Rather than wasting hours manually tagging models, drawings, and documents, and typing the requirements into various forms, DISCUS gives you a tool that enables you to easily identify and balloon these requirements, and generate a consolidated master list of requirements known as the “Bill of Characteristics”.

DISCUS 3D adds to DISCUS Desktop the additional support for 3D CAD models. The addition of the DISCUS 3D add-on allows you to significantly reduce the time it takes to balloon CAD models and create the Bill of Characteristics. With DISCUS 3D, you can save even more time using the DISCUS characteristic identification.

DISCUS 3D has the special capability to automatically balloon models that contain Product Manufacturing Information (PMI).  For example, if the model already contains GD&T, welding symbols, surface finishes, coordinate dimensions, etc., DISCUS will automatically add balloons to the model and create the pertinent rows in the Bill of Characteristics.  In addition, DISCUS 3D will automatically create illustration views with all of the balloons.  Thus, while DISCUS Desktop can reduce the time to create a Bill of Characteristics for a drawing from 4 hours to 1 hour; With an annotated model, DISCUS 3D can further reduce that time to just a few minutes.

DISCUS 3D enables you to easily interrogate the model and provides you with automatic detailing information. DISCUS 3D also allows you to measure model features and generate characteristics for the Bill of Characteristics. This streamlined process for working with 3D models as well as 2D drawing files offers a unique approach for enriching the TDP for downstream operations.

DISCUS 3D adds capabilities to the DISCUS user interface to support CAD models.  For example, the panel where the drawing is displayed now supports the opening of both models and drawings.  There is an additional Model menu, which contains many of the commands for manipulating and displaying a CAD model.  The process flow with 3D is straight-forward:

  1. You start DISCUS in the way you are already familiar, and you open the native 3D CAD model (e.g., Pro/E and NX files will have a .prt file extension) in the model/drawing panel.
  2. DISCUS will automatically review the model and its associated PMI and add the balloons to the model and the rows in the Bill of Characteristics.  DISCUS will also generate the illustration views for the ballooned model to enable exportable 2D images.
  3. As needed, you can click on various model features and choose to have DISCUS provide you with information about that feature (e.g., associated characteristics, dimensions, etc.).
  4. As needed, you can click to add a balloon in 3D space, and have a Characteristic added to the Bill of Characteristics (no typing required.  The nominals and tolerances come from the model or defaults).
  5. When you’re completed the analysis of the model, you simply export the 2D illustration views to a PDF file and export the Bill of Characteristics to an Excel report.