3d documentation using 3d data digital soken · customers and digital soken aims to differentiate...

(c) 2009. Lattice Technology, Inc.

113D Documentation Using 3D Data

Digital Soken

- Improving Lean Manufacturing Through 3D Databy Dr Hiroshi Toriya

Documents such as manuals and user guides, which have always been printed on paper, are increasingly being distributed as digital data such as PDF. By adding 3D animation to such documents, they become not just appealing but far more valuable.

2(c) 2009. Lattice Technology, Inc.

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One major task for manufacturers involves creating instruction guides and service manuals, and most of this documentation work is often subcontracted to external con-tractors. This chapter introduces the efforts of Digital Soken, a subcontractor and an advanced user of 3D data, and how manufacturers and production companies like Digital Soken now work together to prepare manuals from 3D data.

Digital General Printing is a printing company headquartered in Osaka, while Digital Soken, a division of the company, is involved in creating manuals using digital data. In the past, printing companies made their earnings by printing service manuals on paper. Whenever manufactured products were upgraded, so were the manuals, and reprinting them brought in substantial income for the printers. Recently however, more and more service manuals are being provided in PDF format, as the standard for digital documen-tation, so that printing is less of a viable business for printing companies. Nowadays, in addition to images and videos, 3D data can also be embedded in PDF and provided to customers and Digital Soken aims to differentiate its business by delivering quality digital documentation with 3D.

Advantages of Having Documents Incorporating 3DSays Mr. Hata of the company’s IT Business Division, “When created in collaboration

with the user, 3D animations always turn out clearer and easy to understand, so much more than with paper manuals”. As shown in Figure 11.1, complex machine movements cannot be expressed just with words. Looking only at a 2D drawing, readers will most likely not understand how the machine works. In this figure, motion of a cosmetics bot-tling machine is being displayed using 3D animations.

Often these machines are developed and custom-made by subcontractors for the manufacturers. It is therefore critical to preview the machine before it is built and to have it verified with the end user. According to Hata, who created this digital 3D data, “Once you know how a machine works, it does not require much time to reproduce its opera-tions as a 3D animation. Also, once the 3D design has been completed, it does not cost much to reproduce the movements using the 3D model.”


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Figure11.1. XVL Animation Reproducing Movements of a Complex Bottling Machine

Figure 11.2 shows the animation of the movements of paper inside a copier. Often, internal mechanical movements of products that we wish to see or show to others cannot be seen when you are positioned outside of the physical product. By making the exterior semi-transparent in digital 3D, we are able to understand how the internal structure and movements occur as paper is moved. On the actual machines, it is common for parts to block the view of other parts positioned behind them: 3D animation resolves this problem. However, in order to create easy-to-understand 3D animations, documentation compa-nies such as Digital Soken need to intimately understand what information is needed by the staff, such as machine specifications and assembly methods. In addition, the com-pany has found that although manufacturers may have the 3D data for them to use, this data alone is not enough for creating accurate 3D animations.

Figure 11.2. XVL Animation Displaying The Internal Operations of a Copier


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Animations cannot be created just by understanding the mechanisms of the ma-chine which the 3D data is expressing. Digital Soken has found that to maintain quality, its teams have to first carefully study the assembly instruction manuals and drawings obtained from manufacturers in order to fully understand the machine, prior to starting the actual documentation work. The company says by working closely with the manufacturers in creating 3D manuals, it is able to produce far clearer and easy-to-understand documents.

Creation of 3D Documentation at Digital SokenDigital Soken says that 3D CAD data obtained from manufacturers is often difficult to

use in its raw state, because often, parts such as wire harnesses or commonly used parts are missing, and they have to make additional models using their own CAD systems. When using 3D data to create actual documentation work, the manufacturing team has to enhance the 3D data so it can be used for documentation. Furthermore, if data supplied by the manufacturer is missing information or outdated, it means that Digital Soken’s pro-duction team end up having to recreate the data correctly in its own CAD systems. With this in mind, the company introduced several CAD systems to handle the creation of addi-tional, enhanced or corrected 3D data. To create 3D animations, the company introduced XVL applications and Autodesk 3ds Max in 2006. 3ds Max animations can be output and viewed as XVL animations. After converting the CAD data into XVL, XVL Studio is used for creating simple animations, and 3ds Max is used for creating sophisticated animations and movies. 3D animations are output using the XVL format and posted to HTML using XVL Web Master. In 2007, the company also introduced Fujitsu Software Technologies’ Collabo Creator software to convert Fujitsu’s DMU data (called VPS data) into XVL. Fig-ure 11.3 shows the flow of the 3D document creation process at the company.

