AutoCAD Mechanical - Conversion of 3D drawings into specific 2D drawings

Context

Our customer is a global company specializing in the development and manufacture of glass processing machines. Their product range includes glass cutting and sorting systems, individual components and complete production lines for the manufacture of insulating and laminated glass, as well as machines for processing glass edges and tempering systems.

 

Brief description

The plug-in developed enables customers to transform their 3D drawings into a simplified 2D drawing. Previously defined optional components can be selected and edited later.

 

Features

  • Configuration of the 2D drawing to be created
  • Preview of the 3D drawing
  • Subsequent editing of the 2D drawing and changes to the configuration
  • Versioning of drawings & update of an existing 2D drawing
  • Copying 2D drawings with configuration
  • Labeling of 2D drawings with metadata from an external system

 

Software solution

The plugin enables the configuration of the drawing to be created. A dialog can be used to select which optional components of the drawing are to be retained. The result can then be displayed in the 3D preview. The corresponding 2D drawing can then be created and additionally positioned. This allows the planning of complex drawings with good performance without having to work with the 3D drawing.

The drawing created in this way can be edited again later. To do this, the dialog is opened again and the previous selection is restored. If the components are changed, a new 2D drawing is then created and placed in the same position. To further increase efficiency, the generated 2D drawings are saved temporarily for all users, so that they do not have to be created again if they are needed again.

The 3D drawings are versioned by the customer. The plugin can also take this into account and update the 2D drawing when a new version of the 3D drawing is provided. In addition to these functions, the plugin also offers the option of connecting the drawings to the customer's external system. Additional data for the respective drawing is saved here. These can be written to the 2D drawing via import.