Re-Use Your CAD 
Jennifer Herron
Jennifer Herron is the owner of Action Engineering, a company that specializes in the promotion, process development, and standardization of a 3D CAD Model-Based Environment. Her career has been spent creating and building complex hardware systems for the aerospace and defense industry, her … More » Native CAD to Neutral TDP WorkflowMay 14th, 2014 by Jennifer Herron
Generally, you create your model using a Native CAD software tool (SolidWorks, Inventor, NX, Catia, Creo). You may have the challenge that in order to share your data with a customer or manufacturer you must convert it into a “neutral” format. What method do you use?
A neutral CAD format is informally known as a digital file format that is readily viewable on a variety of computer desk and mobile platforms without spending a large sum of money. A cost of “free” makes it even more “neutral” — as in the case with Adobe Reader. Officially, a neutral CAD format is one that adheres to an open standard. An example of a truly neutral CAD format is STEP (ISO 10303). Check out my detailed recommended practice for creating and then translating from native CAD into neutral CAD, and most importantly enriching the data set receiver’s understanding of the product definition and design intent.
View an example of native-to-neutral conversion below. Tags: 3D CAD, 3D PDF, ASME Y14.100, ASME Y14.41, derivative, ISO 10303, Model-Based Definition (MBD), neutral CAD, STEP, TDP |
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