Lightweight CAD data format - let go of your design ideas

For Nick Butkovich, the application of lightweight data formats has led to faster product development and improved intellectual property protection. Butovich is an IT project manager at Bradrock Industries, a US manufacturer of plastic molding equipment and lathes. He believes that the lightweight browsing of 3D data greatly speeds up the review of design proposals and paves the way for cross-departmental sharing of designs compared to previous restrictions on the document exchange process.

In this regard, Butkovich explained: “The facts are very simple. Everyone sees a design, reviews it, and adds his own opinion – no matter what system he uses, and does not need IT technicians to help him. Integration – This speeds up the process. Now, anyone involved can review and comment on the design and reduce design time. It also reduces the chances of rework because it is now possible to notice the potential in advance. The problem."

<br> <br> good news contained in the PDF file, use a lightweight format for sharing design data enables Bradrock design review cycles by 50%, while new products into the market time to speed up by 20%. Butkovich pointed out that more importantly, technology adds a layer of security because it adds rights management to the movement of sensitive information and allows potential partners to access complete CAD files. Butovich said: "Today, we have the ability to hide information that you don't want others to master."

Despite the praise of the lightweight design solution browsing format, there are still many challenges on the technical level. The most important thing is the number of document formats it can support, because there are so many different types of 3D software tools that users use today.

John MacKrell, senior consultant at CIMdata, pointed out: "There are many formats, and most of them have the same performance. This is a very representative situation we face in the CAD industry. Everyone (supplier) Think of your proprietary format as worthy of user ownership.” CIMdata is a US analytics company dedicated to market research in product lifecycle management, CAD and other areas.

Nonetheless, Mackrell believes that these formats are widely used because of their ability to open up design ideas to non-engineers. “The concept is simple,” he said. “It provides non-CAD users with enough 3D information to enable them to use the data at work.”

One of the most basic criteria is whether a format supports data integration for a specific CAD tool used by the enterprise. Mackrell believes that seamless integration should include the ability to view text-based product manufacturing information (PMI), especially for specific areas such as tolerances and dimensions.

With the rapid increase in 3D CAD applications in recent years, engineers have turned to "model-based" design solutions in which more data is stored in 3D modules. In some collaborative situations, this PMI is not required; in other cases, the opposite is true, PMI may be essential. There are also some factors that determine which CAD data format the user chooses last: such as pre-set usage (whether it will be used for engineering-intensive collaboration or for marketing purposes); achievable data compression ratio; and vertical industry preferences.

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