Streamline Collaboration with CAD Visualisation Solutions for Manufacturers
In 2025, more than 80% of industrial companies consider CAD visualization as a strategic element of their digital transformation, with a global market estimated at $7.4 billion. This technology, once reserved for engineering departments, has become democratized as an essential collaborative tool throughout the product lifecycle, reducing development times by 30 to 50% thanks to accelerated visual validation processes.
The visualization of CAD data now represents a major challenge for industrial companies facing increasing product complexity and diversification of digital formats. From making technical information accessible to all departments to optimizing performance and preserving historical archives, the challenges are multiple and strategic.
The Strategic Evolution of CAD Visualization in Modern Industry
Born in the 1970s with the first computer-aided design systems, CAD visualization has undergone a radical transformation to become a fundamental pillar of digital industrial processes. What was once a technical tool reserved for specialists has gradually established itself as an essential communication vector between all stakeholders in the product lifecycle.
This evolution can be explained by several converging factors:
- The exponential complexity of manufactured products, with assemblies now containing tens of thousands of components
- The globalization of value chains, requiring technical collaboration between geographically dispersed teams
- The demand for ever-shorter development cycles, requiring rapid and reliable visual validations
- The accumulation of considerable digital heritage, including technical archives in sometimes obsolete formats
In this context, technical decision-makers face structural choices regarding their CAD visualization solutions. These decisions directly impact the operational performance of all departments and the company's ability to leverage its technical data capital.
Major Challenges in Modern CAD Visualization
Performance and Speed: The Challenge of Complex Assemblies
The increasing size and complexity of CAD models pose a major challenge for visualization solutions. Assemblies can now reach several gigabytes and contain tens of thousands of components, making them difficult to manipulate on standard workstations.
Key issues:
- Accessibility of CAD data for non-technical departments (purchasing, production, marketing)
- Smooth manipulation of complex assemblies without specialized workstations
- Reduced loading times to maintain team productivity
Technical challenges:
- Optimization of loading and rendering algorithms
- Intelligent management of system resources (memory, GPU)
- Maintaining geometric precision despite optimizations
Benefits of modern approaches:
- Reduction of loading times by up to 90% compared to native CAD systems
- Democratization of access to technical data throughout the company
- Streamlining of collaborative processes and validations
Interoperability: Managing the Diversity of 2D and 3D CAD Formats
The multiplicity of CAD systems used by companies and their partners generates a heterogeneous ecosystem of digital formats. This diversity poses considerable challenges for ensuring consistent and accurate visualization of all technical data.
Key issues:
- Ability to visualize data from multiple CAD systems
- Consistency of user experience regardless of source format
- Unified management of 2D data (technical drawings) and 3D data (volumetric models)
Technical challenges:
- Development and maintenance of translators for more than 60 different CAD formats
- Preservation of product structures and metadata during conversions
- Specific processing of raster formats (TIFF, PDF) for technical drawings
Benefits of modern approaches:
- Single environment for visualizing the entire digital heritage
- Reduction of costs related to the multiplication of specialized tools
- Improvement of interdepartmental technical communication
Data Sustainability: Migrating and Leveraging Technical Archives
Many companies have a heritage of technical data created on now obsolete systems (CADDS, Personal Designer). Access to these archives becomes problematic with the disappearance of associated skills and infrastructures.
Key issues:
- Preservation of intellectual capital represented by technical archives
- Abandonment of obsolete and costly infrastructures
- Leveraging historical data in current processes
Technical challenges:
- Reverse engineering of legacy proprietary formats
- Massive and automated conversion of archives
- Preservation of technical particularities (specific fonts, annotations)
Benefits of modern approaches:
- Reduction of maintenance costs for obsolete systems
- Securing the company's technical heritage
- Reuse of historical designs in new projects
Analysis and Collaboration: Extracting Value from 3D Models
Beyond simple visualization, companies seek to fully exploit their CAD models for analytical and collaborative tasks that generate added value throughout the product lifecycle.
