Starting in 2008 the best way to move visualization data out of Autodesk CAD products (AutoCAD, Inventor and Revit) is with the DWF-3D file format. Okino has one of the most extensive implementations of DWF-3D, allowing complete scenes, hierarchy, materials and textures to be conveyed from Autodesk products through Okino conversion software.

As alternative, or secondary direct conversion formats, Okino has had one of the longest standing and robust DWG/DXF pipelines since 1992. DWG is the native binary file format of AutoCAD and DXF is the native ASCII file format of AutoCAD.

If you wish to export BREP solids from AutoCAD instead, then use the ACIS .sat file format. The core of AutoCAD is based on the ACIS solids modeling kernel, so the ACIS .sat file format is a natural choice for exporting solids-based data with no loss in quality. You would always want to use the Okino Spatial-ACIS importer to bring in .sat files.

Importing into AutoCAD is by DXF, DWG, .3ds and DGB file formats.

The best method to export data from Autodesk Inventor into Okino products is via the native Autodesk Inventor importer written by Okino. This will import assembly and part data from a live running copy of Inventor or from disk-based Inventor files; no resident copy of Inventor is needed to read from the disk-based files.

Other methods to export from Inventor into Okino software are: DWF-3D, ACIS SAT, IGES, STEP, STL and XGL/ZGL.

Importing into Inventor can be done via DXF/DWG files, IGES, native ProE .asm/.prt, ACIS .sat or STEP. In these cases the files must contain 'solids' based data and not mesh polygon data. Exporting solids-based files is not done by Okino products, except if you can import NURBS surfaces and export to IGES in which case Inventor will try to stitch the NURBS back into solids.

ArchiCAD is a popular architectural package developed by Graphisoft Corp.

Exportable file formats from ArchiCAD are DXF/DWG, .3ds, Electric Image FACT, U3D, VRML and Wavefront OBJ. Please note that the .3ds file format is a very old 16-bit file format from the mid 1980's which is limited to 65535 vertices and polygons per object, so it should be one of the very last file formats you'll ever want to use (it came from CAD-3D on the 16-bit Atari-ST computer before Tom Hudson repurposed it into the 3D Studio R1 .3ds format).

Autodesk Architectural Desktop is built on top of AutoCAD. As such, importing from Autodesk Architectural Desktop into Okino products is similar to that of AutoCAD. DWF-3D, DWG/DXF and ACIS SAT are the natural file formats. STL is the least desired method.

Importing from Autodesk Mechanical Desktop into Okino products is similar to that of AutoCAD. DWF-3D, DWG/DXF and ACIS SAT are the natural file formats. STL is the least desired method.

CADKEY has good support for exporting to all of the major 3D file formats, including ACIS SAT, IGES, Parasolid, STEP and STL. STL is the least desireable format to use. Recommended formats for importing CADKEY data into Okino software is ACIS SAT, IGES and then Parasolid.

mport of CATIA v4 .model, .exp, .dlv and .session files is best done with the Okino native CATIA v4 importer. This geometry import converter imports and processes BREP solids-based CAD geometry files stored in the CATIA v4 native file formats. Okino has been a trained Spatial Corp. developer since 1997, resulting in a top notch, refined and professional implementation of the Okino-CATIA importer.

The CATIA stand-alone program (made by Dassault Systemes and distributed by IBM) is an integrated suite of Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computer Aided Engineering (CAE), and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) applications for digital product definition and simulation. It allows manufacturers to simulate all the industrial design processes, from the pre-project phase, through detailed design, analysis, simulation, assembly and maintenance. CATIA is primarily used by the automotive and aerospace industries for automobile and aircraft product and tooling design (it is well known for being used by Boeing to design their massive airplanes, or NASA to help design the Space Shuttle). There are roughly 20,000 companies worldwide using CATIA with roughly 30,000 seats sold per year.

Import of CATIA v5 .CATPart, .CATProduct and .CGR files is best done with the Okino native CATIA v5 importer. This geometry import converter imports and processes BREP solids-based CAD geometry files stored in the CATIA v5 native part and assembly file formats, and mesh visualization data stored in .CGR files. The importer is based on the actual CATIA v5 runtime DLLs and components from Dassault Systeme (the developers and owners of the CATIA v5 modeling software) and hence provides the absolute best conversion of native CATIA v5 part and assembly files - no reverse engineered libraries are used, as is often the case with other CATIA v5 importers.

The CATIA stand-alone program (made by Dassault Systemes and distributed by IBM) is an integrated suite of Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computer Aided Engineering (CAE), and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) applications for digital product definition and simulation. It allows manufacturers to simulate all the industrial design processes, from the pre-project phase, through detailed design, analysis, simulation, assembly and maintenance. CATIA is primarily used by the automotive and aerospace industries for automobile and aircraft product and tooling design (it is well known for being used by Boeing to design their massive airplanes, or NASA to help design the Space Shuttle). There are roughly 20,000 companies worldwide using CATIA with roughly 30,000 seats sold per year.

"CoCreate Modeller" (previously named CoCreate 'OneSpace Designer') is a product of PTC Corp. Native conversion file formats are ACIS SAT, IGES and STEP.

Structural Research & Analysis Corporation (SRAC) develops and markets design analysis software products for the mechanical computer-aided engineering market. It includes CAD file format compatibility via IGES, ACIS, Parasolid and STEP. RealityWave Corp. mentions that an XGL/XGL exporter is available for Cosmos products.

