CAD FORMATS LEARNNG SESSION

FEB 2018
 History of common cad formats and their use
 Looking at pros and cons
 14 CAD formats for today –
 .dwg
 .dxf
 .igs
 pdes
 .step
 Parasolid .x_t,.x_b
 .stl
 .acis
 .3ds
 .vda-fs
 Ojb
 .fbk
 Collada .dae
 vrml
 Raster

• Commonly used for photographs.

• Made up of (up to) millions of pixels

• Jpg,png,gif,jpeg ,tif

 Vector

•Mathematically perfect

•Made up of path ,using mathematical co-ordinates

•DXF,DWG,PDF, SVG
Benefits of Vector over raster
 High quality

 Small size

 Resolution independent
 1963 - Ivan Sutherland developed sketchpad, enabled
users to join points with lines—essentially the same
technique that is used for drafting vectors today

 1977- Mike Riddle ,Interact CAD

 1982 - Interact CAD becomes AutoCAD lauched by Mike

Riddle and J Walker’s small company ,Autodesk Mike
Riddle

AutoCad, 1982
• .dwg was proprietary format and not sharable across cad software

• .dxf intended to be used to share CAD images across different types of software.

• DXFs are supported by all CAD programs on the market, in addition to CNC and GIS software

• It is made up of ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) text, which is a less
efficient way of storing data than binary
 DWG files can handle more
types of drawing data
 DWG files are more compact
than DXF
 Vietnam war 1970s - Government faced a problem due to unique CAD programs used by
different contractors

 Millions $$ and countless hours wasted during conversion and sharing

 USAF,BOEING,GE,LOCKHEED etc partner to create a neutral format

 The Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGES) (pronounced eye-jess) is a vendor-

neutral file format that allows the digital exchange of information among computer-aided
design (CAD) systems

 Since 1988, the DoD has required that all digital product and manufacturing information (PMI)
for weapons systems contracts (the engineering drawings, circuit diagrams, etc.) be delivered
in electronic form such as IGES format.
 Lack of a formal information model, problems during file exchanges and manipulations, hard to
understand file formats

 there is an error in the IGES file, it is very difficult to find the mistake and correct it

 Problem of incomplete exchange due to various ‘flavors’ added by CAD vendors

 IGES does not support lifecycle information (PLM systems) which may be relevant for
engineering applications other than design
 PDES can be viewed as an expansion of IGES where organizational and technological data
have been added

 Designed to completely define a product for all applications over its expected life cycle
including geometry, topology, tolerances, relationships, attributes, and features necessary to
completely define a part or assembly of parts

 Eliminate the need for engineering drawings and other paper documents in passing
information about different product phases being performed on similar or dissimilar
CAD/CAM/CAE systems

 Didn’t last too long, evolved into Step

 Originally brought about by European countries under ISO Technical committee.

 1985, IGES steering committee decided to combine the PDES with STEP and the combined
PDES-STEP standard is now just called STEP

 ASCII, neutral format, readable by text editors

 Successor to IGES, can be split into many application protocols (APs)

 Application Protocols (APs)
•1994 AP 203 Configuration controlled 3D
design is still one of the most important
parts of STEP and supported by many
CAD systems for import and export.
•AP 214 - Core data for automotive
mechanical design processes
•Connectivity oriented electric, electronic
and piping/ventilation:
AP 210, Electronic assembly,
interconnect design. The most
complex and sophisticated STEP AP.
AP 212, Electro technical design and
installation.
AP 227, Plant spatial configuration
Ship:
AP 215, Ship arrangement
AP 216, Ship molded forms
AP 218, Ship structures
Pros –
• STEP focuses not only on what the
data is, but also on WHAT it means
and HOW data relate to one another
• Multi-Application Systems Focus
• Product Type Focus
• Life Cycle and Industrial Usage
Focus
• Non-Proprietary Focus
• Conformance Testing Criteria
Standardized
Cons
•Not suitable for very complex models
•Size can be an issue
 Parasolid is a geometric modeling kernel originally developed by Shape Data Limited, now
owned by Siemens PLM Software that can be licensed by other companies for use in their 3D
computer graphics software products.
 .x_t, .x_b

 Pros
- Excellent details
- very good for complex models
- Smaller size
- Stable , minimum conversion losses

Cons
- Proprietary
- Expensive
- Can be an overkill
 Created in 1987 by Chuck Hull, current CTO at 3D Systems.
 Developed for commercial printers, format has remained
unchanged for over 22 years.
 Uses both binary and ASCII representation, binary more
common due to compact size.
 describe only the surface geometry of a three-dimensional
object without any representation of color, texture or other
common CAD model attributes
 The surface is tessellated. Each facet is described by a
perpendicular direction and three points representing the
vertices (corners) of the triangle. These data are used by a
slicing algorithm to determine the cross sections of the 3-
dimensional shape to be built.
 Applications – 3D printing ,rapid prototyping , casting.
 .ACIS
- Dassault Systemes proprietary format ,robust 3d modeling capabilities.
- Good for use with Dassault Systemes software suite

 VDA-FS
- “Verband der Automobilindustrie – Flächenschnittstelle” which translates to
automotive industry association - surface data interface
- German standard, used in the German Automotive industry by companies like
- BMW, Mercedes, Audi etc.
- Superseded by Step format

 3DS
- Used by Autodesk 3d max/3d studio ,retains only the most basic information about
geometry, appearance, scene, and animation
- It uses a triangular mesh to encode the surface geometry approximately, the total
number of triangles being limited to 65536.
- Architecture, engineering, education, and manufacturing.
.OBJ .FBX Collada VRML

Neutral format Proprietary format .dae file extention, .wrl ,pronounced

developed for 3d open source vermal
printing Developed by 3D file format that
Kaydara, bought by  It is managed by the was developed for the
It was first developed AutoDesk in 2006 nonprofit technology World Wide Web. It has
by Wavefront consortium, Khorn been succeeded by
Technologies for its Most popular choice X3D.
Advanced Visualization for animation ,widely The standard 3D file
animation package used in video games format for the web
and film industry X3D applets can run
within a browser and
display content in 3D
using the OpenGL 3D
graphics technology
WHICH WHICH
WHICH INDUSTRIES USE IT? INDUSTRIES USE IT?
INDUSTRIES USE IT? Video games, films Video games,3d WHICH
3d graphics, 3d printing graphics INDUSTRIES USE IT?
Internet ,Web