Imagine the engineer who, in 2018, spent three entire weeks manually creating renders of every possible variant of a car seat for a catalog - only to discover that the design had changed at the last minute. This anecdote, shared at an industry trade show, perfectly illustrates the puzzle that is "combinatorial visualization." When your product offers thousands of possible configurations, how do you show your customers exactly what they're buying without consuming infinite resources on visual documentation? This dilemma pushes many companies to give up on the immersive experience their customers actually desire.
This is where 3DViewStation WebViewer enters the scene, like that Swiss Army knife you didn't know you were missing. Unlike traditional solutions that force you to choose between speed and precision (never both), this technology instantly transforms technical specifications into interactive 3D visualizations - while keeping your manufacturing secrets as well-protected as the Coca-Cola recipe. While your competitors are still sending static PDFs to their customers, yours are already manipulating their future purchase from every angle, testing each possible configuration in real time.
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Understanding CPQ Solutions: Challenges and Benefits
CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) solutions are software tools that allow precise and rapid configuration of complex products. They work through configuration rules, models, and product catalogs that automate the process of configuration, pricing, and quote generation.
The CPQ process generally takes place in three key stages:
- Configure: The customer configures a product by combining different product and service options via a powerful configurator that immediately displays a 3D representation and a bill of materials.
- Price: The CPQ software instantly calculates the correct price, taking into account discounts, currency conversions, and other pricing rules.
- Quote: Sales teams can generate professional, accurate, and consistent quotes that they send directly to customers.
These solutions allow users to create customized products, obtain their prices in real-time, and generate consistent and accurate quotes. They significantly reduce configuration errors, improve customer satisfaction, and decrease delivery times, leading to increased sales through tailored product offerings.
The sectors that particularly benefit from CPQ solutions are varied:
- High-tech equipment
- Industrial machinery
- Electronics
- Supply chain management solutions
- Software
- Professional services
- Medical devices
However, for a CPQ solution to be truly effective, it must be accompanied by a powerful visualization tool that allows customers to instantly see the impact of their configuration choices. This is why 3D visualization plays a crucial role in this process.
3DViewStation WebViewer: The Ideal Visualization Solution for Your Configurators
3DViewStation WebViewer is the browser-based counterpart of the desktop version, offering rich and identical functionality with the same performance. This solution has been specifically designed to meet the needs of CPQ system users and online product configurators.
With 3DViewStation WebViewer, your customers can:
- Visualize configured products in real-time 3D, giving a clear picture of configurations
- Visually explore the different options available
- Interact with the model intuitively, facilitating faster and more efficient work
This solution is capable of quickly reading and configuring complex assemblies - such as complete trucks with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. This exceptional performance has earned 3DViewStation the "Digital Innovation of the Year" award with DAF (Paccar Group).
The WebViewer version requires no installation on the end device (laptop, PC, tablet, or smartphone). Only an HTML5-compatible browser is required, which is the case for all current browsers. It is therefore ideal for users who do not want to have a local installation, as well as for mobile users, since all devices equipped with Windows, Android, iOS, or Linux operating systems are supported.
Problems Solved and Technical Advantages
3DViewStation WebViewer solves many technical challenges related to complex product configuration:
- Extremely fast visualization: display of configuration changes in one second, whether in the cloud or on your own infrastructure
- Dynamic loading and positioning: geometries are loaded, positioned, and scaled in real-time, avoiding the use of oversized models at 150%
- Advanced material rendering: generation of material renderings and environments (skybox) in real-time for more realistic visualization
- Exceptional performance: production of complete products in seconds in a simple browser, even for assemblies with up to 100,000 parts
- Automatic generation of 2D plans: ability to offer 2D drawings automatically generated from the configured 3D model
- Multi-format support: support for many data formats, both in 3D and 2D
- Optimal performance even at low bandwidth: excellent performance even in limited network conditions
These advantages translate into concrete business benefits:
- More convincing product appearance
- Faster contact with customers
- Easier creation of offers
- Increased sales
Advanced Intellectual Property Protection
The competitiveness of manufacturing companies depends considerably on their ability to protect themselves against unauthorized access to product data. Particularly in the manufacturing industry, the frequent exchange of 3D CAD data between manufacturers, partners, and suppliers presents significant risks.
3DViewStation WebViewer offers various options to effectively protect the intellectual property of your products:
- No transmission of 3D objects: when rendering in the browser, no 3D object is transferred from the server to the client, making it impossible to intercept 3D data
- Protection against geometry cutting: possibility to prevent the user from cutting certain parts or even the entire 3D model, thus prohibiting the view of the interior
- Automatic removal of internal parts: automatic elimination of parts not visible from the outside
- Imperceptible alteration of geometries: in case of necessity to transmit BREP data to an external participant, 3DViewStation can modify geometries in a barely visible way, making the results unusable for production and thus preventing illegal copies or plagiarism
- Customizable user interface: possibility to modify the user interface of the WebViewer version to prevent the use of certain functions
"3DViewStation reliably contributes to the protection of intellectual property and supports the secure exchange of data between companies," notes Craig Impastato, U.S. Sales Director for KISTERS. "All of this does not guarantee 100% protection against abuse, but makes it much more difficult to access know-how and facilitates the secure connection of partners and suppliers."
Conclusion: Transforming Complexity into Competitive Advantage
In a business environment where product personalization and configuration are becoming the norm, having powerful 3D visualization tools is no longer a luxury but a strategic necessity. 3DViewStation WebViewer transforms the complexity of configurable products into a tangible competitive advantage for your business.
Thanks to its exceptional speed, ease of use, and advanced intellectual property protection features, this solution stands as the reference for companies looking to optimize their product configuration process and offer a superior customer experience.
Companies like DAF (member of the Paccar Group), Deutz, and Leonardo (Agusta Westland) have already adopted 3DViewStation to visualize and configure their complex products, with impressive results in terms of increased sales and improved customer experience.
Ready to revolutionize your product configuration process?
Contact us today to discover how 3DViewStation WebViewer can transform your product configuration strategy and help you stand out in a competitive market.
