing tools, architects, engineers and designers are faced with a challenge to perform these tasks efficiently. Existing zoom, pan, and separate views do little to address the longstanding need of CAD users to analyze a detailed region of interest on a design and understand how this detail relates to the context of the surrounding image. Further advancements in graphics have also resulted in CAD users needing more advanced tools within their CAD software to perform every day tasks such as navigation, editing and manipulation. Current solutions such as rotation, transparencies, and information filtering techniques all result in data being concealed from view and the structure or model being altered from its original state. Switching from view to view to understand how these various layers or objects are interrelated can lead to workflow inefficiencies and lost productivity, leading to a weaker decision making process.

A Stronger Need for Interactive Design and Communication Tools is Emerging...

CAD professionals are also looking for ways to advance their current collaboration and presentation methods. Digital design and modeling technologies are enabling interactive, real-time collaborative demonstrations for planners, designers, and community groups to visualize and evaluate proposed changes and new developments.

Workflow Efficiencies are Necessary in Order to Remain Competitive...

In order to remain competitive, companies must streamline their approach and look for new ways to reduce the work redundancy of their specialists and shorten the production procedures involved within current workflow processes. Services can also be improved by seeking out new tools to aid in collaboration and communication.

Figure 1 Existing viewing technologies do little to address the need CAD users have to analyze a detailed region of interest in a design and understand how this detail relates to the rest of the drawing.		Figure 2 PDT enables faster access to components of interest within your CAD drawings and models, resulting in a more efficient workflow.

Introducing Pliable Display Technology (PDT) by IDELIX

PDT is an advanced virtual lens interfaces that can be integrated in a variety of CAD applications to improve performance of design and drafting toolsets. Coupling an application's existing tools with PDT eliminates the reliance upon inefficient zoom and pan techniques and provides improved navigation and editing of drawings.

The PDT lens interfaces provide speed and accuracy gains that translate into workflow efficiencies for CAD users and productivity gains for companies. Faster project delivery times and cost savings are competitive factors that result in a higher return on investment. PDT improves presentation and communication of valuable information to co-workers, customers, and people in the field by empowering users to view and interact with data in real-time. This can help accelerate the use of design data across design teams and enable an interactive display that will give customers a greater understanding of the design intent.

PDT: Integrate Powerful Tools for Viewing and Interacting With CAD Data

PDT technology is particularly applicable for the following tasks:

• Large assembly modeling
• Schematic design (i.e. process & control diagrams or process and instrumentation diagrams)
• Surface modeling or any modeling that requires fine detail work such as creating multiple datum curves and point for surface creation
• Visualization of small objects within large-scale models or drawings

PDT can help CAD users experience productivity gains in the following areas:

• Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) solutions
• Mechanical design and manufacturing
• Civil Engineering - road and construction site design
• Electronic circuit design including schematic composition, verification, validation and packaging; various EDA functions
• GIS and mapping
• Block-level chip assembly and the automated custom physical design flow including support of level of design hierarchy, iterative routing, layer constraints, wiring rules, interactive topology editing, and auto routing
• Land development and the accessing of specific features such as COGO, terrain modeling, parcel and alignment manipulation, and annotation functionality

Find out more

For a list of the Features and Benefits of PDT, see the PDT Product Sheet. For more technical detail on PDT, read our White Paper or Technical Description.