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CADseek™, the premiere shape-based CAD search engine product.
All currently available product data management (PDM), product life cycle management (PLM),
and SAP data management deployments are “BLIND” to the content in your CAD files. They are
powered by traditional database systems such as Oracle, db2, and Documentum, etc. These
traditional database systems are designed to handle text and numeric data with optimal precision.
Therefore, they are well suited for managing credit card transactions, flight schedules, bank
account information, and health records as well as many other similar applications.
Until now, all geometric reasoning and in CAD search technology simply lacked the tools
needed to locate the relevant data in a systematic way.
CAD files are typically dispersed across an
organization or buried in a document management
system. Different versions of parts are often mixed
together, and finding the desired file becomes a time
consuming process.
Rather than suffer through a laborious search, the
engineer will design another part from scratch. This
is incredibly expensive. Other use cases include
manufacturing, warehousing, inventory, purchasing,
management, sales, and supply chain management.
CADseek™ is also an intuitive front end to a PLM
system.
CADseek™ is the Google of CAD. CADseek uses a
geometric shape-based search algorithm to find and
compare parts and assemblies for varying degrees of
similarity. It performs a search to find identical and
similar parts, mating parts, assemblies, castings, or
forgings.
CADseek™ supports all 3D CAD formats
Pro/Engineer, SolidWorks, Inventor and others. CAD
files can be stored anywhere within the company
network or internet including a file system directory,
SharePoint, Windchill, Matrix, Team Center, a URL or a
document management system.
Simple to use
The CADSeek search engine is simple to comprehend
and use. Its straightforward design gives users
confidence in their ability to use the software after
only a short demonstration.
CADseek™, the premiere shapebased CAD search engine
product, will improve your team’s
productivity and strengthen your
company’s bottom line.
• Need a quick cost estimate for the
new part you just designed?
• Find similar shaped parts with CADseek™ and find out what they cost.
• Need to manufacture a newly designed part in house?
• Find similar parts in your CAD database with CADseek™ and use their
process plans as a basis for the new
part.
• Need to find a supplier who can
make that new part?
Locate similar existing parts with CADseek™ and send RFP’s to the vendors
that now provide them.
Don’t waste time and money
designing, testing and sourcing
new parts for production when
you can use CADseek™ to quickly
access existing parts with all
associated information to speed
your product to the marketplace.
Search your Universe at the Speed of Sight WIth The Visual Navigator
CADseek provides a complete visualization of a universe of company and supplier CAD files. These
files are grouped by similarity and displayed as part families, which vary in number depending on
how many are similar.
Another module presents 3D
information of the Visual Navigator
in 2D thumbnails as a Digital
Catalog. Thanks to the CADseek
encoding algorithm, all of this is
accomplished without human
intervention. CADseek is the first
technology on earth to create a
fully-automated, self-ordering CAD
library for any company.
There are many ways to
search your CAD files with
CADseek
1. Use the Visual Navigator to
scan (zoom over) the database
universe to pick a CAD family of
files.
2. Through a simple drop-down
menu to select a file to be used
as the search parameter.
3. Enter any textual metadata associated with the CAD part or
assembly.
4. Use a CAD program to make a
rough sketch of a part. The CADSeek system then compares the
geometry of the sketch design
to that of the CAD files in the
company’s databases.
5. Scan the Digital Parts Catalog
and search by shape and/or
metadata characteristics.
Nearly 20 years of research in geometric reasoning
and in CAD search technology are embedded in iSEEK’s
patented software, CADseek. Through the successful
global deployment of CADseek™ at customers like
Deere & Company, Embraer, Peterbilt, and Kenworth,
the iSEEK Corporation has asserted itself as the leader
in the automated classification and real-time search of
engineering designs and their related metadata.
The following article was publised in MachineDesign.com on November 9. 2006
How to “Google” CAD
NOVEMBER 9, 2006
Staff
A recently developed search engine specializes in finding specific
CAD geometry that matches criteria specified by the user.
Called Cadseek, it comes
from iSeek Corp., Ames, Iowa
(iseekcorp.com). “Users can
start searching with either a
title or geometry close to what is
needed,” says CEO and founder
Abir Qamhiyah. “You identify
the approximate geometry and
ask for, say, the 10 closest
hits. The software responds
with thatnumber of items and a
percent-If you find something that
looks good, you can save it in a
‘shopping cart’ for examination
later.”
A Cadseek user has found 10 close matches to
the bearing on the left. The software works on
parts and assemblies
Qamhiyah demonstrated the
software on a 70,000-part
database from Deer & Co., an
early adopter.
Searches took the blink of an eye.
“Users could also search on
materials, notes, or how the part
was manufactured, almost any
meta data,” she says.
The Navigator in Cadseek can show a database
index as a collection of spheres. This one holds
70,000 parts. Filters allow hiding all parts except,
for example, hydraulic fittings, so users get a
sense of the number of parts and assemblies
being checked.
There is some prep work necessary before Cadseek will work on a database of
geometries. The first step is to scan and process CAD files to generate accurate,
lightweight versions of each model in an index file. A team from the developer
guides this effort. Later, software called Listener updates the index as new parts
enter the database.
The Navigator, another software component, represents the database as a
collection of spheres or bubbles, each of which stands for a number of similar
designs. In this vsual representation of the index, large spheres are large grops
of similar parts. As users click around the Navigator, it remembers the route.
Hitting a back arrow retraces the path.
Impac Systems Engineering is an autorized distributor for iSEEK Corporation.
For more information, please visit: www.impacsystems.com or
contact an Impac Systems Engineering sales representative.
The Path to Enginnering Innovation
Impac Systems Engineering
3200 Wilcrest, Suite 370
Houston, Texas 77042
713-784-3500 Phone
713-784-2486 Fax