September 29, 2005  |  Imaginestics announces beta release of online 3D shape search engine

Purdue Research Park, West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.A – Imaginestics, a leading provider of innovative solutions to the manufacturing sector, announced today an online beta release of the revolutionary 3D shape search engine, 3DSeek® (www.3D-Seek.com).  3DSeek® enables users to locate parts/products based on their 3D shape representation and retrieves the results based on the percentage of match.

3D-Seek.com gives a designer, engineer, purchasing agent, or technical buyer a reliable and efficient way to find products and an associated supplier or representative part to identify a custom manufacturer. Online users can upload their existing 3D designs or find parts in 3D-Seek.com's gallery that are similar to those desired. Results are displayed with a thumbnail model of the part with a link to the suppliers' website. An interactive 3D model of the part can be viewed by a simple click of the mouse button.

3DSeek® enables suppliers and custom manufacturers to easily add their products or designs to the 3D-Seek.com online database via "i-prowler", an intelligent indexing software which can be downloaded free from 3D-Seek.com. i-prowler, allows suppliers and custom manufacturers to identify files or directories that are repositories of 3D designs within their own desktop or within the company network that the company would like to make available for search on 3D-Seek.com. The i-prowler software extracts the shape representation of the 3D design, which is usually 1/5th of the 3D design file information and then uploads the compressed and encrypted information to the 3D-Seek.com server. i-prowler maintains the confidentiality of the proprietary design information by not transferring the actual 3D design file but only a representation of the shape.

"3DSeek.com will revolutionize the way product information is organized on the web and how search is conducted using shape as an input. It will empower engineers and technical buyers in their efforts to find parts and suppliers with speed and accuracy that is unparalleled" said Nainesh Rathod, President/CEO of Imaginestics. The use of shape as a basis for part or product search can overcome the technical challenges posed by variations in how parts are specified across the global supply chain, a fundamental limitation of text based search technologies, which are language and context sensitive. "It's basically the difference between describing a complex part using words to someone versus just showing it to them," added Nainesh Rathod, "we are excited at the prospects for this technology to provide significant value to manufacturers for optimizing their supply chain."

Earlier work done by Purdue University's PRECISE (Purdue Research & Education Center for Information Systems in Engineering) lab in this area led to a patent application, which Imaginestics has licensed.  Dr. Karthik Ramani, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University and Director of PRECISE lab, leads an ongoing joint research effort with Imaginestics to refine and enhance the search capability.

Imaginestics recently received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant to conduct research on the development of a Supply Chain Optimization and Product Explorer (SCOPE) using the 3D Shape Search technology. Receipt of this grant has enabled Imaginestics to develop a beta version of "i-prowler" and conduct further research and development into enhancing the application of 3D shape search in optimizing the supply chain network.

The research and development conducted by both Purdue University and Imaginestics in 3D shape search are quickly showing promise. Also, pilot tests have emphasized several benefits for both manufacturers and parts suppliers, including:

• Reduction of product development time by enabling access to alternative designs
• Reduction of inventory by increasing part awareness within the corporate repository and across the supply chain
• Promotion of design reuse in the early design phase
• Avenue to conduct "where used" searches to manage part or product obsolescence
• Enhancement of preferred supplier sourcing
• Elimination of problems associated with different text descriptions and language when searching for parts
• Elimination of problems associated with text descriptors and languages when multi-national companies try to reuse parts globally

About Imaginestics

Imaginestics (www.Imaginestics.com) 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 so that it can be processed when it is useful. Imaginestics' product suite includes 3DSeek®, the world's first 3D shape search engine; i-advisor, an engineering advisory system; i-config, an enterprise-wide product configurator; 3D-Config, an interactive and configurable online parts catalog; and i-compare, an intelligent design content extraction, matching, and locator tool.

Disclaimer:

Some of our research results are based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program under Grant No. 0512465.  Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of Imaginestics or its personnel and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.