Software for an illustrated parts manual
Software for an illustrated parts manual
(OP)
Can anyone advise me on what software packages are used to produce Illustrated parts manuals etc. eg full drawing of a gearbox and all its parts shown seperately.





RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
Where I work, we use JPGs from SolidWorks, and insert them into Word to create our service and owner manuals.
Ray Reynolds
Senior Designer
Read: FAQ731-376
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."
RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
You may be interested in software called IPA by Immersive Design. I saw a demo at a Pro/ENGINEER user's group late last year. You can find some really
good info at: www.immdesign.com. They also have an evaluation available for download.
Best regards,
Matthew Ian Loew
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.
RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
Web site at:-
http://www.isodraw.com/
Depending on what program you currentl use it possible to use some like Solid Edge to generate a jpg image of an exploded view and use that in a DTP program or even Word to produce a manual.
John S.
Nottm, England
RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
I often do things in 2D AutoCAD and export them to *.wmf (Windows Meta File) format. These can readily be embedded in MS Word documents. WMF's are also the slickest way to embed vector format graphics in Delphi programs.
RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
You can than insert PDF's directly into Adober Illustrator. Makes for a pretty clean import into Illustrator.
RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
Flores
RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
B
RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
You might look at Interleaf. It's a publishing software vs. a word processor like Word. It lets you produce books with chapters, etc. It has a large selection of import filters for graphics. It will import Pro Engineer files directly, like .prt, .asm, .dwg files. It has a moderate learning curve, but it's fast once you master it. The company once shared an office building with PTC in Boston, so they might have actually talked to each other.
My 2 cents.
ElGordo 63
RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
If the product is something that we designed, then we have 3D models in Microstation and the iso line drawings are sort of automated. We have cells (mostly 2d) for several hundred different common hardware items like nuts, bolts, and so on. Doing the hardware and item bubbles typically takes longer than drawing the exploded view of the "important" parts.
The fastest way for us to do them is to just do the whole page in Microstation even though is is pretty crappy at text and importing bills of material from excel or databases. Fonts are always a bit of a problem, too.
We do some where we take the illustration done in Microstation and export it to Paperport, then export it as a .tiff file, then import that into Word or Publisher. This is a little cumbersome, obviously, but i've not found another way to get decent graphics into Word. Yes, you can just cut and past from Microstation but the resolution is very poor.
Sometimes we have customers that don't have any models (sometimes not even drawings) of anything. They just bring a piece of machinery by and leave it for us to create a manual. On this kind of deal we do a combination of rough modeling (without regard for exact dimensions) and sort-of freehand 2d drawing in an iso view. This is something that is pretty tough for some people and easy for others. It's very easy to get totally bogged down making the illustration much more exact and detailed than it needs to be. There is a huge difference in the time required for different people to do this kind of work. The ones that are best at it are the ones that have some artistic ability and "eye".
Overall, parts manuals are something that most people find very frustrating. Engineers typically are not good at creating them, Artists usually don't understand the technical stuff, writers/publishing types are clueless on CAD and illustration.
However you wind up doing them, one thing I would absolutely recommend is to "print" the final result as a .PDF file using Acrobat or PDFWRITER (from FinePrint). Everyone in the world can read them, not many can screw them up, and even the Mac-fixated printing folks can deal with it. It's probably the best software-related thing thing that has ever been done.
Just guessing from your handle that you are in the mobile equipment business--you have lots of other issues to deal with like deciding how deep to break down vendor-supplied components. I've never seen two companies do this the same way. Some just include, for instance, the Rexroth pump parts manual in the package.
Anyhow, a very complex issue--don't get to feeling bad when it seems to take way longer than it should. Just about everyone has the same problems, it seems.
Jess Davis
Davis Precision Design
RE: Software for an illustrated parts manual
See www.rhino-3d.com for more information and evaluation.
Just create different groups/parts to make a exploded view easy, and the move them the way you want, or create different files per part and import them.