Schott Systeme launches latest version of Pictures by PC software for design and technical documentation

Munich - Providing companies with a single 2D/3D platform for the creation of product illustrations and technical documentation, German CAD/CAM developer Schott Systeme GmbH has launched the latest version of their Pictures by PC software for design and technical documentation. This new release primarily focuses on providing tools for the creation of more accurate, dynamic and graphic rich product documentation.

Solid modelling suite: Not just a CAD viewer, the software already offers users the ability to import, modify and construct entire 3D designs. However Pictures by PC 3.4 now includes a new generation of 3D modeller, coupled with a number of innovative feature recognition tools. With most CAD designs being far too complex for illustration purposes, these tools help extensively in the quick and effortless simplification - 'defeaturing' of 3D models in preparation for illustration. This process is undertaken without a parametric feature history, and can thus be used to modify 3D data imported from almost any CAD system.

Technical illustration: The requirement for simple but high quality product illustrations, as opposed to complex 2D generated CAD drawings, has seen previous releases of Pictures by PC include an 'outline' rendering technique, to automatically create the typical 'thick thin' line illustrations. The latest incarnation further streamlines this process by providing the user with a number of ready-made render scenes.

These scenes then enable an appropriate level of illustration detail to be firstly selected, with 'low level' as an example removing the thread detail on bolts and screws. The detail level is then applied to the illustration, and a new selection of standard graphics libraries for items such as tools, hands, computer components and symbols help to further enrich the final documentation.

Product presentation: With improved quality of product presentations essential when selling a design or when creating technical documentation, Pictures by PC has integrated the latest 3D PDF format into their linked 'Portable PDF Projects'. These PDF projects firstly offer the ability to graphically link all project documentation, such as product photos, rendered images, illustrations and technical specifications.

The project and associated documents can automatically be converted into a single PDF, complete with the ability to navigate the documents using the embedded links. The addition of the latest 3D PDF then sees the actual 3D model being converted and saved within the PDF, enabling users to zoom, rotate and control the display of the product's individual components.