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Overview

Composer is a desktop content-creation system that enables the reuse of digital 3D data from CAD and other sources. Easy-to-use, Composer lets you create quickly assembly and disassembly procedures, technical illustrations, interactive 3D animations, training materials, marketing materials, sales tools, and more.

This page discusses:

Composer Capabilities

Composer allows users in sales, marketing, customer service, training, support, and manufacturing to create associated 2D and 3D product deliverables directly from digital product data – without requiring CAD knowledge or CAD training.

Composer has the following capabilities:

  • Based on a lightweight, open, XML-based architecture.

  • Creates 3D interactive documents such as interactive assembly and service procedures.

  • Creates high-resolution raster images including BMP, JPG, PNG, and TIF files.

  • Produces 2D line art as SVG and CGM files with automatic hidden line and construction line removal.

  • Adds annotations, labels, dimensions, arrows, images, and cutting planes that can be used in any way and format the user wishes.

  • Controls visual consistency of content through the use of styles.

  • Imports data from many 3D CAD systems and can be maintained in the file system or in any PLM system.

  • Outputs industry-standard file formats, including PDF, HTML, AVI, and graphics formats like SVG and CGM.

  • Lets you document a product while it is incomplete by letting you update all deliverables quickly and easily.

  • Uses occlusion detection to find internal, non-visible parts on a single view, all views, or the animation timeline.

  • Uses decimation to reduce the tessellation of selected parts to reduce the size of the .smg file.

Composer Benefits

Before Composer, creating graphical content for product documentation was a costly, error-prone process that had to be repeated, usually from the start, for any product or process change. Now, by using Composer, users can:

  • Deliver products more quickly to market.

  • Quickly and easily incorporate changes into their documentation images.

  • Reduce product documentation costs.

  • Improve manufacturing yield rates with 3D interactive assembly instructions.

  • Provide more comprehensive training materials by leveraging 3D information.

  • Improve customer service through delivery of crystal clear interactive documentation.

  • Produce product documentation content in parallel with the design of the product.

  • Reuse 3D product data in departments such as sales, marketing, customer service, training, support, and manufacturing.

  • Increase the value of 3D information while ensuring the creation of accurate, always current deliverables.

Using Composer Documentation

The Composer User's Guide includes a Getting Started covering key capabilities of Composer. To get the most out of this guide, we suggest that you start here.



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