Visualize This

Busy couple of months

2009-05-20T19:17:19Z

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

NOW AVAILABLE: Oracle’s AutoVue 19.3.2 Windows Platform, Desktop and Web Versions

2009-03-09T18:46:00Z

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

NOW AVAILABLE! Oracle’s AutoVue 19.3.1 Linux Platform, Web Version

2009-03-09T18:37:27Z

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.

Oracle University Now Offers Training on AutoVue 19.3

2009-03-03T05:03:43Z

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.

Real Time Collaboration 101

2009-01-14T22:54:05Z

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.

AutoVue Functionality - Compare

2008-11-03T15:55:58Z

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.

Great Experiences at OpenWorld

2008-10-02T18:54:37Z

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.

Visual CRM – Webcast Replay Now Available!

2008-08-22T18:44:09Z

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!

Introducing new authors!

2008-08-15T14:37:07Z

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.

AutoVue on OpenMoko - the open source cell phone

2008-08-14T21:57:23Z

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!

Visual CRM

2008-07-30T14:11:06Z

We're getting quite excited about the potential for combining AutoVue's enterprise visualization capabilities with CRM software - an effort we're calling Visual CRM. The idea is to empower people working in areas like customer support and field services, by providing them with 3d collaboration tools.

Imagine being on a customer support call with a customer who has noticed a problem with a particular part of a front-end loader - if you could start a 3d real-time collaboration session with the customer, and let them directly annotate where the problem is, and then once the service request (SR) is created, save the 3D annotation with the SR, so that the service person can see exactly where the problem was observed.

We think it's going to be a pretty powerful tool. We're planning a public webinar on this topic titled "Enhance Aftermarket Revenue and Customer Experience with Visual CRM" on August 13th at 12pm Eastern. You can find more details by going to http://launch.oracle.com/ and logging in with the PIN yes2visualcrm - the annoucement for the webinar is on the "Events" tab, and you can sign up there.

Enterprise Visualization at OOW

2008-07-15T20:35:07Z

The content catalogue for Oracle OpenWorld 2008 is up, and we have 3 sessions about AutoVue and Enterprise Visualization:

AutoVue Enterprise Visualization Integration Drives Innovation and Operational Efficiency
Optimize Global Supply Chain Collaboration and Protect Valuable Intellectual Property with AutoVue Enterprise Visualization
AutoVue for Improved Collaboration on Technical Documents Across the Enterprise

For more details, go to the catalogue and search for the Focus Area "Portals and Collaboration", and then use your browser search to find the AutoVue sessions.

We will also have a presence on the demo floor, and AutoVue will be making a cameo appearance in a number of other session.

Hope to see you there!

Annotations - Tracking comments in Enterprise Visualization

2008-07-15T18:00:03Z

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.

Enterprise Visualization Integrations

2008-07-11T13:32:53Z

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.

Dual Screen Laptop - would be great for visualization!

2008-07-10T21:00:31Z

Found via Engadget - a dual screen laptop. Not going to be available for at least a couple of years, most likely - but it would be a very interesting tool for visualization - the lower touch screen could be used to manipulate the objects being visualized, and to provide a very natural way to add annotations.