The use of tech illustrator at airbus
**** Hidden Message ***** 1Already the wide-body A380 “flies over“ many of the well-known frontiers of aviation technology. As the
world’s largest passenger aeroplane it will carry up to 555 people in its two full-length decks, connected
one above the other. And in the future the cargo version will carry 150 tons of cargo. It is still a secret as
to whether one day prestigious companies such as Singapore Airlines intend to provide their First- and
Business-Class customers, who stay 18 hours on board, with fitness or sleeping rooms in the lower deck of
their already ordered aeroplanes.
The decision to build the A380 was
made in December 2000. As has
been stated in the planning phase,
about 300.000 illustrations will be
necessary for its documentation.
One month later, in January, a
unique Airbus-Company was
founded. “Both events gave the
impulse as well as the chance to
optimise the provision of the
technical illustrations as well as to
harmonise the accompanying
business processes” remembers
Jean-Paul Gerhardt, responsible for
the technical illustrations of the
whole group. Thus the ground was prepared to use new possibilities such as the interactivity and onlineaccess
in the field of technical documentation. The A380 is thus the first aeroplane at Airbus where these
technologies are being used. In 1991, the four individual European companies at the time (Aérospatiale
France, British Aerospace Systems, CASA in Madrid and German DASA) had already decided to use one
and the same software to provide technical illustrations. But as the programs had been used according to
the local needs of each location, different “software releases“ had been applied. Moreover, in England the
management media used for illustrations were different from those used in France, and those used in
Germany were different from those used in Spain. “Thus, as time went on, different applications arose as
a reason for lack of standardisation”, Airbus Project Manager Noël Andrieu from Toulouse remembers. An
exchange of illustrations in original format is thus only possible with great effort.
Each location and its supplying illustration offices, the so-called contractors, will convert the existing
technical illustrations into the TIFF format (CCITT G4) and finally save them in the central archives in
Toulouse. Such a quality is sufficient for prints or for the use of documents in paper form. When an
illustration is also needed in another location it will be delivered using this raster format.
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Definition of a standard catalogue
Since the merger of the individual companies, the aim of Airbus has been to obtain a better “look and feel“
for the whole technical documentation and
provide them with additional features
which allow any customer and location to
identify them as an Airbus illustration. For
instance, all illustrations have to be
prepared in WebCGM format (using the
WebCGM Plug-In from Auto-trol
Technology) for an interactive usage. This
vector format, suitable for Internet, allows
the usage of so-called “hot spots” with
which it is possible to link illustrations in
order to show details. With this format the
user can have access to enlargements of
details and, if necessary, the possibility to
process them without any loss of quality.
When using a raster format one would
quickly be limited by its given resolution.
Project Manager Noël Andrieu soon added
the usage of colour to the standard
catalogue as it helps the perception of the
observer. Thus, the human eye may seize
the technical facts about 30% faster. The
integration of images in form of photos and
graphics was another wish.
As the original supplier has not further developed the illustration software used so far, Airbus started to
look for a new system on the market in January 2002. “This new system should support corresponding
import and export filters as well as respect all standards of the aviation industry as for instance ATA iSpec
2200“, says Jean-Paul Gerhardt as he describes the most important requirements. “A further criterion of
choice was the performance of the programming interface in order to adapt the illustration tool to internal
business processes and meet a corporation-wide binding illustration policy.“
After an intensive exchange of views among all European divisions the new project-division prepared a
feasibility study under the direction of Mr Noël Andrieu: “It was important for us that all those who would
later use the new software be implicated from the very beginning on. “
The future illustration guidelines were thus defined together in the form of Style Guides which exactly
define, for example, how an edge situated in the foreground should look like and on which level a certain
line has to be. No problems due to differences of mentality arose in those internationally-composed
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teams. “Questions were asked and it was tried to get to the bottom of apparent obviousness. Thus
misunderstanding is avoided and harmonisation is achieved much faster”, reports Mr Andrieu. “After all,
each Style Guide has been defined by the actual end-users from the relevant departments. “
In August 2002, the company made a Benchmark test opposing two systems which existed on the market.
