A Translator for Converting CAD Models to Second Life

Product Life-cycle Management (PLM) has been one of the single most important techniques to have been developed in the manufacturing industry. The increasing capabilities of internet and the ever increasing dependence of business entities on internet have led to the development of metaverses — internet-based 3D virtual worlds — which act as business platforms where companies display and showcase their latest products and services. This is in turn has led to a demand for development of methods for the easy transfer of data from stand alone PLM systems to the internet based virtual worlds. This paper presents the development of a translator which will transfer product data of 3D models created in CAD systems to an internet based virtual world. This translator uses a faceted-surface approach to transfer the product information. In this work CAD models were converted to a CAD-neutral data format, JT file format, and finally recreated in the metaverse Second Life (SL). Examples of models translated from JT to SL have been presented. A technique known as prim optimization, which increases the efficiency of the translation was also incorporated in the algorithm for the translator. Examples of prim optimization have been provided in the paper.