Web visualization

[Istre]

I'm currently working on a project to have a web-accesible configurator for our salesmen to use while calling on customers. I have several styles of products, each comprised of a different assembly. Within each assembly, there are several options that can be turned on and off to build up to a finished product.

We explored doing it the poor man's way with a flash applet and jpegs that could be turned on and off so that there is a sort of step-by-step view of the product as it is built up from each component. The problem is that for each final configuration, and each possible intermediate step, the layering of the model is different and different parts of each component are visible, meaning that several hundred .jpgs are required per product line to get the proper parts of the components hidden in each configuration. Even with only one product line, this is unacceptable, as is a "wireframe" type of view created by making each layer transparent to all the others. Ten product lines means several thousand .jpgs, and I'm not that motivated.

What I'm looking for are suggestions on what's available in a web based interface, along the lines of 3D PartStream.Net. My requirement is simply that it be fast (I've seen the demos of partstream and it's not exactly swift). Also, if any of you have a rough idea of the pricing and learning curve associated with each product, I'd be interested in hearing about that, as well.

 

[lucason]

Take a look at DriveWorks (

http://www.driveworks.co.uk

)

 

[rockguy]

IPA Maybe able to help you out??

http://www.immdesign.com

 

[G1DESIGN]

have you taken a peek at something called eon studio

i it uses the same kind of vrml tech as 3d publisher but is way better ie realtime rendering etc also it is used for online configurators we looked at it last year when we were a start up but it was way pricey 10k im sure i read the price had fallen though ,probably couldnt sell it for that

is neat and im pretty sure it is capable of doing what you want

 

[drawoh]

Istre,

Consider using Microsoft Notepad. The HTML/XHTML language is very simple, especially if somebody sets up an external style sheet. It is pretty well documented on

http://www.w3c.org.

You can use the links to provide the configuration logic you need, and you wind up with a fast, ultra compatible website. You can generate the JPEGs you need directly from SolidWorks.

JHG