Distribution deal eases design distribution

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Feb 15, 2007

Seemage and Auto-trol Technology will offer the technical illustration marketplace a solution for both 2D illustration and interactive production of rich deliverables created from 3D design data.

Seemage and Auto-trol Technology have announced a worldwide technology and distribution agreement.

Working together, the two companies will offer the technical illustration marketplace a solution for both 2D illustration and interactive production of rich deliverables created from 3D design data.

Seamless integration of Seemage and Tech Illustrator makes it possible for users to switch effortlessly from 3D to 2D without having to adopt closed, proprietary file formats.

These technologies can be quickly and easily deployed without the costs and delays associated with product lifecycle management (PLM) enterprise infrastructures.

Auto-trol will market, sell and support the combined offering worldwide.

"The partnership we are announcing today between Seemage and Auto-trol combines two leadership products that together make it possible to achieve levels of accuracy, compatibility and productivity in technical illustration that was not previously possible", said Chris Williams, CEO, Seemage.

"Existing Auto-trol customers including Airbus, General Motors, Ford and Rolls Royce can now have easier and faster ways of reusing their 3D design data in the creation of technical documentation".

Seemage is revolutionising manufacturing, service, technical illustration, maintenance and support with its "product information everyware" technology.

Based on open XML standards, Seemage imports a complete digital product definition into Seemage's easy to-use content creation and management applications.

Using Seemage, end users across the enterprise can re-use original 3D design information combined with critical data like bills-of-material (BOMs) from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to create a broad range of product deliverables.

Rich deliverables can include animations, technical illustrations, marketing materials and service and support documentation.

Seemage's open XML technology provides seamless integration into existing customer processes and enterprise applications.

Seemage can be easily incorporated into standard desktop environments to enhance end-user productivity.

Further, because Seemage is XML-based, it can be fully integrated with any enterprise system.

Seemage-authored content is always fully associative to any change in the digital product definition, ensuring users have the latest product information automatically.

Auto-trol's Electronic Publishing product Tech Illustrator (TI) enables compliance with important 2D commercial and governmental standards like S1000D, ATA iSPEC 2200 and webCGM 2.0.

TI provides access to a wide variety of import methods from legacy hardcopy and electronic archives and combines powerful drawing, editing and annotation tools.

A comprehensive command and macro language along with API development tools provides the flexibility to automate and integrate existing customer processes.

Auto-trol implements open standards by offering a wide range of high-quality import and export capabilities to give its customers freedom from vendor proprietary solutions and keep their data and knowledge for the future.

"We are very excited to partner with Seemage", said Wolfgang Scholz, Director of European Organisation, Auto-trol Technology.

"Our customers are looking for the right way to integrate production of 2D and 3D deliverables to maximise productivity while avoiding vendor lock-in".

"Tech Illustrator and Seemage together address the problem completely and are the obvious choice for customers concerned about the future of competitive technical illustration products".

"Users may now simply choose the right functionality for the required deliverable and the integration between Seemage and Tech Illustrator will ensure openness and compatibility with the widest range of other systems while producing high-quality illustrations quickly and easily".

Seemage and Tech Illustrator are available today from Auto-trol in the USA and Europe.

Auto-trol will service and support customer implementations to ensure customers achieve the full benefits of both technologies.