Why Can't All Our CAD Files Just Get Along? (Cadalyst Daily Archive)

Latest Kubotek interoperability survey finds serious problems persist -- and users are bearing the brunt of it

How often do you have to rebuild models from scratch to complete a redesign? If you say, "Never," you are among the lucky few -- the 17% who have found a way to effectively reuse product data from colleagues and partners. p>

The rest of your CAD brethren aren't so lucky. When CAD/CAM solutions provider Kubotek polled 2,869 CAD users for its 2006 CAD Interoperability Survey released last month, 72% said they redraw designs from scratch with some frequency, and 11% said they always do.

Kubotek observes, "The data shows that 34% of all respondents rebuild 3D models from scratch at least half the time. ... One-third of the respondents in each vertical segment indicated that they had to rebuild 3D models from scratch at least half the time to complete a redesign, create a revision or derive a new part or tool because it could not be done effectively using the original 3D model data file." Read more >>

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MCAD: Digital Parts Catalog
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