Visualize This

In a nutshell, enterprise visualization is about providing technical data to non-technical users. In most large enterprises there are large amounts of data that is really only available to engineers - most CAD software packages are expensive and very hard to use for people without engineering experience.

Enterprise visualization is about making that information available to everyone in an organization by providing an easy-to-use interface that allows non-technical users to view, annotate and measure a wide range of document.

Oracle's enterprise visualization product is called AutoVue - you can find more information about it at http://www.oracle.com/applications/autovue/index.html.

I'm quite happy to announce that as of about a week ago, a new version of AutoVue is available, AutoVue 19.3. The new release includes many improvements, but some of the the biggies include a greatly improved user experience, improvements to the markup/annotation abilities, and the new AutoVue Mobile product - which allows disconnected usage of AutoVue and enables supply chain collaboration.

I'll be talking more about the new features in the next few weeks, but if your impatient you can check out the "what's new" page: http://www.oracle.com/applications/feature-whats-new-in-autovue-enterprise-visualization-release-19-3.html

One of the places that AutoVue (and Enterprise Visualization in general) can bring a lot of value is when integrated into a content management or product lifecycle management system. These systems can have millions of documents, sometimes in hundreds of different formats. With AutoVue, users can easily view and interact with the vast majority of these documents.

From the user's perspective, it's quite simple - Usually there is a 'View in AutoVue' button or menu item for each document, and when the user clicks on it, they see the AutoVue UI appear displaying the document. They then have access to all of AutoVue's functionality - measurement, annotation, real-time collaboration.

Behind the scenes, of course, it's a little more complicated. The AutoVue server needs to have access to the document to display it, so it needs to be able to reach into the backend system (content management, product lifecycle management, etc) and extract the document. To make matters worse, most 3d CAD models, and many 2D CAD models are actually composed of many separate files, and AutoVue needs to be able to find all of the related files (usually called xrefs) so the entire CAD model can be displayed.

Fortunately we provide pre-built integrations for many of the most common content and product lifecycle management systems, including Oracle UCM (formerly Stellent), Oracle Agile PLM, MiscroSoft Sharepoint, and EMC Documentum. We also provide an easy to use integration SDK that makes it quite easy to implement your own integration to a backend system we don't currently support.

Annotation is one of the biggest value-adds that AutoVue provides for enterprise visualization. AutoVue can create what are called 'markup files' that can be thought of as a transparent sheet of plastic laid over the document that you can draw and write on. These files are saved separately, so users can annotate a document that they cannot edit. A single markup file can also contain the annotations from multiple people, and there are powerful filtering tools to make it possible to see things like "All comments made by Bob after april 15th".

The most common usage of annotations is through a review workflow - a collection of people, in series or in parallel, review a document and add their comments. The document could be an office document (word, pdf, excel, etc.), a raster image (jpeg, png, tiff, etc.), or a CAD document (AutoCad, Pro/E, Catia, etc.) - the annotations are collected in a consistent way, using the same user interface independent of the document type. Once the review is done, the responsible person can examine all of the comments and assign each one that needs action to the appropriate person.

If a content or product lifecycle management system is used, then the annotations can be stored in that system, associated with the document being reviewed. This makes it trivial for anyone with the proper access to the document to view the comments.

Annotations can of course be used in many other ways as well - such as tracking changes that are found during an onsite visit to a plant, or allowing a customer to indicate exactly where a problem is occurring. Future posts will talk about some of these use cases in more detail.

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!

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.

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.

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.