iSEEK was created from the vision of Dr. Abir Qamhiyah, along with the assistance of Dr. Donald Flugrad, the National Science Foundation, and also support from several leading industrial companies. The goal was to develop a technology capable of accurately capturing the shape of 3D digital designs ... with the purpose of enabling shape-based search to foster part, design and knowledge reuse. While matching similar designs is valuable, to be really useful the technology also has to be able to report the degree of similarity, and do so in a fast, scalable and encrypted format.
When users experience CADSEEK's accuracy they logically wonder what kind of compromises were required to achieve it. Compared to the competition, the opposite is actually true. Where others use simplistic methods such as comparing surface area their cost is clutter, incomplete searches, and the loss of real-time search capability.
CADSEEK is without question the most accurate shape encoding technology available, and does so without requiring any compromise in performance.
CADSEEK is more accurate, in part, because it captures every nuance of a design's shape at the resolution of CAD. Therefore, it has almost infinitely more data to work with. And the geometry is captured in an intelligent format which allows for fast computation of design similarity to provide results which are simultaneously comprehensive and clutter-free.
A critical issue of most use cases is the requirement of accuracy. For example, cost estimation or quotation requires efficiently finding highly similar designs. When searches are not fast and accurate users will quickly abandon efficiency initiatives and return to less efficient methods.
All other shape-search applications only provide a clue that two items might be similar, i.e., they have a similar parametric value for volume or number of surfaces. In contrast, CADSEEK provides evidence of the degree of similarity, with such high sensitivity that it can detect even small variances in the level of tessellation in two otherwise identical designs. Finding duplicate parts is actually far more simple than matching similarity, and even more so in calculating the degree of similarity.
The ability to accurately determine the degree of similarity allows search results to be meaningfully ranked, and avoids the situation where the best result is located on the third-page of search results and therefore never seen.
Every CADSEEK search is performed in real-time instead of being a recalled result from a previously performed comparison. This means CADSEEK isn't limited to working in a static database. With CADSEEK, users can import a new model, such as a design received from a colleague, customer or supplier, and produce instantaneous results without long delays for encoding or comparison.
CADSEEK is able to encode designs in a few seconds and perform searches in large databases in under two seconds. Analytics reports can operate in million-item databases quickly and save thousands and thousands of human hours of analysis time.
CADSEEK signatures are numerical which enables fast seek times that allow databases to easily scale into the millions of designs. John Deere's testing of the CADSEEK API showed 0.002 second search response across a multi-million item database.
CADSEEK is not a learning algorithm that has to be trained on thousands of similar items. Instead, CADSEEK is able to capture the shape of any 3-dimensional geometry including small standard parts, large mechanical assemblies, tiny protein models and animation characters, all without any customization of the CADSEEK encoding algorithm. Any of these item's CADSEEK signature can be compared to any other item, such as comparing the signature of a protein molecule to a tractor chassis assembly. While the similarity will be incredibly low, the key point is that the creation or composition of the signature does not change based on the type of data.
CAD Format: CADSEEK can encode all types of native CAD (both models and assemblies), neutral and derivative formats such as STEP, IGES or STL, and even 3D laser scans.
Discrete Parts & Assemblies: CADSEEK can encode designs from bolts to satellite assemblies. The CADSEEK algorithm can even encode non continuous geometry and weldments.
Industries: to CADSEEK, the origin of a 3D digital shape is irrelevant. The identical CADSEEK algorithm has been used to encode designs in numerous industries including: automotive, heavy equipment, fixtures, appliances, aerospace, chemistry, bio-chemistry, machine tools, medical devices, electronics, constructions, paleontology, body scans and sculpture.
CADSEEK searches are not reliant on attributes or parametric values in any way ... so even when designs lack the expected attribute descriptors, those designs can still be found based on the similarity of the overall geometric shapes.
In some cases designs have unreliable dimensions, but in these situations CADSEEK is still able to encode shape and provide accurate search results.
Each CADSEEK fingerprint is numerical and a very small fraction of the size of the original native file, providing massive scalability for a CADSEEK search index.
The process of encoding a CAD library to create a shape-search index is fully automated with no human requirement for sorting, tagging, or classifying. This automation and the speed allows deployments to be performed in days rather than months.
Keeping the CADSEEK Search Index synchronized with the PLM or other database is also a fully automated process.
The first step in performing a shape search is selecting a search target ... a design that is used as a seed to find all others like it. CADSEEK applications enable nearly a dozen different ways to select a search target including: attribute filtering, file import, visual browsing, import from CAD, import from PLM, extract from assembly, and search from photographs.
CADSEEK search is also flexible because of the numerous applications, designed to fit into existing workflows, and the CADSEEK API which allows shape-search capability to be embedded in other applications such as dashboards, catalogs and websites.
All CADSEEK software and processes occur within an enterprise's firewall, so design files never have to leave the enterprise firewall.
That being said ... the algorithm that creates the CADSEEK signatures is a mathematical transformation that is a form of encryption ... but not a typical encryption with keys for deciphering the signature. In contrast ... CADSEEK signatures are never decrypted because the numerical signatures are intrinsically comparable. Just as 21 is intrinsically comparable to 22, a CADSEEK signature can be compared to any other signature to instantaneously compute the degree of similarity of the designs.
Sophisticated companies have evaluated and determined that a CADSEEK signature cannot be reversed or decrypted to shape, even by iSEEK. The transformation can only happen in one direction. As a result, a CADSEEK signature is a highly secure and efficient means of communicating shape, even to partners, such as customers or suppliers, which is the key factor that enables iSEEKGlobal. If a customer and OEM both have CADSEEK they are able to instantaneously compare designs without ever needed to exchange the intellectual property of their design files.
CADSEEK fingerprints are identical regardless of the environment or scope of the CAD database they were created from. This means that a supplier or customer can create a fingerprint locally and send it to a partner, and the search results will be the same as if the partner had created the CADSEEK fingerprint.
CADSEEK is not embedded within the constraints of a CAD or PLM system, providing it the ability to comingle data from multiple PLMs, CAD vaults or folders; and attributes can be sourced from the PLM, ERP, spreadsheets and delimited files. CADSEEK can be selective about which status of files, and also which attributes are included in the search index
Independence also allows CADSEEK applications to include visualization and design inspection and compare tools, which are especially valuable to users without access to CAD.
CADSEEK operates with normal computer hardware, both for server and client hardware, and with surprisingly low requirements for RAM and disk space. This includes the initial batch encoding process, as well as normal operation.
