Can You Envision Sharing Engineering and Design Data with a Single Application?

Canvas rolls out a cloud-based collaboration and data sharing application

Envision by Canvas lets you share engineering designs with anyone you choose (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

Envision by Canvas lets you share engineering designs with anyone you choose (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

Envision is a bold attempt by Canvas GFX to let you share your engineering designs in real time with any and all, internal or external to your organization, using only a browser, on any device – a welcome alternative to the ragtag assortment of applications you may have been using to accomplish this.

More than a viewer and collaboration tool, and easier to use and access than your design software, Envision is a thoroughly modern approach to engineering data, broadening its audience, allowing easy access for many who were previously denied, either by their skills or technical knowledge.

You may have thought of Canvas, based on our previous coverage, as the company that supplied graphics software used to create user manuals, maintenance instructions and other technical documentation, but the more than 30-year old company has reinvented and reinvigorated itself under new leadership.

Technical documentation with Envision (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

Technical documentation with Envision (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

In July, the company rolled out Canvas Envision, a multi-faceted application for use of design and engineering data that is well attuned to our times—our socially distanced world, our remote and geographically dispersed teams not only cut off from each other but also all from their tools, their workstations and deskbound software—as we try to stay connected and in communication with each other.

Leading the charge into the future is Canvas CEO Patricia Hume. Her excitement about the company’s path forward is infectious and her presentation convincing. In two years as Canvas’ leader, Hume has taken the 34-year software brand and built a new company around it, embracing the cloud and all the benefits and opportunity therein.

“We wanted to build an enterprise-wide platform that would allow anybody in an organization to be able to unlock the tremendous power in 3D CAD models,” explains Hume. “There’s information in those files that can drive far more effective communication, both internally and externally. Not just for technical documentation but also in helping customers and prospects understand more about product function and value.” 

The Product Whose Time Has Come

Canvas Envision is a hybrid platform which combines a desktop graphics app – the Creator – and a browser-based viewer, following the familiar concept of Adobe’s PDF creator and its omnipresent free viewer. The Envision Creator is installed easily on a laptop or PC and has been designed to be lightweight so that it doesn’t require the kind of powerful workstation needed to run a CAD program. Despite this, it can be used to show very big assemblies, according to Canvas.

The Envision Creator uses a ribbon structure familiar to users of Microsoft’s Office products, which eases the way for new users. On the page navigator, you can dock panes depending on your preference for screen space. An experienced user can maximize the document view whereas a new user would appreciate knowing what commands and controls are available.  You can move bars and icons wherever you like and save your preferred UI configuration as a template.

Working with 3D CAD

The Creator allows for the easy blending of different types of content, explains Burcu Gacal, senior director of Systems Engineering and Customer Success at Canvas, who proceeds to demo for us how Canvas’ Envision can make presentations pop and collaboration easy. A common use case for engineering users might be the combination of a 3D model, annotations, text, and some part data. For customer-facing assets, more graphics and images might be required.

“All leading CAD file formats are supported,” said Gacal. “You might have different vendors or different suppliers working with different tools. You don’t have to go worry about getting different viewers; with Envision, you have one tool to open all these different file formats.”

A navigation cube is a handy way to orient the view of 3D CAD models within a document. You can get an isometric view, side front or top view, or view from any perspective. You have all sorts of color options. You can change the part color and the background color using a full RGB palette. You can also change the transparency or make interior parts visible through an exterior and highlight parts, drawing attention to them by showing them at a higher magnification.

Canvas Envision does not have ray tracing built in, but you can add light sources, add multiple lights and change the type of light, either specular or ambient. You can also save your lighting choices to use again to get a consistent look throughout a project.

Multiple parts can be altered at once using a selection tool. You can select by part properties, for example, changing colors of all parts that have the same part number, or the same color, or made from the same materials, and so on.

Blow Things Up

Envision gives detailed access to 3D models generated in CAD (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

Envision gives detailed access to 3D models generated in CAD (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

An assembly can be exploded so that all its parts are visible and can be individually marked, rotated and moved. The assembly can be exploded a certain distance from an arbitrary point, such as its center or along the X-, Y- or Z-axis. Parts can be ghosted if they interfere with the view—you can temporarily remove them from the picture, then bring them back. A part can be linked to a URL, very helpful in adding it to a shopping cart. When you’re done, the whole assembly goes back together easily, leaving not a single screw behind.

A cutting plane is used to create cutaway views (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

A cutting plane is used to create cutaway views (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

The Envision environment seems built to accommodate change. Suppose a part is revised. Envision is linked to the part file, so when the revised part is saved, any images based on those models in documents are automatically updated, meaning documentation does not have to be recreated. Everywhere the CAD model was used, it is automatically updated in Envison. Because parts are linked to rather than imported, the size of the Envision file does not get cumbersome.

