Visualize This

It's perhaps been a little quiet here on the blog - but the AutoVue team has been really busy lately - since our last update we've put out 3 new releases:

AutoVue 19.3.3 Windows - adds support for Catia V5R19, GSDII, and a variety of bug fixes. You can view the release notes here

AutoVue 19.3.2 Linux - adds support for P-CAD 2006, Direct Model (JT) versions 6.4, 8.1, and 8.7, SolidWorks 2009 and a variety of bug fixes. You can view the release notes here

AutoVue VueLink 19.3.1 for Documentum - adds support for Documentum 6.5, includes updated support for the SWORD Cadtop cad integration, and includes a variety of bug fixes and improvements. You can view the release notes here

Oracle announced on March 4 the immediate availability of Oracle’s AutoVue Enterprise Visualization Release 19.3.2, Desktop and Web Versions.

The Desktop and Web Versions of this release include new format support for DWF 3D, P-CAD 2006, SolidWorks 2009, and Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4. In this release, we have also reintroduced support for DirectModel (JT) versions 8.1, 8.7 and 6.4

It is worth noting also that AutoVue 19.3.2 Windows Platform now features Japanese Online Help and User's Manual.

More information is available in the product’s release notes:
Oracle AutoVue 19.3.2 Desktop Version Release Notes
Oracle AutoVue 19.3.2 Web Version Release Notes

We are pleased to announce the availability of Oracle’s AutoVue Enterprise Visualization Release 19.3.1, Linux Platform, Web Version.

This release adds support for offline collaboration capabilities through our powerful AutoVue Movbile product. Users will also enjoy a new streamlined user interface with redesigned icons and more intuitive menu arrangement for enhanced user productivity. Significant Markup improvements have also been introduced.

Click here to read the 19.3.1 Linux Platform, Web Version Release Notes.

Make the most of your AutoVue investment, and ensure that people working throughout your organization can take full advantage of AutoVue’s technical document visualization and collaboration capabilities.

Oracle University’s AutoVue 19.3 training courses are designed to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to increase acceptance and use of AutoVue solutions by all users.

Oracle University offers the following training courses for AutoVue 19.3:

• AutoVue 19.3 Electro-Mechanical Professional
This comprehensive course explores AutoVue’s 2D, 3D and Electronic Design Automation (EDA) viewing, markup, analysis and real-time collaboration capabilities, and helps students gain the fundamental skills and concepts central to the successful use of the AutoVue Enterprise Visualization solution.

• AutoVue 19.3 2D Professional
The AutoVue 19.3 2D Professional training course explores the full range of AutoVue’s 2D capabilities and teaches how to efficiently view, markup and review 2D CAD documents, collaborate in real-time and work with AutoVue Mobile.

Click on the course titles to learn more about each of these courses.

Oracle AutoVue provide a rich, interactive Real Time Collaboration (RTC) mode that allows multiple users to view and annotate the same document simultaneously. The effect is a little bit like a web conference - but there are several key differences.

• Only transformation information is sent to each participant - for instance, if the host zooms in 10%, only the information 'zoom in 10%' is sent to each participant, rather than a full image of the scene - this makes it use much lower bandwidth than traditional web conference tools.
• Participants have the option to temporarily 'unlock' their view from the host's view, and examine other parts of the document.
• All participants can be given the right to simultaneously add annotations to the view - allowing a very rich level of collaboration. Annotations are tagged with the name of the participant, and each participant is assigned a unique color.

If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend experimenting with our RTC capability - it's a very powerful collaboration tool. If you are using AutoVue Web Version, you can create an RTC session by going to the "Collaborate" menu, selecting 'Start Collaboration Session', and then inviting some colleagues.

One of the valuable things AutoVue allows you to do is to compare a pair of 2D or 3D documents. This allows you to easily determine what has changed between two versions of a document - for instance if you want to be sure that your comments on an older version have been properly incorporated.

2D compare is done as a graphical compare, showing version 1 and version 2 of the documents, along with the compare window, which shows things that were added or taken away between the two documents. The following image shows an example of 2D compare.

3D compare takes advantage of the structure of the 3D model to do a more intelligent compare - There is a graphical compare similar to what we do for 2D, but there is also an attribute compare that will tell you if any attribute data has changed, such as the material, for instance. The following image shows you the graphical comparison of two versions of a simple 3D model.

And this image shows you what the Attribute compare looks like for a part that has had a subtle change to it's colour.

AutoVue's 2D and 3D compare functionality is a very valuable tool to use during design reviews, or any time a document has been modified.

This year was my second time at OpenWorld and it was a really positive experience. Met a lot of interesting people - both Oracle employees and customers - and saw some great presentations and interesting product demos.

Our Siebel and JDE prototypes were very well received - they generated a lot of good feedback and interest. We are working on getting videos of these prototypes up on the web - I'll link to them here once they are.

Hi to all. This is my first entry in the Enterprise Visualization blog (actually – this is my first blog entry, period), and I must admit this is quite an exciting experience. In this blog, I will keep you informed of our activities and developments surrounding our Visual Apps initiatives, and more particularly Visual CRM and Visual ALM.

For those who are not yet familiar with the concept, Visual Apps adds the visualization and collaboration capabilities of AutoVue to Oracle’s best-in-class applications. Applied to CRM, this means that call center agents for instance can easily access the 3D models of faulty equipment, identify problem areas with digital annotations, and pass down all this in-context information to field service agents for faster resolution.

Visual CRM, which was presented during a one-hour Webcast on August 13, has been enthusiastically welcomed by customers. The recording of the Webcast entitled “Enhance Aftermarket Revenue and Customer Experience with Visual CRM” is available here.

Stay tuned for further information!

I'm very happy to be joined by two of my colleagues in in posting interesting information about Enterprise Visualization here.

Rozita Naghshin is in charge of product planning for Oracle AutoVue - She's completing her Ph.D on improving collaboration and creativity in multidisciplinary design and is a real wizard with powerpoint and flash based usability demos. She'll be sharing her insight into how Oracle AutoVue can fit into the workflows and processes of various Oracle products.

Celine Beck is a Product Strategy Manager for Oracle AutoVue. Celine is currently driving our Visual Apps strategy, which aims at expanding the capabilities of Oracle Applications like Oracle CRM and JD Edwards with Enterprise Visualization. She will be providing updates and information about our Visual CRM and Visual ALM initiatives, as well as general information about Visual Apps.

I recently purchased an openmoko freerunner phone - it's basically a handheld linux computer with GPS, Wifi and a GSM phone. The hardware is nice, but the software stack is still a little rough around the edges. The interesting thing is that there is a full J2SE stack available for the phone, and it was able to run the autovue client out-of-the-box.

Now, admittedly running a desktop application on a 640x480 resolution cell phone doesn't necessarily give the world best user experience, and the 400 Mhz cpu and 128mb of ram didn't make it a really speedy experience, but it was actually surprisingly usable.

I'm looking into getting a trimmed down client created that will perform better on a cell phone.

With a little bit of polishing, this could be a really interesting solution for people who need a very light-weight (literally) tool for viewing and annotating files. An architect or an engineering doing an on-site visit for instance could view site plans, and add annotations to indicate anything that needs further review, all from a cell phone, without having to carry a laptop or even a tablet PC.

Hopefully we'll be showing this off at OpenWorld!