Trend Toward Use of Lightweight 3D Data

Abstract

The development of the network society has promoted the sharing of information in diverse areas of the manufacturing industry, changing the business processes of many companies. However, 3D CAD data, which forms the core of digital manufacturing, has not benefited much from network technologies. 3D CAD is characterized by massive data volume and complicated structures, and is also difficult to integrate with other associated data on the network. Though requiring huge costs to generate, until now CAD data has only been used in the CAD/CAM area, which comprises less than 10% of the whole IT industry. The emergence of lightweight 3D data such as XVL is changing this situation. Industry is increasingly trying to change the overall business mechanism by converting CAD data to lightweight 3D data. This includes not only companies but also their partners and suppliers. So what is the significance of the existence of this lightweight 3D data and how should it ideally be used?