producing high-quality documentation. Technical documentation, marketing presentations, and sales materials require additional effort to create, especially for those who do not have access to CAD systems. Fortunately, there are viewers that make the task of generating documentation from CAD models fast and easy.

One of the key features of these viewers is their compatibility with various CAD file formats. This means that users can work with different types of CAD models, including attributes, without the need for additional software or conversion tools.

Another important feature is the measurement tools that come with these viewers. These tools enable users to take accurate measurements of different parts of the CAD model, which is especially useful for creating technical documentation that requires precise measurements. With the ability to measure angles, distances, and other parameters, viewers can help users to produce detailed and accurate documentation.

In addition to measurement tools, viewers also come with annotation tools that allow users to add notes, callouts, and other annotations to the CAD model. This feature is particularly helpful when creating presentations or marketing materials that require additional explanations or descriptions.

Another useful feature of these viewers is the ability to create a bill of materials (BOM) automatically from the CAD model. This can save users a significant amount of time and effort by eliminating the need to manually create a BOM and numbered markers.

Furthermore, viewers can create exploded views and dynamic sections of the CAD model. These views can be extremely helpful in creating technical documentation and assembly instructions.

Viewers also offer the ability to quickly hide or isolate parts or sub-assemblies within the CAD model. This feature can be particularly useful when presenting the CAD model to clients or stakeholders who may only be interested in specific parts or components of the design.

Finally, viewers offer various export options, including PDF, PNG, and JPEG formats, enabling users to create high-quality documentation that can be easily reused in office documents

Quickly view a CAD drawing with 3DViewStation

You probably know the capabilities of our 3DViewStation solution to quickly visualize large 3D assemblies but did you know that you can also visualize drawings with 3DViewStation? The list of supported formats for both 2D CAD and raster formats is available at this address.
With the latest version of 3DViewStation, KISTERS replaced its previous TIFF rendering with a completely new developed rendering. Now zooming or panning has become super fast, even for drawings in 10x A0 / 10x E format.

Presenting your CAD Models in PDF: Solutions & Benefits

As a CAD designer or engineer, it's essential to be able to share and present your models in a way that is easy to understand and accessible to others. The use of PDF format is one of the most common and effective methods of sharing and exchanging design information for 3D and 2D models. In this article, we will explore how to present your CAD models in PDF format, and the different solutions available to achieve this.

Import or Create Attributs in your CAD Models with 3DViewStation

3DViewStation can import attributes from native CAD files. These attributes are generally created by the designer, from the CAD system. Through our APIs, 3DViewStation users can also add custom attributes, which will be read back into any system, such as a PLM or ERP, or exported to a neutral file. For some projects, we have also developed 3DViewStation plugins, which allow you to add, modify or delete attributes. Reading and merging attributes of multiple files can be useful in cases where they come from multiple systems and direct integration with multiple systems would be too complicated. As with CAD software, customers want to know by whom and when a note was created or changed. This is why we allow to automatically add attributes to annotations. Presets can be defined for each attribute. For example, the variables we provide by default are name, date and time.

Export to PDF CAD Captures for Project Review

3DViewStation is frequently used to display views or PMI captures contained in a 3D CAD model. But a 3DViewStation user can also create his own views, to prepare a project review for example. Views record model position, geometry selection, visibility state, annotations, section view, and more. For all of these views, 3DViewStation displays previews in a navigation pane. There is a feature to export them individually as an image or PDF file. And since version v2021, 3DViewStation gives the possibility of exporting all views easily in a single PDF in order to create a summary document.

Create tubes measures automatically with 3DViewStation

With the neutral axis function, 3DViewStation automatically recognizes tubes, including tessellated geometries, and calculates a set of parameters. As shown in the screenshot above , measurements are created with the bending diameter and the length of the tube.

Create Drill Holes measures automatically with 3DViewStation

With the Drill Hole feature, 3DViewStation automatically recognizes holes, including tessellated geometries, and create notes with set of parameters. As shown in the screenshot above, measurements are created with the diameter and depth or drilling angle of the hole.

Create BOM automatically from CAD models with 3DViewStation

Many customers already use 3DViewStation for authoring content for technical documentation. 3DViewStation has a BOM function, which allows you to generate a BOM from a 3D CAD model. BOM can be generated from any file format like Catia, NX, Creo, Inventor, Solidworks, JT, STEP, etc. The BOM can be copied to the clipboard or exported as a file. This nomenclature can also be used in our optional TechDoc module (technical documentation). In this advanced feature, you can generate legend IDs and manually or automatically generate the corresponding captions and markers, often called balloons.

Create documentation from CAD model with 3DViewStation

With 3DViewStation, it never have been easier and faster to create nice documentation from your CAD model : Add 3D notes, Bill Of Material, screenshots raster or vector formats. Model can be from many CAD systems (Catia V5, Pro-Engineer Creo, NX, SolidWorks and others ...).

Create explode view from your CAD assembly in 1 click

With 3DViewStation, it never have been easier and faster to create explode view from a CAD assembly. Model can be from many CAD systems (Catia V5, Pro-Engineer Creo, NX, SolidWorks and others ...).