ProductView offers information visualization capabilities that enable enterprise collaboration by providing Web-based access to nearly any type of information involved in the product and process lifecycle. Access to information managed by a variety of corporate systems, viewing of a wide range of heterogeneous product information, and markup and analysis capabilities are all core functions. These core functions accelerate the flow of critical product and process information throughout the enterprise.

ProductView is designed to improve productivity and communication not only within the product design and development team but also throughout the entire extended enterprise. This includes design, sales, support, accounting, quality assurance, manufacturing, and assembly, as well as suppliers and customers. ProductView has an intuitive user interface that requires little or no training and can be customized to present only the controls needed for users to do their jobs. A model may be viewed using a variety of display options, measurements can be taken, sections can be created, and mass properties can be calculated in order to understand a design.

CAPABILITIES

ProductView allows users throughout the enterprise to view many types of product-related information-from documents such as Microsoft« Office files to 2D drawings and 3D models-all in a familiar Web-based framework. Without having to know where the files are stored, users can browse the system, view models, and navigate through product structures and associated information in a single, integrated environment. Users can view, interrogate, and mark up various types of 2D and 3D standard and native formats to create supporting materials for engineering change requests and to hold online conceptual reviews.

Many types of data are required to develop and manufacture a product. The data that describes a product is referred to as metadata. The product structure provides the capability to view this information in a way that is easily understood. ProductView provides an intuitive method for navigating the product structure. Associated information can be in the form of documents, images, spreadsheets, URLs, or lists. Metadata is associated directly with a component for easy viewing.

ProductView provides the ability to view product structure information and metadata managed by Windchill«, Pro/PDMÖ, Pro/INTRALINK«, Optegra«, Sherpa, and file systems for CATIA« and CADDS« 5. Product structures may be comprised of a variety of data types, including 3D models, 2D drawings, office documents, images, movies, and DIVISIONÖ MockUp simulations. Entire assemblies, single components, or any combination of components may be easily viewed utilizing multiple windows that may contain different documents, assemblies, or components.

• PTC Graphics Server

ProductView provides essential CAD-independent viewing capabilities and enables participants in the product and process lifecycle to calculate mass properties, create rendered images, explode assemblies by dragging objects to move or rotate them, fly through large assemblies, and create sections through an assembly. Rapid exploration of the design scene can be accomplished through the use of the fly-through mode. Flying through any assembly design is a natural means for exploring the assembly. Perspective viewing can also be used to give a more accurate representation of what the design will look like in real life.

Advanced analysis tools such as dynamic sectioning are included in ProductView to allow detailed investigation of assembly designs. Various structure mockups can be investigated using dynamic positioning with simple drag-and-drop mouse operations in both 2D and 3D modes. Different configurations of designs can be stored for reuse later.

ProductView measurement capabilities allow for accurate length, angle, radius, and surface-clearance measurements as well as for measurements between points, centers, edges, and surfaces. In addition, property and attribute information from the source CAD system can be viewed. ProductView 3D model viewing and analysis capabilities release valuable product information to non-CAD users, enabling enterprise collaboration.

ProductView supports a host of 2D drawing, vector, image, and document formats, allowing enterprise participants to view, manipulate, and overlay nearly any type of 2D data, without requiring access to the source application. Batch-plotting capabilities are provided, as well as the ability to define watermarks. For example, the document control department can place an overlay on unreleased prints, or the engineering department can mark certain documents as proprietary or for draft use only. Supported 2D formats include:

• Supported Formats

ProductView allows participants to mark up or redline all types of product information and to store and retrieve the resulting information. Markups may be distributed over the Web as HTML files and managed by either Windchill or a workgroup information management system. For example, engineering managers can mark up a drawing with requested key design criteria, and purchasing staff can forward this information to suppliers for comment. Markup capabilities, both 2D and 3D, include notes, dimensions, highlighting, and stamps. Multiple markups may be made to the same drawing and then viewed. The user can also customize graphical attributes such as line width and font setting for annotations.

Replay simulations, such as assembly, disassembly, and operator interaction, are created with Division MockUp. Using ProductView markup and analysis capabilities in combination with Web-based visualization, members of the extended enterprise can, for the first time, easily participate in any phase of the product and process lifecycle, resulting in higher quality products and faster time to market.

The ProductView client can be downloaded across the Web and automatically installed within the target Web browser, making it easy to deploy and cost effective to maintain. Three client configurations are available:

• A native client for Windows and Unix, which may run either as a stand-alone or as a plug-in to Netscape or Internet Explorer. This option provides the highest performance.
• A downloadable Java«-based client. This client provides a platform-neutral environment that is more interactive than HTML and does not require any preinstallation of software on the client computer in order to run.
• A basic HTML client. The HTML client allows information access from any platform, even one that may support only a simple Web browser such as Windows 3.1.

The ProductView client accesses product information via a ProductView graphics server that uses a three-tiered client-server architecture. This webcentric design enables a common interface to a wide variety of information sources and handles many different information formats. ProductView graphics servers provide controlled access to CAD, workgroup information management, and file system information and can be easily extended to support new or proprietary CAD, database, or information management systems. The graphics server generates accurate, neutral-boundary representations by accessing the CAD system through open application programming interfaces (APIs). The resulting 3D-geometry representation is highly compact, making it easy to distribute across the network. In addition, the geometry is represented by the same topological entities as the native source CAD data; therefore, no precision is lost. Because ProductView creates viewable formats in batch or on the fly and caches them for subsequent usage, it is now possible to load and view an entire heterogeneous assembly in seconds.

ProductView is available stand-alone as DIVISIONÖ ProductView or as part of the Windchill« Collaboration Factor! DIVISION ProductView is part of the DIVISION family and a member of the PTC i-SeriesÖ, providing interoperability between other members such as Pro/ENGINEERÖ, CADDSÖ 5, Pro/INTRALINKÖ and OptegraÖ.

Windchill« Collaboration Factor! is a solution which offers an interenterprise collaborative environment for the sharing and visualization of valuable product and process knowledge, regardless of where that information resides or what format it is in. The Windchill Collaboration Factor! in turn supports the Windchill Factor! e-SeriesÖ, which delivers a complete set of enterprise solutions to address collaborative product commerce (CPC). From product planning through production and everything in between, the Windchill Factor! e-Series exploits the Internet for product collaboration, and in so doing, raises the value of product information to an enterprise asset.