Setting the Table

Along with the geometry of a 3D model, Envision pulls in that model’s metadata, including PMI information, dimensions, notes or other information embedded in the CAD data for your supplier or vendor. You can use imported data to make a table. The imported data is organized, said Gacal, and users can generate a table very efficiently. It’s perfect for a bill of material, for example. You can also export the table to Excel, or bring a table from Excel into Envision, where the user can control the cells, merging, formatting and more.

Once you are done, you can save the file as an EVDOC file, Envision’s proprietary dynamic file format. It can be saved on your browser, or SharePoint, OneDrive or into the Envision cloud environment.

Symbols, Charts and Images

Vector images can be brought in and edited line by line, while raster images can be traced and vectorized. You don’t have to redraw the part or go back to the software that created the image, Gacal explains. Users can also import and material in PDF documents.

“Bringing in images and text and working with them is very easy to do in Canvas Envision,” assured Gacal. “Envision also includes a large symbol and shape library which we’re expanding based on requests from our customers.”

Exploded view (Picture courtesy of Canvas))

Exploded view (Picture courtesy of Canvas)
The symbol library. (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

The symbol library. (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

Go with the flow. Envision makes smart flow charts. You can add logical statements. Smartlines let you move blocks without disconnecting. You can make mind map or swim lane diagrams enriched with logical statements. (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

Go with the flow. Envision makes smart flow charts. You can add logical statements. Smartlines let you move blocks without disconnecting. You can make mind map or swim lane diagrams enriched with logical statements. (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

Into the Cloud

When documents are finalized, Envision allows them to be shared and viewed through the Envision cloud, which lets viewers interact with the models embedded in the documents.

“As soon as you put that file in a cloud environment you can collaborate, get approval and share,” noted Gacal. “No-one viewing the documents in the cloud needs to have Envision installed. All they need is a browser and the Internet.”

Document viewers also have markup and review tools in the browser. This is helpful to communicate with vendors, suppliers as well as people inside their organization.

“We saw a lot of use cases—internal and external—for collaboration on documents in the cloud,” said Gacal. “When anyone comments on a document, the creator of that document gets a notification in the desktop application. And that allows for real time conversation and collaboration.”

Both the Creator and browser environments include presentation modes that allow models to be manipulated live for audiences, giving them the ability to see individual components, sub-assemblies and different product views, she explains.

Viewing a document containing an embedded 3D model through the Envision Cloud

Viewing a document containing an embedded 3D model through the Envision Cloud

Move Fast but Use Protection

The dynamic document created by Envision can be mass distributed, downloadable from the website, or embedded on a company website, CEO Patricia Hume explains. “We have seen real demand for this ability for marketing purposes,” said Hume. “If you’re a small or medium enterprise, you can’t afford to have an ad agency build 3D models into a beautiful website – but you can do it yourself with Envision.” Hume argues that making this additional level of detail and context available to prospective customers can accelerate the purchasing cycle as it pre-empts many questions that potential buyers might have.

Sensitive details and data can be protected and not shared, she explains. During the creation of the documents, the creator decides how much of the CAD geometry and metadata is exposed, essential for protection of valuable IP.

One Application Instead of Many

Patricia Hume, CEO of Canvas. (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

Patricia Hume, CEO of Canvas. (Picture courtesy of Canvas)

“We have people using Envision to create marketing and sales materials, technical documents, and even to create their patent drawings,” said Hume. “There are a lot of drawing tools in Envision since our heritage is graphic design as well as technical documentation. Why not have one product, one seamless workflow, instead of hopping in and out of many different applications?”

Our demo concludes.

“Now can you see why we are so excited?” asks CEO Patricia Hume rhetorically.

About Canvas

For most of Canvas’s three decades plus, the software has been widely used for the creation of illustrated technical documentation. Competition comes from IsoDraw, SOLIDWORKS Composer, AutoCAD, Adobe, to name a few.

“The prior team had built a good business, but it was a niche business,” said Hume. “It was software that was specifically designed and developed for people with a technical background. So, what about the marketing team, the sales team, the training team, those responsible for maintenance and support? They couldn’t use it. It was too complicated, too technical. That’s why we started thinking about Canvas Envision.”

Wherever Hume went, she found the ability to effectively communicate this kind of information was restricted by access to software and skills.

“The superpower in all that engineering data, the true understanding of what was built, was understood only by the engineers,” she said. “If we could only unlock that superpower for everyone.”

And that is what she hopes her team has done with Envision.

“We have taken valuable data that was historically only in the realm of engineers and built an enterprise platform that allows anybody to be access and work with that data,” she said. “Now anybody can import all those different file types, manipulate 3D models, create content around them, communicate with everyone they need to. This is great for empowering more people to work with CAD, but also because it reduces the burden on engineering teams who are constantly being asked to provide CAD model visualizations, which is not their core job.”

She continues: “As a visual communication company, we know that seeing is believing. When you show somebody the entire product they understand more about it, more quickly than they can from photographs or flat screenshots. And that translates into a wide range of business benefits.”

The Boston area based Canvas has been funded to the tune of $4.7 million since 2018, $3 million of which was provided in a Series A investment in April, 2020, according to Crunchbase.