Assembly and Part Relationships

3D Drawings for manufacturing offer a powerful tool that streamlines design, enhances communication, and improves the accuracy and efficiency of the production process, ultimately leading to better-quality products.

Supports Model-Based Initiatives (MBE & MBD)

Initiatives like the Model-Based Enterprise (MBE) and Model-Based Definition (MBD) can have dramatic positive impacts for the manufacturing company. 3D Drawings are at the heart of these initiatives.

A key advantage of MBE is that it replaces digital drawings. In MBE, a single 3D model contains all the information typically found in an entire set of engineering drawings, including geometry, topology, dimensions, tolerances, and more.

MBD is, according to ASME, an annotated 3D model that contains all the information needed to manufacture and inspect a product. In MBD, you capture the dimensions, tolerances, notes, symbols, surface finishes, and other information that define components and products in the model, as opposed to a traditional 2D drawing. MBD is a deliverable.

3D Drawings - Based on a 3D Digital Twin

Manufacturing companies are looking for ways to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and increase throughput.

Our recommendation is to make better use of your company's 3D assets to create a complete 3D Digital Twin.

3D Drawings Across the Product Lifecycle

3D Drawings can be used by other stakeholders for different purposes up and down the product life cycle.

A complete, interactive 3D representation is much easier for stakeholders to understand. And because a 3D Drawing is CAD-level accurate with all of the related information from the CAD system(s), it can be used for real work.

3D Drawings for the Manufacturing Company

An Opportunity to Increase Productivity & Quality

The widespread use of 3D CAD has significantly improved design efficiency in the manufacturing industry. However, 3D data is still not fully utilized across the entire manufacturing process, with many steps continuing to rely on 2D drawings. Transitioning from 2D to 3D Drawings can make manufacturing processes more efficient and increased quality.

Drawbacks of 2D Drawings

Many downstream departments still rely on 2D drawings because they do not have access to 3D CAD. And even if they did, 3D CAD is hard to use and the licenses are expensive.

While 3D CAD is commonly used in design, 2D drawings are still required to communicate design information to downstream processes, resulting in additional work for drawing creation, distribution, and communication.

Communication via 2D drawings can vary in quality depending on individual skills and experience, making it prone to misunderstandings and human error.  And they are hard to interpret.

Lastly, they are time-consuming to create and maintain.

3D Drawings Overview

Despite the growing prevalence of 3D design in design departments, many manufacturing companies do not fully utilize 3D data in their processes, with significant reliance still placed on 2D drawings. Designers often have to create 2D drawings in addition to their 3D designs to share information across departments, requiring extra man-hours. Moreover, 2D-based information tends to remain siloed within individual departments, resulting in fragmented data.

With Lattice Technology, lightweight XVL files can be used as 3D Drawings to streamline the entire manufacturing process. By distributing XVL 3D Drawings that include PMI and other manufacturing information to downstream processes, design departments are freed from the bottleneck of 2D drawing creation. Furthermore, downstream processes that lack 3D CAD capabilities can work more efficiently using the XVL 3D Drawings. Additionally, 3D data from each department can be reused across departments, increasing overall manufacturing efficiency.

Processes Before and After 3D Drawings for Manufacturing

No CAD System Access Required to View 3D Drawings

XVL 3D Drawings can replicate annotations such as PMI and drawing views found in 2D drawings. XVL also retains design information, such as CATIA V5 geometrical sets, allowing the drawings to be viewed similarly to 3D CAD files.

But there is one key difference. 3D Drawings are live and interactive, not static 2D.

By distributing 3D Drawings in XVL format, 3D design data becomes easily accessible and usable even in downstream processes where 3D CAD is unavailable.

Using XVL 3D Drawings as a Collaboration Tool

XVL allows downstream users to add manufacturing information to 3D Drawings without altering the original CAD data. For instance, dimensions and cross-sections can be added, and manufacturing feedback can be stored directly in the 3D Drawing. The manufacturing information added to XVL can be saved as snapshots and easily shared with stakeholders, facilitating collaboration through 3D Drawings.

Improve Manufacturing Processes with 3D Drawings

XVL enables the effective use of 3D Drawings in downstream processes to enhance operations. For example, inspection instructions can be automatically generated using PMI data, and 3D work instructions can be created by adding process information to the 3D data. Utilizing 3D Drawings helps improve manufacturing processes by automating operations and reducing human error.

Semantic PMI (CATIA V5, Creo Parametric, and NX)

Publish to PDF

With XVL 3D Drawings, you can export views to PDF, enabling the easy generation of 2D drawings when required.

Lattice Technology Products Used in This Solution

Why XVL?

All CAD Files Combined - Any Format - Ultralightweight - Accurate

The foundation for 3D Drawings and all of Lattice Technology's XVL-based solutions is the 3D Digital Twin.

Want to Learn More?

Here are some resources:

• Digital Transformation
• Introductory Whiteboard Videos
• More on 3D Drawings - Visit Our Solution Page