Anyone developing a machine, a production line or a tool for series production today rarely does so alone. Design engineers, purchasers, suppliers, tool and mold makers and, ultimately, the customers themselves need to exchange CAD models, drawings, bills of materials and inspection reports – often across company boundaries. Email attachments, cluttered file servers and proprietary viewer software quickly reach their limits. This is where Poi3D comes in: a web portal from CADMAI Software GmbH in Nuremberg that structures, secures and considerably simplifies model-based collaboration between companies.
3D Models as a Common Basis for Communication
At the heart of Poi3D is the idea of making technical documents directly accessible in the web browser – whether 3D models in common CAD formats such as STEP, 3DXML, JT or the BIM format IFC, or 2D documents such as PDF drawings, TIFF files and photos. No additional viewer software needs to be installed, which is a considerable advantage when working with external partners who have no access to your own CAD system. Annotations, instructions, material definitions, bills of materials, attributes and even sensor data can be attached to each document and shared with other members of a workgroup.
Large Assemblies in Focus
A practical challenge in machine and plant engineering is the sheer size of assemblies: complete plants or tooling systems often consist of tens of thousands of individual components. To keep such models from stalling in the browser, Poi3D relies on special performance optimizations for preparing and displaying the 3D data. Even assemblies with well over 10,000 components can thus be loaded comparatively quickly and navigated smoothly despite a high level of detail – including a structure tree, exploded and sectional views, and the ability to search for and highlight individual components. For mold makers, plant planners and machine builders working with highly complex designs, this is an essential prerequisite for using the portal in practice at all.
Internal Collaboration Between Departments
Within a company, too, teams benefit from central, document-based communication. Design, purchasing, quality assurance or service can access the same models and documents on a project-specific basis, leave annotations and attach supplementary files such as test reports, calculations or approval documents directly. Because communication about a document can take place synchronously via chat, phone or video as well as asynchronously via email, coordination across time zones and shifts can also be documented transparently – a clear advantage over scattered email threads.
Secure Collaboration with Suppliers and Customers
The real strength of Poi3D, however, shows in collaboration across company boundaries. Workgroups define precisely who may access which documents: a machine builder can exchange design data, bills of materials or revision levels with a supplier on a project basis without third parties gaining insight. For the customer, digital twins of the delivered plant can be provided, including maintenance instructions, spare-parts information and – if desired – current sensor data from live operation, for example via connections to Azure IoT Hub or AWS IoT Core. Design bills of materials can also be exported in a structured way or passed directly to ERP or PDM systems via a cloud interface, reducing media breaks between project partners' systems.
Organizing Tenders in a Structured Way
For purchasing and project planning, Poi3D also offers a practical function for tendering processes. A client can make the tender documents – such as the specification document, 3D model and general conditions – available to the bidders, with each invited bidder working in its own workgroup that is separated from its competitors. Each bidder can store its bid documents there, accessible only to itself and the client, while the client can view all incoming bids centrally and communicate directly with each bidder via chat, email or video. This keeps the tendering process confidential, traceable and considerably more efficient than the classic exchange of encrypted email attachments.
Poi3D Talk Flow: The Company's Own Messenger
The portal is complemented by the messenger Poi3D Talk Flow, which runs as a progressive web app both in the browser and as an app on iOS and Android devices. Functionally, it is modeled on familiar messenger services such as WhatsApp: group chats, file sharing, and phone, video and email communication can be used directly within the workgroups, supplemented by the option to bring AI bots with different language models into the discussion. Communication is not necessarily tied to a particular document but can relate generally to collaboration within a workgroup. For companies looking for a company-owned, fully controlled communication solution for partners and employees, this offers an alternative to public messenger services in which all information remains within their own sphere of responsibility.
Full Data Sovereignty Through Flexible Hosting
A key argument, especially for security-conscious machine, plant and mold builders, is data sovereignty. Poi3D can be used via the publicly accessible portal poi3d-portal.com, but is also available as an individually hosted instance or – for maximum control – as a self-operated installation. In the latter case, all design data, communication content and user accounts remain entirely within the company's own infrastructure, while the portal itself only processes representations of the original models in the first place. This is complemented by a consistent "privacy by design" architecture without cookies and the optional encryption of communication and document attachments.
Conclusion
For machine, plant and mold builders who want to establish secure, project-specific communication with customers and partners without giving up control over their data, Poi3D offers a well-thought-out toolkit: browser-based access to large 3D assemblies and 2D documents, clearly separated workgroups for internal teams, suppliers, customers and tender partners, an integrated messenger in the form of Poi3D Talk Flow, and the freedom to choose between the public portal, a hosted instance or fully self-operated deployment. This puts the often fragmented project communication in machine and plant engineering on a common, model-based foundation.