Key issues:
- Utilization of CAD data beyond engineering departments
- Effective technical collaboration between remote teams
- Visual validation of designs without extensive CAD expertise
Technical challenges:
- Development of analysis tools accessible to non-specialists
- Implementation of real-time collaborative features
- Maintaining precision in measurements and analyses
Benefits of modern approaches:
- Early detection of design problems, reducing late modifications by 20 to 40%
- Acceleration of technical validation cycles
- Improved communication between engineering and production
Overview of Modern CAD Visualization Solutions
Faced with these challenges, CAD visualization technologies have evolved considerably to offer solutions adapted to different industrial use contexts. These modern approaches are distinguished by their optimized architecture, advanced functionalities, and ability to integrate into existing digital ecosystems.
Comparison of CAD Visualization Approaches
| Criterion | Traditional Approach | Modern Approach | Benefits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Based on exact geometry | Hybrid (exact + tessellated) | Increased performance, loading in less than a second |
| Interoperability | Limited formats, dedicated converters | Native support for +60 formats | Single environment, cost reduction |
| Deployment | Specialized desktop applications | Multi-platform (desktop, web, mobile) | Universal accessibility, facilitated collaboration |
| Functionalities | Simple visualization | Advanced analyses, collaboration | Added value, informed decisions |
| Archive migration | Manual, via original systems | Automated, without original system | Heritage preservation, cost reduction |
Modern solutions like 3DViewStation provide concrete answers to the various identified issues, combining exceptional performance, extended interoperability, and advanced functionalities in a modular offering adapted to different usage contexts.
Conclusion: CAD Visualization as a Strategic Lever
CAD visualization is no longer a simple technical tool but a true strategic lever for industrial companies. Its impact extends well beyond engineering departments to affect all departments and processes involved in the product lifecycle.
Technical decision-makers must now consider their CAD visualization strategy as a central element of their digital transformation, capable of directly influencing operational performance, product quality, and the organization's innovation capacity.
By choosing high-performance, interoperable, and scalable solutions, companies can not only optimize their current processes but also prepare for future developments, particularly the integration of immersive technologies (VR/AR) and artificial intelligence, which are already shaping the future of technical visualization.
In a constantly evolving industrial environment, instant access to technical data represents a major strategic issue. The rapid visualization of 2D drawings and complex formats such as TIFF has become an essential link in the digital chain of manufacturing companies. Faced with the explosion in the volume of technical data and the diversification of specialized formats, traditional solutions show their limitations in terms of performance and accessibility.
Technical teams waste precious time waiting for large documents to load or juggling between different software to consult all their documentation. This fragmentation of tools not only leads to disruptions in workflows, but also increased risks of misinterpretation and sub-optimal technical decisions.
In today's industrial world, access to CAD data represents a major challenge for companies. A large 3D model can take several minutes to open on a standard workstation, paralyzing team productivity. Faced with this reality, one question stands out: how can all departments quickly access complex CAD models without investing in expensive native software licenses? The statistics are telling: up to 70% of employees who need to consult 3D models lack the technical skills to use professional CAD software, yet their access to technical data conditions the efficiency of the entire industrial process.
3D visualization has revolutionized modern industrial processes by radically transforming access to design data. Faced with the increasing complexity of products and the globalization of teams, companies are seeking ever more powerful CAD visualization solutions to remain competitive. How are these technologies evolving to meet current market requirements? What tangible benefits do they bring to industrial organizations?
Personal Designer is a CAD software developed in the 1980s, designed to operate on the early IBM personal computers. Over the years, this product experienced various highs and lows. Although still in use by a few, its popularity declined, prompting many businesses to transition their archives to contemporary solutions. To address this challenge, DraftView was created to visualize and transfer Personal Designer data. This migration has significant advantages for businesses.
Businesses that have used the CADDS software over the years face challenges accessing their essential archives due to the software's obsolescence. Fortunately, the DraftView solution has emerged, a CADDS file viewer enabling companies to access their CADDS archives without full-fledged CAD software. Moreover, DraftView can convert CADDS files to DXF or DWG formats, facilitating the transition of CAD data to newer platforms. This migration offers a plethora of benefits.