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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
• Jpg,png,gif,jpeg ,tif
Vector
•Mathematically perfect
•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
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
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
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
1985, IGES steering committee decided to combine the PDES with STEP and the combined
PDES-STEP standard is now just called STEP
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