Ram wrote: I am curious about a couple of points you made here: 1. In a hybrid CAD environment, does the non-availability of PDM integration risk continued use of KeyCreator within that organization? We are aligned with a couple of partners on PDM integration - so your feedback will help. 2. You indicated that there is an issue with downstream consumption. I understand that your use of STEP and PDF are necessary for the document management system. A. I am curious as to what the "deliverable" is in your case? A 2D drawing? A 3D model? or a combination of both? B. Assuming 2 drawing is one of the deliverables, why PDF and not DWG/DXF which is a more universal than native CAD drawing formats? C. From a document archival standpoint, isn't it better to archive in a format that future consumers can continue to rely on? (rather than be tied to a specific CAD system's availability to read those files?)
Dana wrote: 1. Yes, we're currently using SmarTeam (which is a Dassault product, one reason for the push to switch to Solidworks. SmarTeam has "OK" integration with Inventor, but none at all with KC, I had to write my own using Autoit scripts. 2A. I export a pdf drawing and a corresponding step file from KC and check them into SmarTeam. The overall KC model, with all the layouts, is also checked into SmarTeam just for backup, but only I can use it. B. DWG/DXF sucks, the drawings don't look right, dimensions get screwed up, etc. PDF is static, but it looks correct when printed. C. It would be better, but there really isn't any "standard" format for flat drawings that preserve all the information. 3D models translate pretty well, but properties and such get lost. The pdfs exported by KC aren't that great, they're essentially just raster images. A toolmaker can't query it to measure a missing dimension, for example, and (especially on larger drawings) they take a long time to load. Pdfs exported from other cad systems at least send the fonts over so people can clip copy information out of them.