September 22, 2005  |  Imaginestics Announces Online 3D Product Configurator

Research Park, West Lafayette, Indiana – Imaginestics, LLC, leading provider of design reuse management solutions for discrete manufacturing, is announcing the release of 3D-Config, an interactive web-enabled 3D product configurator which allows manufacturers to have a 3D powered online catalog. 

The 3D-Config portal was jointly developed by Imaginestics and SRA Pvt., Ltd. of Bangalore, India.  Designed for suppliers of discrete components, 3D-Config creates an online catalog based on 3D models and uses a rules engine to allow a customer or sales representative to customize the design by adjusting design parameters via a simple-to-use menu structure.

With 3D-Config, prospective customers accessing the online catalog are able to dynamically configure the desired product to meet their own specifications. 3D-Config allows customers to view and download the 3D model in their preferred CAD format to check for fit directly in their own designs. The supplier providing the configurable product catalog can also elect to set up an interface to e-commerce, allowing customers to get a quote and purchase the custom-configured product directly from the website.

"With 3D-Config, customers can now have the convenience of accessing information they need to "design in" a specific supplier's parts and components.  This product significantly closes the gap between customized and standard products," stated Nainesh Rathod, CEO of Imaginestics.  He added, "We enable the user to download the 3D model in any format; however, we strip all the parametric information from the model prior to the download to protect the design information of the supplier."

3D-Config also works hand-in-hand with the recent Beta release of 3DSeek®, the world's first online 3D shape search engine.  When a search result points to a supplier that uses 3D-Config, 3DSeek provides an enhanced link directly to the part, allowing the customer to customize parameters through the 3D-Config configuration tool.

Product suppliers can use 3D-Config to aid their sales personnel and/or make it available directly to their customers online.  The rules-based configuration capability saves significant time in the processing of the order and keeps suppliers in sync with the increased demand customization. Recent studies have shown that nearly 80% of buyers who download and incorporate a 3D model from the Internet ultimately purchase from that same supplier.  This creates a significant competitive advantage for the supplier. In the event that the supplier does not have existing 3D models of its products, Imaginestics and SRA provide a service to create the 3D models from the supplier's existing 2D drawings and/or paper catalogs.

About Imaginestics

Imaginestics is the emerging leader in Design Reuse Management (DRM) systems for the manufacturing and life sciences industry. DRM is the process of applying current and legacy design knowledge at the point of application to increase product value, decrease production costs, and reduce time-to-market. Imaginestics' product suite includes i-advisor, an engineering advisory system; i-config, an enterprise-wide product configurator; and i-compare, an intelligent design content matching and locator software.

About SRA Pvt. Ltd.

SRA India Pvt. Ltd., established in October 2002 in Bangalore, India, is the India Development Center of SRA Inc, Japan. This company is the exclusive development center for SRA and all its group companies. SRA's capabilities span the whole spectrum of the Software Development Life Cycle, which includes Analysis of Specifications, Design (Both High Level and Low Level), Build, Testing, Implementation, and Training.