Further information: poi3d.com (feature overview) and poi3d-portal.com (public portal). Provider: CADMAI Software GmbH, Nuremberg, Germany.
3D Models as a Common Basis for Communication
At the heart of Poi3D is the idea of making technical documents directly accessible in the web browser – whether 3D models in common CAD formats such as STEP, 3DXML, JT or the BIM format IFC, or 2D documents such as PDF drawings, TIFF files and photos. No additional viewer software needs to be installed, which is a considerable advantage when working with external partners who have no access to your own CAD system. Annotations, instructions, material definitions, bills of materials, attributes and even sensor data can be attached to each document and shared with other members of a workgroup.
Large Assemblies in Focus
A practical challenge in machine and plant engineering is the sheer size of assemblies: complete plants or tooling systems often consist of tens of thousands of individual components. To keep such models from stalling in the browser, Poi3D relies on special performance optimizations for preparing and displaying the 3D data. Even assemblies with well over 10,000 components can thus be loaded comparatively quickly and navigated smoothly despite a high level of detail – including a structure tree, exploded and sectional views, and the ability to search for and highlight individual components. For mold makers, plant planners and machine builders working with highly complex designs, this is an essential prerequisite for using the portal in practice at all.
Internal Collaboration Between Departments
Within a company, too, teams benefit from central, document-based communication. Design, purchasing, quality assurance or service can access the same models and documents on a project-specific basis, leave annotations and attach supplementary files such as test reports, calculations or approval documents directly. Because communication about a document can take place synchronously via chat, phone or video as well as asynchronously via email, coordination across time zones and shifts can also be documented transparently – a clear advantage over scattered email threads.
Secure Collaboration with Suppliers and Customers
The real strength of Poi3D, however, shows in collaboration across company boundaries. Workgroups define precisely who may access which documents: a machine builder can exchange design data, bills of materials or revision levels with a supplier on a project basis without third parties gaining insight. For the customer, digital twins of the delivered plant can be provided, including maintenance instructions, spare-parts information and – if desired – current sensor data from live operation, for example via connections to Azure IoT Hub or AWS IoT Core. Design bills of materials can also be exported in a structured way or passed directly to ERP or PDM systems via a cloud interface, reducing media breaks between project partners' systems.
Organizing Tenders in a Structured Way
For purchasing and project planning, Poi3D also offers a practical function for tendering processes. A client can make the tender documents – such as the specification document, 3D model and general conditions – available to the bidders, with each invited bidder working in its own workgroup that is separated from its competitors. Each bidder can store its bid documents there, accessible only to itself and the client, while the client can view all incoming bids centrally and communicate directly with each bidder via chat, email or video. This keeps the tendering process confidential, traceable and considerably more efficient than the classic exchange of encrypted email attachments.
Poi3D Talk Flow: The Company's Own Messenger
The portal is complemented by the messenger Poi3D Talk Flow, which runs as a progressive web app both in the browser and as an app on iOS and Android devices. Functionally, it is modeled on familiar messenger services such as WhatsApp: group chats, file sharing, and phone, video and email communication can be used directly within the workgroups, supplemented by the option to bring AI bots with different language models into the discussion. Communication is not necessarily tied to a particular document but can relate generally to collaboration within a workgroup. For companies looking for a company-owned, fully controlled communication solution for partners and employees, this offers an alternative to public messenger services in which all information remains within their own sphere of responsibility.
Full Data Sovereignty Through Flexible Hosting
A key argument, especially for security-conscious machine, plant and mold builders, is data sovereignty. Poi3D can be used via the publicly accessible portal poi3d-portal.com, but is also available as an individually hosted instance or – for maximum control – as a self-operated installation. In the latter case, all design data, communication content and user accounts remain entirely within the company's own infrastructure, while the portal itself only processes representations of the original models in the first place. This is complemented by a consistent "privacy by design" architecture without cookies and the optional encryption of communication and document attachments.
Conclusion
For machine, plant and mold builders who want to establish secure, project-specific communication with customers and partners without giving up control over their data, Poi3D offers a well-thought-out toolkit: browser-based access to large 3D assemblies and 2D documents, clearly separated workgroups for internal teams, suppliers, customers and tender partners, an integrated messenger in the form of Poi3D Talk Flow, and the freedom to choose between the public portal, a hosted instance or fully self-operated deployment. This puts the often fragmented project communication in machine and plant engineering on a common, model-based foundation.
Further information: poi3d.com (feature overview) and poi3d-portal.com (public portal). Provider: CADMAI Software GmbH, Nuremberg, Germany.