Demands are growing stronger for manuals and guides using 3D data, because with animations there is no longer the need to use so many words: As manufacturers expand into global markets, they are faced with huge costs for translating their manuals into many languages. By creating animations in standard formats that are easily shared, costs can be cut as a result, and the information communicated using the completed manuals is also higher quality. Group seminars and training sessions for maintenance of new models currently require service engineers to be in attendance for several days, and incurring huge costs to the manufacturer and its dealers. By sending movies, animations and 3D content to the service engineers instead, costs can be significantly reduced. The demands for 3D manuals are said to center mainly around installation manuals and work instructions for dealers and service departments. It is believed that once 3D manuals be-come commonly used internally by companies, they will spread next to general consumer use.


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Figure 11.3 The Flow of 3D Animation Creation

Creating Illustrations using XVLXVL is often used for preparing illustrations. Of course, 3D CAD systems can also

be used for preparing illustrations, but once the 3D data exceeds a certain size, the CAD system becomes very slow during editing. This problem is being somewhat addressed with 64-bit PCs, but using expensive CAD and hardware is silly when you are trying to cut costs by using 3D. With the very lightweight XVL format, 2D illustrations, which cor-respond to 3D images from various viewpoints, are quickly created from CAD data which was originally several hundred megabytes in size, and those illustrations can be easily edited. Once created using XVL Studio, those illustrations can also be recreated automat-ically. In fact, the use of XVL applications in Digital Soken has dramatically cut the time taken for creating illustrations using 3D data to 1/8 of the original time spent.

Figure 11.4 Example of a Cross Section Illustration of a Measurement Pump


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In addition, work which used to take about two to three weeks, such as process design, illustration output, editing with illustration tool, is now shortened to just one or two days using XVL. Figure 11.4 shows an example of the cross-section of a pump created using XVL Studio. In this case, the manufacturer could not decide which angle to show it from, so Digital Soken prepared the XVL model and chose the best angle for the cross-section illustration. XVL offers the advantage of easy exchange of lightweight, fast data with users.

Figure 11.5 3D Parts Table Linking The 3D Model and Parts Table

From Paper to Digital, From Digital to 3DFigure 11.5 shows a 3D maintenance guide that contains 3D animations created

by Digital Soken for use by the service engineers of a manufacturer. When defining the disassembly animation using XVL Studio, the trajectory of the parts is built to show an illustration-like display. By viewing it this way, the user is easily able to know where to assemble each part, and even those used to paper drawings find it very easy to use. By selecting a 3D part in the overall disassembly drawing, the corresponding 3D part is displayed in a separate window with the part data listed above. Since all of this informa-tion is integrated, the information people need can be obtained very easily. The manual is said to have been popular with its workforce and is proving to be an effective means for transitioning from paper to 3D at this company.

However, a number of Digital Soken customers still use paper drawings in their work flow. To use this data effectively, Digital Soken’s Zahyo Tori system scans paper drawings, automatically detects the drawing numbers, and links the drawing numbers bi-directionally to the parts table. This drawing data is then digitized and linked with parts


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tables for referencing in an Internet environment. By linking this 2D data with XVL, a 3D documentation system is automatically established. Using Zahyo Tori, some companies can now display the 2D contents which were originally on paper on their websites. As new products are launched, they can be sequentially added as 3D XVL data. Figure 11.6 shows an example of digital 2D and 3D content created by linking Zahyo Tori and XVL. By digitizing paper information, illustration and 3D models can be linked and used together.

In Daily UseSakai Heavy Industries, a client of Digital Soken, is actively making use of 3D data

for its documents. The company manufactures road construction machinery, and Digital Soken handles its maintenance guides for use by dealers. Currently, manuals are made by converting CAD data into DXF format as 2D drawings, and this data is then used for preparing the manuals. Digital Soken says it is trying to digitize Sakai’s design process, and is planning to start providing modeling consultation to the company using 3D CAD. The plan next is to convert all models to 3D data and create illustrations using XVL Stu-dio. Figure 11.7 shows the service guides prepared by Digital Soken: In this case, both paper manuals and 3D manuals are created. While preparing service guides, it is a waste of time and effort to create and print out disassembly drawings of each process. Now pro-cess designs are created using XVL Studio, snapshots of each process are created at the same time and are used for the web manual, and animations are created simultaneously.

