3D Design

Optimize your product with 3D design software

What is 3D design?


3D design uses computer-aided design software for modeling and technical documentation. It is used by designers and engineers to model and visualize real-world products and elements to study and optimize its design before it goes into the manufacturing process. What traditionally was done using manual drafting can now be replaced with CAD software connected seamlessly with emerging technologies to that allow designers and engineers to iterate faster on designs, reduce costs by forgoing costing prototyping costs and materials waste and improve overall product quality.

Types of 3D design

3D modeling using 3D CAD

3D product design is the creation of a product in a virtual environment in which it has three dimensions (height, width, and depth). The result is a digital prototype of your product, one you can explore in detail and run further studies on.

Generative design

AI-driven generative design from Creo automatically allows you to quickly produce solutions optimized for your loads and constraints, using traditional and additive manufacturing methods.

Explore Generative design

CAM

Computer Aided Manufacturing software like Creo NC and Tool Design solutions give you everything you need to achieve the highest quality, highest precision machining in the fastest possible time. Now you can handle every aspect of the machine process from mold/cast design and advanced NC to 3D simulation and verification.

Explore CAM Solutions

3D design case studies

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Aristides OIO guitar designed using PTC creo

Aristides Guitars created a revolutionary guitar design by using PTC's CAD solution to develop an electric model that is beautiful, comfortable, and sounds incredible.

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Great Plains designs complex seeders using PTC Creo

Great Plains decreased design time threefold by deploying PTC's CAD solution to add value with the software's simulation capabilities.

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College Park creates life-changing prosthetics with PTC Creo

College Park quickly takes design concepts to the market by using PTC's CAD solution to run stress simulations without building physical prototypes.

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CNB Yachts enables fast product development with PTC Creo

PTC Creo helps the CNB team complete most of its design work early, and with confidence that all design data is always up-to-date.

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How does Creo support 3D design?

Creo is the easy-to-learn 3D CAD solution accelerating innovation from product design to manufacturing and beyond. It seamlessly combines powerful, proven functionality with new technologies. You will iterate faster, reduce costs and improve product quality. Product development moves quickly, and only Creo delivers the transformative tools you need to build competitive advantage and gain market share.

The vast list of capabilities that support the 3D design process include:

3D part and assembly design

  • Create precise geometry, regardless of model complexity
  • Quickly build robust engineering features such as rounds, chamfers, holes, and more
  • Create design variants using family tables
  • Smarter and faster assembly modeling performance
  • Static and dynamic interference detection

Automated 2D drawing creation and update

  • Create 2D and 3D drawings according to international standards, including ASME, ISO, and JIS
  • Automate the creation of drawings with templates
  • Automatically create associative bill of materials (BOM) with balloon notes

Assembly management and performance tools

  • Load large assemblies quickly using lightweight representations
  • Create simplified representations on the fly
  • Share lightweight yet fully accurate model representations using the unique Shrinkwrap tool

Plastic part design

  • Comprehensive analysis tools including draft and 3D thickness evaluation
  • Mold filling simulation capabilities
  • Integrated measurement tools

Parametric and freestyle surfacing in Creo

Surfacing lets you create and manipulate surfaces and curves on a model. It also enables you to manipulate curve tangents directly on the screen.
Use the Surfacing area of Help to learn about creating, changing, and manipulating surfaces. Surfacing Help shows you how to use surfacing applications to work with the curves and surfaces of parametric, nonparametric, and imported models. In addition, you will learn how to alter the form and shape of curves, quilts, facets, and solids by transforming, scaling, rotating, stretching, tapering, bending, or twisting the geometry.

Here are some of the Surfacing modules:

  • Technical Surfacing
  • Creo Interactive Surface Design (Style)
  • Creo Reverse Engineering (Restyle)
  • Facet Modeling
  • Scan Tools
  • Warp
  • Freestyle

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Explore Creo Parametric's 3D design capabilities

3D product design is the creation of a product in a virtual environment in which it has three dimensions (height, width, and depth). The result is a digital prototype of your product, one you can explore in detail. Without digital prototyping, you’d need to use more budget-vaporizing physical prototypes, watch time slip away, and get to market later with a product that might not be optimized. 3D design makes your life as a product designer easier and faster, allowing you to devote more time and energy to optimizing your product.

The vast list of capabilities that support the 3D design process include:

Intelligent fastener design

Automate the creation of holes and assembly fasteners, gain access to standard libraries (ANSI, DIN, JIS), utilize the integrated web-based component catalog and download predefined parts and symbols using the J-Link Programmatic Interface.

Piping and cabling design

Utilize full routing capabilities including automated ribbon cabling, specification driven design, auto-routing, speed design, and adherence to design rules and schematic logic. Furthermore, get associative harness manufacturing capabilities and automatic creation of supporting documentation.

Sheet metal design

Easily create walls, bends, punches, flanges, forms, and reliefs using the streamlined user interact. Automatically generate flat patterns from 3D geometry, dynamically preview formed and flattened sheetmetal designs simultaneously, and easily convert solid parts to sheetmetal.

Design optimization

Wouldn’t it be great if your computer-aided design software automatically determined the best design for you? Save time and effort with Creo Behavioral Modeling Extension (BMX).

Structural framework and weld design

Conduct standard linear static analysis on parts and assemblies. Utilize the fast, automatic meshing, solution convergence, and a comprehensive customizable materials library.

Direct modeling (flexible modeling)

Make Creo data changes—even to sheet metal—regardless of design intent. Recognize rounds, chamfers, patterns, symmetry on imported geometry, and create or recreate design intent and record edits as features.

Reverse engineering

With Creo Reverse Engineering Extension (REX), you can easily create or recreate the electronic 3D CAD model of your physical product, without spending an enormous amount of time, effort. or money.

Top-down design

Creo AAX is the answer for companies that are serious about concurrent engineering. Using the extension’s top-down design tools, it’s easy to plan out the skeleton of an assembly so that designers can then use it to create individual components in the context of the overall structure.