I often say that I have the coolest job at Dassault Systèmes. That’s because I get to spend my days with our customers, learning about all the amazing ways they’re using our solutions to make the world a better place.

For example, have you ever thought about how hospital operating rooms get designed? Modern operating rooms are packed with equipment and people. Everything has to be close at hand without being in the way. The room must be easy to navigate, yet make effective use of space. Lighting must be perfect. And when the surgery is done, every surface – even the floor – must be accessible for effective sterilization.

Clearly, the architects who design the rooms and the equipment suppliers who outfit them need a lot of input from medical professionals to achieve a room that functions at peak efficiency. But medical professionals aren’t architects. They don’t have experience reading blueprints. They might get one chance in the course of an entire career to offer their input on an operating room design. And if they make a mistake, they might have to live with it for years.

Operating room equipment and systems supplier BERCHTOLD knows the challenges well.  Although it tried many approaches over the years, it never found an ideal solution for helping doctors and nurses picture the operating rooms they were helping to design – until it teamed up with EwingCole DMG, the 3D modeling and interactive applications division of a Philadelphia-based architectural and engineering firm.

EwingCole DMG built a 3D operating room visualization environment for BERCHTOLD in 3DVIA Virtools. Virtools allows operating room personnel to “build” a virtual operating room in real-time in 3D and then move around the room just as they would during an operation to validate the room’s functionality. If they find a clash or an inconvenient placement, their BERCHTOLD sales rep can change it in a few clicks. And it all runs on the BERCHTOLD reps’ standard-issue laptops, so they can take it anywhere.

“We love it,” says John Mueller, architectural design supervisor for BERCHTOLD.

“The 3DVIA Virtools operating room visualization application helps our customers see what they’re trying to achieve much faster and with fewer design ‘mistakes,’ and it easily facilitates input from broad and diverse teams of hospital workers. It really helps people who aren’t architects visualize these rooms.”

Dave Buchhofer, technical director at EwingCole DMG, says 3D visualization is critical to designing operating rooms that work at peak efficiency.

“You see things in 3D that you’d never catch in 2D renderings. Using 3D models to do interference and clash detection makes the process more time- and cost-efficient.”

And with 3DVIA Virtools, EwingCole DMG can quickly and easily update the application each time BERCHTOLD adds new equipment to its offering.

Correcting poor choices on the laptop screen is quick, easy, and costs nothing. It also helps to ensure that all of a hospital’s resources go into building the best possible operating room – not correcting unrecognized issues after construction. That’s good for hospitals and for all of a hospital’s surgery patients. Just one more example of how 3DS solutions help to make the world a better place.

Where do you next expect 3D in the operating room?

Best,

Bernie

Bernie Hearne works in Customer Referecing for Dassault Systèmes.

It was a sleepless night in Shanghai.  When the spectacular fireworks rocketed into the sky, weaving brilliant pictures upon the 5.3 square-kilometer Expo Park, the first World Expo hosted by China unveiled its curtain.

In the meantime, in the virtual world, over 300 virtual Expo pavilions finally opened their doors to greet visitors from any corner of the world.

“We are expecting about 100 million visitors online,” said by Mr. Wang Li Ping, Chief Operation Officer of Expo Website Management Office.

Call me biased, but after a quick visit of the physical and virtual Expo, I found the French Pavilion among the top of all pavilions both on the Expo ground and in the virtual world.  When I first entered the physical French Pavilion, I strongly experienced the power of “See what you mean,” “See it before it even exists.”

For the past six months, I’ve walked through the virtual French Pavilion numerous times.  It indeed felt surreal when I found myself actually standing inside it.  “This is exactly the same!”  I almost screamed at the entrance…

That day, May 1st, the first day of Expo Shanghai, 100,000 out of the 200,000 visitors of the Expo experienced the French Pavilion.  The opening ceremony of the French Pavilion was held at its beautiful roof garden, where it greeted Alain Delon and the famous Chinese actress, Gong Li. Philippe Forestier and Christian Nardin were also among the VIP guests.

For those who will attend this year’s PLM Forum in China, you will be at this romantic garden enjoying the French banquet in just one month!

Up till yesterday, about 1.5 million visitors went to the Expo ground; 500,000 of them visited the Chinese Pavilion (only 50,000 allowed each day) and 700,000 experienced the French Pavilion.  In the meantime, over 30 million people around the world have paid their visit to the first “virtual Expo.”

I was one of them.

However, I wasn’t a “normal” visitor because I was very anxious t to find out what’s inside the 24 pavilions that used 3DVIA to create their online 3D version.

Indeed, there were lots of nice surprise and great findings. These are some of my favorites:

French Pavilion (Zone C): not only one of the most beautiful pavilions, but also one of those that are easiest to navigate through.  The virtual tour to Musee d’Orsay to see the paintings in 3D will definitely be a nice surprise for the visitors! Kudos to Frederic PY for all the hard and great work!

Jilin Pavilion (Zone A- inside China Pavilion): A dreamy pavilion presenting the spring and snowy seasons of the Jilin province. Many cute 3D real-time interactions, for example, when you step on the snow, you see your own foot prints while hearing the sound of each step; you definitely don’t want to mess around with the snowman because he will throw a snow ball right to your face! And definitely don’t forget to make yourself some popcorn and eat it “virtually”!

Taipei (Zone E – Case Joint Pavilion 4-3): Another easy-to-navigate pavilion where visitors can experience fun real-time 3D interactivity.  You can contribute to a cleaner river in Taipei by touching the water; you can also play with the famous Taipei 101 building in your hand in 3D!

Shandong Pavilion (Zone A – inside China Pavilion): Shandong is the cultural hub of the old China. It’s the hometown of Confucius and many historical figures. As you climb the famous Tai Mountain in 3D, you are introduced to the historical figures and their stories. The experience of climbing this virtual mountain reminds me of the movie, Avatar.  This pavilion is not fully completed yet though; in the later version, visitors will be able to see the future city of Shandong where it’s green and sustainable.

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What do you think?  I’d love to hear from you to learn which online pavilions you like best!

Meanwhile, happy virtual Expo!

Best,

CJ

I thought it was too late to talk about Virtual Milan and Tom Dixon again, but then I saw these videos and said . . .nah, you deserve to see them!

The first was produced by Australian Emma Elizabeth Designs.  Check out her interview with Tom, Fred and one of Tom’s artisan furniture makers.

Nice music huh?

The second is a fly through of Tom’s stand and his visitors’ interactions with the 3D experience.

I may like this fashion music better. Nice drums.

Like I mentioned in my last Tom Dixon post, Tom creates all of his models in SolidWorks.  He mentioned in the Emma Elizabeth video that he’s cutting out the big producers and “just getting on with it” on his own.  A do-it-yourself guy!  Any correlation with designing his models in 3D I wonder?

Tom, are you out there?  We’d love your feedback if you get a chance.  In any case, bravo 3D Tom!
Best,

Kate