Wasn't it supposed to be a 3-D world by now? It seems as if every year the experts and prognosticators revise their predictions about when 3-D will become the dominant design environment. In a survey conducted in 1999 by DataQuest (Stamford, CT) - a provider of IT market research - 75 percent of the respondents indicated that 3-D CAD would be the primary design technique within two years - that was by 2001! Yet, here we are in 2003, and even the most conservative forecasts are falling far short of the mark.

Think back for a moment: When was the first time you heard about 3-D? When did you first consider it? When did you take your first step and experiment with this new technology? Chances are it was three, four, perhaps even ten years ago, and adoption is still slow. Most vendors are not meeting the needs of the customers, and customers are not demanding that their 3-D MCAD needs be met. Is this simply a case of companies being resistant to change?

The benefits of 3-D are clear and have been well demonstrated and measured by forward-thinking engineering groups that have spread 3-D throughout their organizations. There is no refuting the dramatic speed and process improvements 3-D design offers, including improving the design-to-manufacturing process, delivering greater product visualization, simplifying design revisions, providing rapid real/virtual prototyping, integrating PDM and being built for manufacturing accuracy. Whereas 2-D is an approximate and often effective documentation methodology, it is not an accurate manufacturing methodology. Clearly, the answer is 3-D. What prevents the mass adoption of 3-D today?

The Complicated Answer

The answer is not an easy one. It is complicated by long-standing industry issues, behavioral patterns and several key technical issues. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, machines have been designed in 2-D. Hundreds of years of legacy methodologies, habits, knowledge and processes around 2-D - inefficient as they may be - must be unlearned. This is the key blockage in 3-D adoption. At the core, the realities of yesterday's 2-D world are in direct conflict with today's dream of 3-D.

The crux of this battle rests on the following perceived barriers to adoption:

• 3-D is too expensive.
• 3-D is too hard to use.
• The learning curve is too steep and time-intensive.
• The 2-D legacy albatross is insurmountable.

The truth is that easy-to-learn, easy-to-use systems are, in fact, available. Today, new pricing models reduce the costs of 3-D systems and lower the total cost of ownership substantially. The 3-D software is no longer limited to just the high-end - products do exist that provide full-functionality with optimal user-friendliness. In addition, training problems should never be allowed to inhibit adoption; effective programs must focus more on a gradual adoption than on trial by fire and be designed with the customer in mind as part of the complete CAD package.

The 2-D legacy data problem also could have been resolved completely by now, except that some people in the industry (particularly many software vendors) benefit from the status quo. Engineers use and require an incredible amount of data for their designs; such use often is completely incompatible with 3-D environments. Very simply, a mass 3-D solution must provide a deliberate and intuitive path from 2-D to 3-D.

This is a primary barrier to adoption, and the issues are technical both from a data standard perspective and a skill set perspective (to go back and forth between the two environments is just too complicated ... it must be all or nothing).

System Specifications
Designers and engineers cannot simply abandon their environments and make a dramatic shift to 3-D. Traditionally, that is what they have been asked to do, but no longer: Products are available that address 2-D and 3-D within the same environment and allow the continued use of 2-D without losing productivity while leveraging the benefits of 3-D.

The effective 3-D CAD system must be fully functional, compatible with legacy CAD data and interoperable within the existing design process while allowing for high levels of accessibility. This cannot come with the complexity of today's high-end systems.

Users must be able to work with surfaces and parametric solids or in stand-alone 2-D, depending on the task at hand. At the same time, the tool must be intuitive and consistent in each environment. It comes down to this: customers should not stand for being frozen in 2-D when compatible, fully functional alternatives are available.

With mounting pressures on manufacturing companies to improve their design and production processes, the current stagnation cannot continue. This is the decade for 3-D. Everything is out there now. It is up to the manufacturer, the CAD engineer and anyone and everyone who has a hand in the design process to go out and look for the right 3-D solution. What are you waiting for? Everything is lined up for mass 3-D to happen.

Here is an industry prediction: By 2008, 20 percent of MCAD will be in 2-D (as opposed to 80 percent today); the rest will be mass 3-D. Do you want to be in that 20 percent?