Form/Z is one of those power house 3D modelers. Being a top notch modeler it has many methods to export 3D geometry data to other 3D programs. Of note are: 3ds, ACIS SAT, DXF/DWG, IGES, STL, VRML and Wavefront OBJ.

Okino's VRML importers were tweaked in their early days to specifically import VRML files from EDS's I-DEAS; this is the preferred method of data translation. Other supported formats are IGES, STL and VDA-FS.

If we had to put one program and one file format into a category and class of its own, it would be Microstation. Okino has a very long history of wishing to get a clean data conversion pipeline out of Microstation. In the mid-90's the export file formats were quite limited (DGN, IGES, RIB) and our direct programmer-level experience showed that the exported IGES files were not compatible with the IGES file format rules (in particular, customer IGES files had self-intersecting trimming curves, overlapping trim loops, trim loops which crosssed the outer patch boundaries, etc).

Fortunately the robustness and number of the 3D geometry exporters in Microstation has matured greatly over a period of 9 years. There are now multiple 3D file formats which can be used to convert Microstation data to other file formats (sorted by our current personal preference of best formats to use with Microstation data exports):

• STEP AP203 & AP214
• ACIS SAT
• Parasolid v13 and newer
• VRML 2.0 (including animation support)
• AutoCAD DWG and DXF
• IGES, "Export Surface Only"
• VRML 1.0

For as much as the DGN is the native external file format of Microstation, the best file formats to export data from Microstation in the past, in our long experience, were definitely ACIS SAT and VRML. Even so, all of the file formats in the list above are supported by the Okino importers. Microstation is built upon the 'Parasolid' solids modeling toolkit; as such, it is always better to export in a "solids based" file format (such as Parasolid .x_t, ACIS .sat or STEP) than the DGN format.

Our latest experience with testing all the various formats listed above with customer data has shown that STEP, then ACIS SAT, then Parasolid files exported from Microstation and imported into Okino software via the corresponding Granite/Pack importers work best. The bottleneck in the conversion pipeline, as has been the case for many years, is the Microstation exporters, and the manner in which they partially or fully export their 3D scene data.

XGL and ZGL files can also be used if they are first created in JSpace MicroStation CAD Connection in MicroStation TriForma v8 or newer.

Pro/DESKTOP is a solids modeler from PTC Corp. A free version, Pro/DESKTOP Express, is also available for download from their WEB site.

Native Pro/DESKTOP files can be imported into Okino software via the Pro/DESKTOP importer provided in the Okino CAD/Pack add-on license.

Okino has a long history of supporting and selling to Pro/Engineer users, and for moving Pro/Engineer data files into all major 3D file formats and animation packages. Okino licenses a real copy of the Pro/Engineer core software from PTC to perform the decryption and processing of the ProE data, and hence can guarantee perfect conversion results.

Suggestion: If your ProE assemblies are massive, then we recommend that you first "Shrink Wrap" them first inside ProE prior to export. In many cases this will significantly reduce the size and complexity of the exported model.

The best way to move visualization data out of Autodesk Revit is with the DWF-3D file format - you would "Publish DWF 3D" from the Revit "File" menu. Okino has one of the most extensive implementations of DWF-3D, allowing complete scenes, hierarchy, materials and textures to be conveyed from Revit through Okino conversion software.

As alternative, or secondary direct conversion formats, Okino has had one of the longest standing and robust DWG/DXF pipelines since 1992. DWG and DXF are 2 of the CAD file formats which can be exported from Revit.

If you wish to export BREP solids from Revit instead, then use the ACIS .sat file format. You would always want to use the Okino Spatial-ACIS importer to bring in .sat files.

Importing into Revit is by DXF/DWG, ACIS SAT and SketchUp file formats.

The defacto best way to transfer data from Solid Edge into Okino software is via the native Solid Edge importer written by Okino. This will import a mesh representation of a Solid Edge assembly (with hierarchy and material information) from either disk-based files, or from a live running copy of Solid Edge. In the former case, no local copy of Solid Edge will be required.

The second most recommended file format would be XGL.

Other formats exported from Solid Edge and supported by Okino CAD importers are IGES, JT, Parasolid, STEP and ACIS SAT. Our tests show that IGES, JT and XGL are the preferred secondary file formats to use. Individual parts can also be exported as STL.

Regardless of whether you own a copy of the SolidWorks application, the recommended method to import CAD data from SolidWorks .sldasm and .sldprt files is via the Okino native SolidWorks importer, available and supported since 1998. It is one of our top 3 requested CAD importers and will import from a live running copy of SolidWorks or from disk-based files when no local copy of SolidWorks is available.

Other formats exported from SolidWorks are ACIS SAT, IGES, Parasolid, Pro/Engineer, STL, STEP, VDA-FS, U3D and VRML-2. Our testing only allows us to recommend IGES, Pro/Engineer and STEP AP203 from this list.

Supported file formats from the Think3 product line are IGES, STEP, STL, VDA-FS and VRML.

Supported file formats from the Unigraphics product line are IGES, Parasolid, STEP, STL and VDA-FS. The Unigraphics NX file format is none other than Parasolid files in a thin wrapper, and hence the most straightforward method to import UG files to Okino software has always been via the Parasolid file format and our dedicated Parasolid importer. IGES works equally well, but Parasolid is a more logical choice.

Converting files from Okino software into VirTools can be done via the following Okino supported export file formats: .3ds, Collada, VirTools .nmo, VRML2 and DirectX. Our own direct experience has shown that VRML2 does a fine job in converting everything needed in a conversion process. NOTE: the .nmo export for Okino software is provided by a special exporter plug-in sold by Realicon GmbH.