FMB Uses Shapespace 3D Shape-Search Technology

Shapespace enterprise 3D shape-search technology has enabled scientific instrumentation manufacturer FMB Oxford to cut the cost of developing new component parts by five per cent. FMB Oxford manufactures and supplies instrumentation to the scientific community, specialising in bespoke products for the synchrotron industry. Synchrotrons are said to be invaluable for scientific research; using a combination of magnetic and electric field technology, a synchrotron is capable of 'seeing' radio waves, microwaves, infrared light, ultraviolet light, X-rays and gamma rays, as well as molecules and atoms that are not visible through a microscope.

FMB was spending a lot of time designing new component parts. With bespoke parts, this is often unavoidable, but with many specific-build parts, only a proportion of the components are unique; they will also include several, more common, off-the-shelf parts, which are already in existence. FMB has an extensive component-parts library of computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) designs going back over a period of 16 years. Over this time, systems have been upgraded and key personnel have moved on, often making it difficult to find part designs.

Product lifecycle management (PLM) and CAD systems, which facilitate the design, management, storage and processing of product data, provide only basic search and retrieval tools for locating parts/files. Users often do not know the part reference or simply cannot find what they are looking for using keyword and metadata search because the information is buried in the system. As a result, it became easier and quicker for an engineer to design again from scratch, rather than wasting time looking for an existing part/design. The knock-on effect is that costs escalate unnecessarily.

FMB wanted to rationalise its parts library and maximise the reuse of existing designs to help keep costs under control; however, it needed to make it easier and quicker for engineers to find them. The company decided to implement Shapespace enterprise 3D shape-search technology to help engineers to find existing part designs. All users need to know is the basic shape of the part they are looking for, the part size or the text attribute, and Shapespace will instantly find any similar parts, regardless of the size of the CAD model database it is searching. Shapespace is integrated with FMB's incumbent business systems.

It replaces the limited search functionality of these systems with a simple-to-use geometric search. Hundreds of search results are presented collectively on screen in a 3D visual format to simplify identification and comparison. Shapespace can find part design information stored anywhere on the network, regardless of whether the name or part number is known, as well as locating information that has not been correctly classified. Shapespace technology puts all 3D CAD models in a centralised 'box' and then indexes files on both geometrical shape (also extracting a 3D thumbnail of that shape so it can be displayed as a 3D image in search results) and as a text file for text search queries.

As well as being able to identify any part visually, users can refine the query further. Based on interaction with the user, the browser adaptively attempts to further distil any shape similarities. The Shapespace software is said to be easy to use and intuitive, so users are able to quickly browse and search for CAD designs/parts. This increases a design engineer's productivity and reduces costs by avoiding the wasted time and expense involved in redesigning something that already exists.

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