You all are gonna flip, or rather, explode, when you see this. I’ve been looking for 3D CAD news out of Siggraph08 that happened last week, but have not found much beyond some announcements about rendering models.
Fortunately, Mark Treadwell from Premier Rides came across some info and filled me in. A team from Berkeley has developed an automated system for viewing interactive 3D exploded views of models. Check out the video after the break.
Not only does it automate the production of exploded views from a systematic algorithm, it also creates diagrams of the parts in a way that you can interact with them to visualize assemblies and sub-assemblies as they are naturally assembled and dis-assembled. It’s the way this 3D jazz should have always worked. The video shows it all.
Interactive 3D Exploded View Diagrams from Solidsmack on Vimeo.



SolidSmack is a very small behemoth of an online community about 3D CAD, technology, design, robots, and ninjas… Ok, maybe not ninjas so much, but those guys are COOL so there just might be something about some dang ninjas.
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WOW, that is Awsome… Great work digging this one up!!
Good find! That would be a great tool for end users and me! I wonder if anyone at Solidworks has seen this yet?
This is pretty slick – I dunno if you've played with COmposer yet, but there's basic elements like this in the linear explode tool – no where near as intelligent, but its a start.. slick
I hope they've seen it. I know there had to be some SolidWorks reps out
there. I believe some 3DVia guys were there too, so I'm sure they would
really be attracted to this technology.
Sweet. Speedy. Looks like huge time saver. Wonder how well it handles different complex assemblies. Also wonder if you'll have any control as to specific positioning of components.
I wonder this too Bruce. It always looks cool in the demo. I'm hoping some
of the developers pick up on this technology and see how it can be useful
during modeling and not just for documentation or tech pubs.
composer is just like a illustrator clone no?
I haven't used composer, but I do know it's got different features than
illustrator. Illustrator is a graphics program to create vector graphics.
its not really – it lets you take your 3D data and repurpose it for tech pubs, service manuals and stuff – its pretty intelligent and can do a lot of the hardwork for you – illustrator is pretty much, as josh says, a vector drawing tool.. composer is much more.. task specific?
composer is just like a illustrator clone no?
I haven't used composer, but I do know it's got different features than
illustrator. Illustrator is a graphics program to create vector graphics.
its not really – it lets you take your 3D data and repurpose it for tech pubs, service manuals and stuff – its pretty intelligent and can do a lot of the hardwork for you – illustrator is pretty much, as josh says, a vector drawing tool.. composer is much more.. task specific?
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