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AutomationML
Hello,
I appreciate the direction of where the development of G4A is going. I am wondering if there are any plans to fully implement and support AutomationML. It is one of the designated open standards for I4.0 data exchange protocol. There is already support for the cadenas catalogue which uses AutomationML, but that only includes the import of CAD (COLLADA) files if I'm not mistaken. So, are there any plans for also supporting/directly importing AML files that also integrate topology (CAEX), kinematics, behaviour and logic (PLCOpen XML)?
Answer
Hi,
yes, Automation ML is on the roadmap but not with high priority for some reasons:
You are right the Parts4Cad is currently using Collada. We tried also AML with Parts4Cad but if you look into it all AML files we tested did not have any kinematics inside. It was more or less just an AML container for a static 3D Collada file and this does not help a lot.
Another reason for the low priority is that we don't have a real use case where a customer has a standard CAD or simulation solution exporting AML files. In my experience, standard engineering tools that can export a standard AML are still missing. I know that the big OEMs have some own AML exporter from NX or Catia. Do you have got a real use case?
But still, AML is on the roadmap, most probably it will be available in the second half of next year.
Best regards
Thomas
This Company Software is used in every automobile industry http://www.west-gmbh.com/de/consulting/softwareentwicklung/ the software export a full Process Simulate study into an AML file and creat Collada files. Should be a high priority i guess.
Thanks for the answer. We are mostly a research focused facility and exploring new concepts and trends in the industry, also
working with partners. If you are interested, it might be possible to have some more information exchange in the future.
Are there any news about the integration of AutomationML? We do have a future use case for our company in which we want to automatically generate 3D data based on a 2D Layout from another tool with AML and export it the other way around.
The focus in our research project changed, AML is not needed any more, so an official AutomationML interface is not planned any more. In general I am missing very much the availability of AML exporters for common CAD systems. As soon we see, that there affordable standard exporters available (besides the very special solutions for automotive) we will change our mind. But you are free to develop your own importer - it should be not to much work because reading in XML and Collada into Unity should be very easy.
Okay I see. Did the research project go into a totally different direction or did you even find a standard which is better suitable for what you wanted? I certainly don't understand why AML is so uncommon since it exists for a long time already.
We don't need it there because the CAD users don't have AML exporters in the project (and even not the kinematic information in the CAD) - so STEP and defining everything in G4A is fine for our current research project (as well as for most of our users).
I think there are two main reasons why AML is so uncommon:
- very complicated format (specification is hard to understand even for myself....)
- there are no exporters available - this is main reason why nobody is using it and there are no importers)
My favorite would be to define an open and easy standard like a JSON together with a Step CAD export. The simple JSON export would be easily implemented by macro programming in most CAD systems. If you are interested in this we can cooperate - we have first drafts for it but so far nobody who implements the CAD macro.
Thank you for sharing your view on this. For now we are still discussing whether this extra effort makes sense for us. I will gladly come back to your offer if we should decide to take this step with Game4Automation.
Customer support service by UserEcho
The focus in our research project changed, AML is not needed any more, so an official AutomationML interface is not planned any more. In general I am missing very much the availability of AML exporters for common CAD systems. As soon we see, that there affordable standard exporters available (besides the very special solutions for automotive) we will change our mind. But you are free to develop your own importer - it should be not to much work because reading in XML and Collada into Unity should be very easy.