Figure 11.6 3D Parts Table Created by Linking Zahyo Tori Data and XVL

Using this method the time spent creating the guides, which is now faster than before, also includes the time taken for creating illustrations. While completing process designs using XVL Studio, images are output automatically when outputting the process report, and use of this bitmap data cuts the man hours required. The images attached to


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the service guides are usually output as bitmap data, although sometimes the automated system may fail. In this case, they are output as vector data and are later revised and checked using Adobe Illustrator. The final goal of all this is to create 3D animations of the manuals for all the sales offices around the world and to provide technical guidance using XVL animation to the service engineers worldwide. Another goal is to cut costs for con-verting to multiple languages. Mr. Suzuki, who heads the Sakai Heavy Industries’ Product Service Division and is actively promoting the use of 3D manuals, talks about their efforts.

Figure 11.7 Example of a Manual Created at Sakai Heavy Industries

“With construction machines, one small maintenance error can put a person’s life at risk. XVL animations are able to resolve this issue immediately. XVL-based 3D manuals are able to increase profits by cutting man hours, address environment problems by sav-ing paper, and ensure that manufacturer responsibility continues by conveying techniques accurately, simultaneously.” Suzuki explains the advantages of 3D manuals as follows: “Until now, in providing customer service, paper-based shop manuals were distributed to sales offices and to authorized plants, while briefings were carried out at training centers. Using paper-based manuals, made from 2D CAD drawings and materials documenting long years of know-how, we have had to distribute these every time a new product is released. The maintenance program in some regions, especially in non-English speak-ing regions, would always tend to lag behind. However, no matter how accurately illus-trations were created based on approval drawings, only experienced engineers could fully understand the complicated illustrations. If the information on each process can be expressed visually using 3D animation, this will be far clearer than paper-based descrip-tions. In addition, snapshots created from the process design animations in XVL Studio are very similar to the paper-based manuals that engineers are used to.” The presence


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of someone who understands the importance of 3D data and promotes it actively at the manufacturer side, as seen at Sakai Heavy Industries, is a prerequisite for the success of digital documents and the spread of 3D data.

The Role of Digital Soken

Some manufacturers who are used to paper drawings and reports will hesitate before using 3D documents. But the trend towards 3D design is steadily progressing. For com-panies starting to use 3D CAD in design, the services of companies like Digital Soken, who has abundant experience and knowhow on the use of 3D, will no doubt be in de-mand. Says Mr. Hata of Digital Soken, “Of course content production offers do not come flowing in simply because we show demos of 3D animation. We need to provide clear targets for its use and deliver 3D animations that specifically meet the customer’s needs. Our business solution lies not only in providing a new solution - that is the use of 3D data and XVL - but also delivering the know-how they need.”

If a company wants to use 3D data in the documentation area, first it needs to show an example of ‘best practice’ to the manufacturing floor staff so that they are convinced to try 3D data. Working jointly with a documentation company like Digital Soken, which has the 3D know-how, is an excellent way of building the best practices very quickly. When Digital Soken showed one of its clients an assembly and disassembly manual using XVL Web Master, they immediately understood the merits of using 3D data.

Understanding by the shop floor staff of the merits of 3D serves as the engine for promoting use of 3D data. As seen with the case of Digital Soken, joint efforts between a manufacturer and a documentation company like this helps enhance the added-value of 3D data.

The cases introduced in this chapter are described at the following website; http://www.xvl3d.com/ja/research/index.html. (XVL Player 8.6 is required, and please note the contents are in Japanese only.)

About ‘The Critical Need for Digitalization in Manufacturing’ by Dr Hiroshi Toriya.

This book, one of several published by author, Dr. Hiroshi Toriya, discusses how Japanese manu-facturers are addressing the critical need to continually improve manufacturing processes across the entire enterprise. In the cases highlighted in this book, manufacturers are turning to 3D data practices and processes to enable greater leanness of manufacturing. This book discusses why this is a necessity in the current economic conditions and discusses real world examples through in-depth interviews with manufacturers of all kinds.

Published in Japan in 2008, this book is available as an e-book from Lattice Technology, and is available at www.lattice3d.com