One-to-One: Adobe as 3D Infrastructure

I had the chance to talk with … Rak Bhalla of Adobe Systems recently about their
solutions for the manufacturing industry, with an emphasis on the
design community. Adobe is taking a stance as a
foundational technology to help companies collaborate and
share 3D designs. They have consolidated their 3D
authoring
capabilities into the core Acrobat product, and continue to take
advantage of one simple fact - the computer you are working
on right now almost surely has Acrobat Reader, and is therefore
capable of displaying 3D models. Maybe you didn’t know
that, but isn’t that the beauty of a PDF? You don’t care what is in
it, the reader deciphers whatever is contained in the PDF for you
without you ever having to download anything special to do it.
Pretty compelling. Particularly as we consider the power of

3D as a form of universal communication.

What do they Offer?
In a word … uh, acronym … PDF. There is a lot more to Adobe
than just PDF, particularly with the acquisition of Macromedia, but
I am going to focus on PDF. Why? Because it has the potential to
connect the multitude of people required to bring new
products to market and allow them to easily share 3D
models. And let’s face it, most people can’t read a 2D
drawing and even perspective sketches are difficult for many
to really grasp. A 3D model that can be spun, measured,
sectioned and even exploded down to it’s components conveys a lot
more than 2D (or words) can communicate.

Viewers aren’t new, but let’s break down “PDF” to highlight some
of what is interesting:

• Portable - You can send a PDF document
  to just about anyone, and without having to do anything special
  they can open it and read it. They don’t need the underlying
  application that authored the file (let alone the right version) or
  even a separate downloadable viewer. Beyond that aspect of
  portability is size. The PDF that contains a 3D image is frequently
  1-2 orders of magnitude smaller than the original file, so it
  travels easily via e-mail.
• Document - Document is a generic term.
  It is some piece of information that is captured and can be
  conveyed to others. What type of information is documented can
  vary. The increased use of 3D information is incredibly
  important to manufacturers as product development and engineering
  continue to spread across disparate, remote locations and
  teams.
• Format - The key here is
  that ”format” is in the singular form. Truly, a PDF can
  hold multiple formats - but all consolidated into one (portable)
  container that delivers multiple (documents) that you can read
  regardless of the underling (format).

Some other key points to consider are the security provided by
the digital rights management capabilities of PDF in conjunction
with Adobe’s Livecycle Enterprise Suite. Beyond creating 3D PDF
documents using Acrobat, Adobe also announced PDF Generator 3D,
which helps create PDFs with embedded 3D en masse. This capability
provides some of the capabilities that specialty providers like
Right Hemisphere
provide, although without the broader perspective and capabilities
they provide.

So that’s what I hear from Adobe, I hope you found it useful.
What do you think? What else should I have asked them?