One-to-One: Search is Shaping Up with ShapeSpace

I had the chance to talk with … Drew
Sherlock of ShapeSpace a
while back, and then had the opportunity to meet him in person at
COFES. We talked about the importance of search in in engineering
and product development, and how searching by shape is
adding another way for companies to find (and hopefully easily
reuse) parts. Search
has received a lot of attention over the years - particularly as
companies are trying to consolidate search across multiple data
sources using enterprise search. In design and engineering, search
has evolved to include parametric search (search based on
attributes, typically on metadata that describes a part) to
complement more basic text search techniques. But can a company
have too many ways to search? Given the potential benefits of reuse
- and the tendency for most people to reinvent the wheel
when they can’t readily find a good starting point - I
will say “not yet.” Maybe if we find the killer search technique it
will change everything, but for now having another way to find
relevant parts is a big step forward.

What do they Offer?
What ShapeSpace offers is the promise of a new way to find
parts. Finding parts quickly improves efficiency, helps
companies reduce duplicate parts (by finding and eliminating
existing duplicates), and helps companies reuse existing parts
instead of creating new ones (reducing the number of new duplicate,
or near-duplicate parts being created). Of these, reuse is one
benefit that can be broken down into many valuable
improvements:

• Reusing a part saves the time to engineer a new one,
  speeding time to market
• Reuse eliminates the effort required to design
  the new part, saving cost
• Reducing duplicates (old and new) helps reduce
  purchase costs and inventory carrying costs
• Reuse of a part also means reuse of the analysis,
  validation, testing, and compliance effort for that
  part

The way they do this is by reviewing CAD files (currently
working with Solid Edge) and creating an index of shapes with their
product, PartBrowser. Then, people can search
(currently on the desktop) via text, sketch, or sample parts.
The most intriguing part to me is the way they display the
results. The software uses a 3D context to show search
results (see graphic) with different panes, or sheets, of 3D
thumbnails of parts. These sheets are transparent and grouped
logically, and the user can rotate and move them to get a better
fit to what they are looking for. This allows them to
browse based on visual clues, narrowing in on the shape
they are looking for. In this way it is more of a browsing
approach, showing everything similar to a shape selected, and
bringing the closest matches up in front, plus other suggestions
with similarities. A very compelling idea, and a very interesting
concept for the interface. For a more in depth look at the
3D context (with the navigation tree and related text) see
this
sample PartBrowser screenshot.

Who do they Work With?
They are in beta, working with some early customers. One customer
in food industry, using it for the designs in their plant and
processing facilities, another in the furniture industry using it
for dies. The potential industries include any company
that uses 3D part designs, which doesn’t limit them very much.
The potential for this to be a very generalized tool in the
PLM toolkit is significant.

How does this Fit into the Ecosystem?
ShapeSpace is not the first company to offer shape-based search,
and certainly not the largest. This is an area that is ripe for
innovation, however, and specialty vendors like ShapeSpace are more
likely to push the limits than their larger competitors. ShapeSpace
is in very early stages of their solution, but will also be very
interesting to keep an eye on as their product and company
matures.

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