3D assembly instructions bring products to life during manufacturing
Leslah Garland 27 September 2023 
Kisters says manufacturing companies use its 3DViewStation in various processes to further utilise their CAD data in a meaningful way. One possibility is the use of CAD data within a manufacturing environment.
The company says using Kisters 3DViewStation, 3D assembly instructions with views can be derived from the CAD models with little effort, sequentially the respective assembly steps can be illustrated. This will help production employees to understand the respective work steps more easily and, at the same time, allow them to interactively examine the 3D model in case of ambiguities. This also helps to avoid errors in the assembly of products, which can occur without a clear understandable visualisation of the construct.
Kisters says to prepare the data utilising 3DViewStation one will first pull apart the individual segments of the assembly step by step and save them as individual views. Camera positions can be selected, parts can be faded in and out and repositioned. Also, 3DViewStation enables customers to do markups, dimensions or free texts that can be applied to the individual steps necessary for the assembly construct. The result is a disassembly instruction that becomes an assembly instruction by inverting the order of the views. The workers in the production department first get an overview of the assembly sequence by animated playback of the views using the play function. Afterwards, the assembly is carried out step by step according to the individual views.
According to Craig Impastato, U.S. Sales Director for Kisters: “It is important that the effort required to handle changes to the underlying assembly is kept to a minimum. 3DViewStation allows you to save the views separately from the geometry. If the CAD model changes, one can simply re-import the previously saved views. If there were only geometric changes, one is now already done and the assembly instructions are updated. If a part was removed, it automatically disappears from all views. If there is a new part, it only has to be added in the affected views. The basic structure is therefore always preserved and can be adapted with minimal effort. Often, the authors of these assembly sequences work with the 3DViewStation Desktop version and the production staff with the 3DViewStation WebViewer version, which does not require any installation on the end device and always uses the latest data”.
The company says in summary, users of Kisters 3DViewStation get more out of the 3D models of the design. With minimal preparation, the manufacturing department can access the enriched CAD data. 3D assembly instructions make complex production processes easy to understand and greatly simplify employees’ day-to-day work assignments. The end result is increased production, efficiency, less defect, higher quality and thus competitive advantages.
The company says 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.
