Interactive 3D Product Assembler for the WWW - A Case Study of a 3D Furniture Store

We describe a system that allows customers to interactively select, assemble, and modify 3D products over the WWW, enhancing the usage of 3D techniques for e-business. It provides a framework for a web-based 3D assembling system that can significantly simplify the assembling process while retaining enough flexibility to build an approximate model of real products. The assembled object is captured in a two-level architecture. Components are first connected using simplified and automatic assembling mechanism; then a bundle of connected components are grouped together by a parametric object-oriented grouping method. This grouping method parameterize the components to build a group of descriptive, featured and related object types product, part and primitive within the assembling model. The system enhances the flexibility and efficiency for the assembling process over the WWW. For archival and data transfer, we developed an assembly-specific data format – Assembly ML. In the prototype implementation of our interactive 3D assembler (I3DA), we integrated an intelligent decision helper to assist casual customers in selecting and assembling their desired product.