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CAD Data Exchange
CAD data exchange entails a number of software technologies and methods to translate
data from one CAD system to another CAD file format. This Product Lifecycle Management
technology is required to assist shared work (CPD) between OEMs and their suppliers. The main issue is with the conversion of wireframe, surface and solid. However,
other data such as, metadata, assembly structures, and feature data are also of
importance. There are essentially three methods of transferring data from one CAD system to
another, which are direct CAD system export/import; direct 3rd party translators
and intermediate data exchange formats. Direct Internal:
There are some CAD systems, which can directly read /write other CAD formats, by
using file open and file save as options. However, most CAD file formats are not
open, this option is very limited to system owned by the same company or through
hacking of competitor's file format. Direct External:
Several companies specialize in CAD data translation software and offer software,
which can read one system and write the information from another CAD system format,
in addition these systems have their own preparatory intermediate format. Several
of these systems work stand-alone while others will require one or both CAD packages
installed on the translation machine because they use application-programming-interface
(APIs) from both systems to read/write the data. Data Translation Formats:
Using an intermediary format is a common method of translation. Intermediary format
works by having the sending CAD system exports to this format and the receiving
CAD system reads in this format. Because every CAD system has its own method of describing geometry, some information
is always lost when translating data from one CAD data format to another. In addition,
the intermediate file formats are limited as to what they can describe, and there
is the risk that the information can be interpreted differently by both the sending
and receiving systems. Therefore, it is vital when transferring data between systems
to clearly identify what data is required to be translated. For instance if only
the 3D model is required for the downstream process, then this should be the only
data needing to be transferred. It is also important to realize that some translation methods are more successful
than others at translating data between CAD systems.
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