Product Manufacturing Information

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Product and Manufacturing Information, or PMI, is used in 3D computer-aided design (CAD) and Collaborative Product Development systems to convey information on the design of a product’s components for manufacturing. This includes data such as geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, 3D annotation (text) and dimensions, surface finish, and material specifications. CAD applications may also refer to PMI as Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) or Functional Tolerancing and Annotation (FT&A).

Industry standards for defining PMI include ASME Y14.41 Product Data Definition and ISO 1101 Representation of specifications in the form of a 3D model. In an effort to unify the visualization of PMI across the different existing solutions, Adobe Systems has released a version of the Myriad CAD font that allows to display PMI from almost any CAD application.

The PMI annotation is created on the 3D CAD model, associated to edges and faces, this information can then be used by a number of down-stream processes. Although the PMI data can be used to generate annotation on a traditional 2D drawing the data can be visualized within the 3D model by other departments, either in the CAD/CAM system or in a 3D Product visualization tool, thus greatly reducing the need for drawings. Some computer-aided manufacturing software can also access the information directly for CNC programming. The PMI data can also be used by CAQ validation tools for analysis such as tolerance stacking and Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) software.

PMI items are often organized under PMI Views. A PMI View is a view including camera/view position and also the particular state of the assembly (visibility, rendering mode, sometime even position of each element of the assembly). CAD applications have different notions of PMI Views (for instance "Capture Views" and "Annotation Views" are specific to Dassault Systems Catia, etc). The Siemens PLM Solutions approach is the integration of the Annotation placement toolbars with the PMI dialogs with the intent of providing all options in one location to increase ease of use and productivity.

For anyone to be able to display any kind of PMI View, Adobe Systems has unified their format and added their description to the PDF format (version 1.7).