KYOWA SEISAKUSHO Co., Ltd.

Creating presentation materials and manuals of products using 3DCG

Mr. Hanakawa, the head of the Fukuoka sales office at Kyowa Seisakusho Co., Ltd., first came into contact with Shade3D more than 20 years ago. He initially used it for personal use, motivated by the desire to create visually easy-to-understand materials to explain the functions and features of his company's new products, such as water gates, sluice gates, and dam gates, as well as their opening and closing devices. At the time, there were a variety of 3DCG software programs available both domestically and internationally, but the deciding factors for adopting this software were the sense of security it offered as a domestically produced software, its easy-to-use interface, and the ease of expression it offered. The company then introduced Shade3D, and it is now used by multiple employees in the design and sales departments. "We design our products using 3D CAD, and then import them into Shade3D to create graphics to explain their mechanisms and movements. Shade3D is useful for its smooth data compatibility and high level of expressiveness," said Mr. Hanakawa.

The company's sales staff also use Shade3D to efficiently create images and explanatory diagrams for presentation materials and instruction manuals. In addition to explaining the functions of new products to clients, Shade3D is also useful for confirming procedures, as public works projects do not consist of machinery and equipment alone and require cooperation from civil engineering and construction companies.

Widely used for public relations display models and water gate management systems

At "SAGA Construction Technology Fair 2025" held in June 2025, Kyowa Seisakusho 3D printed and displayed a model of its new water gate equipment product, the "Auto Flap Gate L-Type," from a Shade3D model.

"Visitors were able to touch the gates and see how they work. They close automatically without using electricity when the water level rises. Visitors were also shown how to open and close them manually. Having a real model can help attract people to exhibitions," said Mr. Hanakawa.

Shade3D model and actual equipment: 'Auto flap gate L-type'

Output 3D printing model was exhibited at SAGA Construction Technology Fair 2025.

In addition, for the remote monitoring system for water gates that the company has delivered to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the screen visuals are created using Shade3D, and animation is used to show how the numbers change and the gates rise and fall according to the water level.

Remote monitoring system of water gate using Shade3D animation

Shade3D's diverse features contribute to creating easy-to-understand materials.

One member of the design team creates product design data using 3D CAD and imports it into Shade3D to create models. Shade3D is easy to use, allowing for surface and material changes, color expression, and the wide range of input and output file formats it can handle. Mr. Hanakawa commented, "Generally speaking, people who use 3DCG software are pursuing realism, but we place importance on high explainability, and make use of the necessary expressions to achieve this. Recently, we often use toon rendering for illustrations in instruction manuals, and there are 12 types of toon rendering available as standard in Shade3D. The great thing about it is that we can expand our imagination by simply changing the rendering type a little."

As future outlook, Mr. Hanakawa commented that he would like to expand their use of models created with Shade3D to explain and promote their products on the Metaverse, in addition to introducing products using models in showrooms.