Importance of Extracting External Dimensions

Extracting and understanding the external dimensions from engineering drawings with a traditional Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system could not be the same as foolproof automated technology. 

External Dimensions are one of the most important parts of an Engineering Drawing. These dimensions provide the initial approximation of the part and can be a critical parameter in determining the feasibility of manufacturing. Using this information one can define the machining processes, constraints, materials, cost, etc. Reading these external dimensions from the technical drawings manually can be time-consuming and prone to human error. Werk24 develops the technology to extract these external dimensions flawlessly and anticipate relevant information that is needed for feasibility analysis of the parts. 

An engineering component can be defined by three basic dimensions length, width, and height, which combine to form a cuboid volume that encloses this part, for a turning part, this will be an enclosing cylinder. Regardless of the process, this volume is the minimum space required on a machine to manufacture the part. 

Manufacturing of the part starts from selecting the right process and machine that all these have their manufacturing limitations based on the size of the part. The importance of External dimensions is that they can be used to select the right process and machine for manufacturing. The next significant step is deciding the quantity of material required, which can be easily done using the external dimensions. 

Reading external dimensions with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology can be tempting but it is not accurate. Most of the time, the external dimensions need to be derived from several dimensions which are not possible with OCR. Werk24 technology learns this by processing 100,000 drawings per month and providing accurate external dimensions using artificial intelligence. Moreover, Werk24technology can generate a 3D contour using the external dimensions, which turns out to be extremely helpful to imagine the contour of the part.