KISTERS 3DViewStation: 3D Heatmaps for meaningful feasibility analyses

– Kisters has announced that 3DViewStation has added two new enhancements with 3D Heatmaps and Curvature Analysis. Now it’s even easier to detect problems at an early stage by means of intelligent visualization. Within manufacturing companies, multiple departments are responsible for product design, and it is critical that the final product will be manufactured without any defects that will lead to higher profitability.  3DViewStation now supports these benefits with advanced analysis methods that present a vivid visual graphic of critical part areas. Without a visually conducive representation of the analysis results, it is much more difficult to make decisions or to assess what consequences may arise downstream. Problematic areas in particular must be visible to all departments at a glance. This can be achieved, for example, with extended heat maps, which display a kind of heat image or false color representation via individually adjustable parameters. This helps even inexperienced users to quickly record, evaluate results, and correct product design flaws.

KISTERS 3DViewStation therefore now offers new and extended heat map analysis functions, which are visualized in the style of a thermal image. These are individually customizable color codes, which are already known from the wall thickness analysis. Setting min and max values, reversing colors, or changing from continuous colors to bands gives many more options to display results. Designers of cast or injection-molded plastic parts have a need to achieve the perfect balance of high strength with the lowest possible weight, 3D Heatmaps now enable a quick analysis for plastic molded parts. The 3DViewStation enhancements can also be used in quoting, sales, or project management. It is important to identify difficult areas quickly and clearly. According to Craig Impastato, U.S. Sales Director for KISTERS, “that’s why the heat map is now available as part of collision detection for planning where minimum distances play a central role, such as in vehicle, machine or plant construction. With just one click, this function enables the user to identify critical distances between individual components or assemblies by clearly coloring the components according to user-defined distance values.” As a third option, the heat map is used in combination with the new curvature analysis. The results of this are not only of interest to colleagues from the design department, but also provide support in the calculation of sheet metal parts, where the production effort must be planned as realistically as possible in advance. In mold costing, the new curvature analysis in combination with the undercut calculation can provide accurate analysis in identifying critical points in order to reliably calculate the manufacturing build of the mold accordingly.

Intelligent 3D viewers such as KISTERS 3DViewStation now play a major role in the manufacturing industry for pre-production feasibility analyses and quality assurance at the end of the manufacturing process. Heatmaps help viewers intuitively understand extensive and complicated data sets. This saves time because the interpretation of relevant hotspots is possible at a glance and decisions are made much faster. With the goal of avoiding errors early on, facilitating collaboration and reducing costs in the process, the return on investment is quickly achieved.

Known for its modern user-interface, high performance viewing, advanced analysis and integration capabilities into leading systems, 3DViewStation ships with current and mature importers for a broad range of 3D and 2D formats including Catia, NX, Creo, SolidWorks, SolidEdge, Inventor, Revit, JT, 3D-PDF, STEP, DWG, DXF, DWF, MS Office and many more.

The latest developments of 3DViewStation can be reviewed in more detail at:

https://www.3dviewstation.com/news/blog.html

KISTERS 3DViewStation is continuously enhanced in response to customer needs and requirements. It is available as Desktop, VR-Edition and HTML5 WebViewer product versions plus the online collaboration tool VisShare. All product offerings are intended to be used together with a PLM, ERP or other management system product configuration, as well as service and spare part applications. KISTERS 3DViewStation provides all necessary APIs. For cloud, portal and web solutions, there is a HTML5-based WebViewer solution available, which does not require client installation. All file formats can be used in combination with the intelligent navigation and hyperlinking features to address the needs of complex integration scenarios.