Fisher & Paykel Appliances has teamed up with Wellington IT research consortium Medialab to look at the possibility of creating electronic manuals containing three dimensional images of its products for its service engineers.
The company is also interested in trying to create electronic marketing brochures incorporating product images which prospective customers could play around with and manipulate in 3D.
Fisher & Paykel’s engineering systems manager, Bill Currie, says the company has used 3D computer-aided design tools to create its appliances since 1995, “but we haven’t managed to take 3D technology out beyond the design function”.
Presenting information such as visual representations of spare parts in the form of 3D models rather than 2D plans could reduce confusion, he says.
“Often when people look at drawings of parts they see them in different ways.”
Key to the research will be finding a way to send 3D images to remote users quickly and without requiring too much bandwidth.
An attempt by Fisher & Paykel several years ago to equip mobile service engineers with computers and provide them with online access to technical information failed because the available data connections weren’t up to the challenge of handling the data files the company created, he says.
Medialab has received $134,000 from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to establish a research group called Shape3D which aims to develop 3D technologies for a variety of applications, of which the 3D product catalogue is one example.
Mr Currie says Fisher & Paykel’s involvement in Shape3D is “low-key”, but the company has provided Medialab with some of its engineering data to see what the researchers can come up with.
“These guys have shown the initiative in knocking on our door and saying they think they can help us and we are happy to be a part of it.”
Shape3D’s other projects include examining ways of presenting X-rays in 3D and making it easier to send computer-aided design data to special “3D” printers.
Medialab senior project manager Graham Scown says the projects will create “world-class and world-first tools, based on New Zealand innovation, developed by New Zealanders, for promotion to a global market”.
Other members of the research consortium include Wellington IT firm Synergy, Otago University, WelTec, IMC, and Auckland software developer Right Hemisphere.
The latter specialises in creating software tools which can turn 3D images created by computer-aided design systems into small files that can be embedded in Microsoft documents, and potentially other file formats.
From stuff.co.nz