Drawingless manufacture has been talked about for a number of years now, but as yet has not been widely adopted by design and manufacturing businesses. Intrinsys believe that the tools and technology are now mature enough to use in a production environment. Much of today’s manufacturing processes are driven directly from solid model data, with NC programs and CMM inspection programs being generated directly from the same solid model data. The 2D drawing has been the means by which a designer conveys information to downstream manufacturing processes, why not do all this within the model?

Tolerances, dimensions and notes can be added directly to the model using the Functional Tolerancing and Annotation (FT&A) product within CATIA. FT&A can be applied to parts, products and processes. This allows components, assemblies and manufacturing processes to be annotated. Viewing of FT&A features can be filtered, and the use of captures allows view orientations and content to be stored rather like a view in a drawing. Clipping planes also allow section views to be displayed.

The generation of 2D drawings is arguably a legacy of the days of drawing boards, with 3D modelling now being the norm for any kind of product design, it is a natural progression that tolerancing and annotation should follow.