After these very intensive tests, Airbus decided to choose Tech IllustratorTM from Auto-trol Technology in
Düsseldorf. One important criterion of choice was the convincing quality of the programming interface.
“This is the philosophy applied for all our products“, explains Mr Wolfgang Scholz, Manager of Auto-trol in
Germany. “It offers our customers maximal flexibility which allows adapting each application exactly to the
needs of the company. “ Thus you
will find these developed software
solutions as standard solutions not
only in the aeroplane industry but
also in the automobile industry.
The company in-house illustration
guidelines to obtain a common “look
and feel“ were established in
Hamburg and Toulouse using the
“Tech Illustrator PlusTM (SDK)“
development tool and further
programs like External Access and
ObjeX/AGL. The customisation is
logically separated from the actual
Tech Illustrator-System using API
interface (Application Programming
Interface). This offers the advantage that the regular further development of the software may be adopted
later without great effort because an adaptation of the company’s specific modules is not necessary.
The now binding and standardised software has been released by the Project Manager Noël Andrieu and
passed on to each department and to the contractors. The basic agreement for the first stage of extension
covers a total of 62 licences for all Airbus-locations in addition to a n umber of the so-called “category 1”
contractors and their subcontracted illustration offices. All users of Tech Illustrator have been trained for
one week, out of which 3 days were needed for the general part and 2 days for the Airbus specific
adaptations and extensions.
Reorganisation of the process chain
In parallel, the process of all technical documentation concerning the A380-activity has been optimised
and new “business rules“ have been defined. Tech Illustrator is now integrated in this Workflow.
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All orders for a technical documentation start from a subdivision of each unit. These are mainly the
Maintenance Domain, Material Domain and the Repair Domain. The latter, for instance, has to function
immediately in case of any damage at an airport.
The documentation authors request the relevant illustrations which then will be linked with their text
written in SGML.
When drawing the illustrations, one often goes back to 3D-models. However different CAD-systems are
used at Airbus because of the former individual companies. The 3D-models provided by the construction
and development units will be converted in ProductView by PTC and thus made available additionally in
the original formats as the so-called Digital Mock-ups in the PDM-System of Airbus.
When an illustration must be created from the basis of a 3D-model, a transformation of this PTC-format
into a CGM-format occurs after the removal of hidden edges. In case of problems of accuracy, one may
use the original CAD-format. The created CGM file will now be read by Tech Illustrator® from Auto-trol
Technology.
The generally applied Style Guides fix the possible positions of the angles. After such a preparation the
actual work with Tech Illustrator starts.
Rolls Royce Germany as the supplier of the turbines also uses this software and will now work for Airbus
using their Style Guides. All illustrations provided by them can thus be used directly. Concerning other
main suppliers, such as Recaro, the manufacturer of the seats, one will exchange data more effectively in
the future so that Airbus may use existing original CAD-models and illustrations directly.
A further link in the process chain is the automated quality check of all completed illustrations. In case of
deviation from the Style Guides for example, the contractor will have returned his deliverables for
correction. In case of a positive evaluation they will be passed to the authors. The finished documentation
will finally be saved as SMGL as “master-manual“ and as HTML for the online-documentation. For the
A380 and its technical documentation there will thus no longer be any printed versions.
The illustrations will be additionally saved as individual documents in a central data base: once in their
original format, as a Tech Illustrator file, and secondly as a standardised and thus neutral CGM file,
according to the ATA iSpec 2200 definition. “Illustrations will normally be delivered to customers in this
format “, says Project Manager Noël Andrieu.
Since August 2003, the program system has been used in the whole group and since then there has been
an increasing demand from the individual domains. The wish to use the advantages of an onlinedocumentation
for the rest of the Airbus-product line is expressed more and more often. Therefore Autotrol
Technology is currently developing a converter that will also make the illustrations from the old
system available for Tech Illustrator.
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“We are thus having a steep takeoff“, rejoices Manager Jean-Paul Gerhardt. 感谢楼主，好材料啊
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