In partnership with Lego Group, Autodesk showed off a proof-of-concept iPad app powered by its Inventor Publisher Mobile Viewer -- and aimed at kids -- at the recent Lego World 2012 show in Copenhagen.
Attendees were able to use the app as an alternative to the traditional instruction manual for Brickley, Lego’s popular dragon kit. Users can view interactive 3D-animated instructions on how to assemble Brickley. They can zoom in on parts and rotate models to see how things fit together.
Autodesk's proof-of-concept iPad app, powered by its Inventor Publisher Mobile Viewer,
delivers animated 3D instructions for Lego’s toy sets. (Source: Autodesk)
Having spent hours poring over confusing instruction manuals for Lego’s Harry Potter play sets, I can tell you that an animated, interactive set of instructions can really speed things up. And we’re not just talking about iPads and instruction manuals for toy sets. Sure, Autodesk is bound to get a lot of mileage out of this partnership, but it’s really doing companies a service by shining the spotlight on a critical but often overlooked component of product development.
Beyond the cool factor, Autodesk officials ticked off a bunch of statistics to underscore its strategy of promoting 3D-animated instructions, whether to kids or to its professional engineering audience. In an ORC International consumer survey, 80 percent of respondents said 3D images make them more likely to purchase a product, and 60 percent said they are more likely to purchase if they have 3D instructions.
Citing data from an Accenture report, "Big Trouble With No Trouble Found: How Consumer Electronics Firms Confront the High Cost of Customer Returns," Autodesk officials said 68 percent of all product returns are due to poor documentation.
Access to easier-to-understand and easier-to-navigate instruction manuals can only make consumers happier with the products they buy. On a professional level, highly detailed, animated instruction manuals tied to the 3D product record can only result in optimized maintenance and better product quality. Animated instructions for the Lego dragon may not necessarily fall into your wheelhouse, but 3D animated instructions for the products you design could mean more business for your company.
What a great idea that will vastly improve instruction manuals, especially for fixing or changing large, complex machines like cars, and for assembly instructions of large and small machines. Thanks, Beth.
@WilliamK: While I have to agree poorly written product directions translated to another platform are just another set of poorly written product directions, I think we're missing the bigger picture here. The idea is substituting the poorly written text, which is often translated from foreign text and done horribly at best, with highly graphical visual elements, frequently animated instructions. Remember the saying, a picture is worth a thousands words. It might make things far clearer if you could see an exploded image of the parts, with animations that depict how things actually fit together.
It may be harder to lose online instructions, but it would be a challnge to find them 2 or 3 years from now, even if they were saved on the ipad. Not to mention the number of times that I have accidentally dropped instructions. Dropping an ipad can be costly.
I do agree that poorly written instructions are a large source of customer frustration, but it is not clear how poorly written 3d animated instructions will be any better. To the contrary, those instructions will be more expensive to correct, so revisions will probably not happen. There is no substitute for accuracy and completeness in instructions.
Of course the "cool" factor will sella lot of products, but once again, slick production gimmicks are no substitute for being correct and complete. Of course, it is a nice way to provide "product differentiation" as a substitute for that more expensive "product quality" that is so very rare these days.
Yes, Lego is really on the ball about partnering with industry. I think one masterful partnership is their one with CopaData. CopaData offers a free "zenon Science Pack", which includes a version of their soft PLC and HMI/SCADA software that works with Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0.
So not only do people get to have a lot of fun controlling their Mindstorms projects, but they get to see the software in action, and work with it much more closely than one could in a class or demo, before deciding whether they want to use it to run their plants.
That makes sense, Beth. The iPad tie-in also makes sense, especially when it comes to the maintenance and repair of any system, factory or aircraft. The iPad is a portability improvement over the laptop. In plants, maintenance folks like the iPad because they don't have to balance it on their knee like a laptop when they're out looking at the line.
I can see a fantastic use for this as assembly instructions. I have had to read (and write) many assembly instructions both for home and work and trying to read a document that has been translated from German to Mandarin then to English, well you get the picture. If the assembly instructions are put on the web using visualization software that you could read with your iPad or any smart device then this would make assembly so much easier plus reduce the amount of translation required.
During assembly you could run the sequence then pause it any time while you catch up with the video then run it again. If there are options then you could interactively drag in those options and the sequence would be modified to suite. Also if you have pieces that need to be manipulated into place, perhaps ones that may have collisions with other parts one could do this on the screen to see how to orient them.
It's a smart pairing. Grab the kids and get their parents at the same time. Also does a lot to expose future generations of scientists, builders, and engineers to the tools that will help them do their jobs.
It's interesting to see how Lego has partnered with the technical world. Lego has also partnered with National Instruments, using the LabView graphical programming langaue in its Mindstorms set.
I have also assembled Lego's for a long time with my kids. Some of the bigger kits can be more challenging. My sons and I have also used some of the robotics technology and some of the designer software. This seems to be a big step forward from that.
If the instructions are on-line, you can not lose them. I would pay a premium for my next piece of composite furniture to have 3D documentation with a comprehensive parts list
The 3D printing revolution seems to have a knack for quickly moving technology ahead by way of collaborative effort and even a little friendly competition -- all of course in the name of scientific advancement.
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