DesignCAD 3D MAX v.21 review

[jonnie]

Hi John

"if Design cad 3D is 100% compatible with AutoCAD in particular solids"

In general the answer will be that 100% is not achievable between any two CADCAM systems which use complex geometries ( ie more than simple analytics like planes, cylinders and so on ).

The reason is complex I will try and explain if asked but the upshot is that if you are using anything more complex than simple geometry then the model you see before you is as much a product of the software as it is by the data that defines when you save it out to file. The raw data is not enough to define the model.

If you import to a different package you are not merely converting data, you are asking the software to translate as the existing 3D data untreated may not hang together in the second modeller.

A simple example - one modeller uses a linear resolution of 1.0e-08 defined over a 1000 box ( no units here ) another modeller works to 1.0e-05. That means that a "rip" between two faces which is at its widest point 1.0e-06 will appear as an unitentional slash or "hole" in one modeller but will be safely within tolerance bounds in another. To fix up one modeller will have to try and repair a slash or hole between two faces and this may fail - the other modeller has no such task to complete because it works at a difference tolerance and to within the higher tolerance the faces meet so there is no hole or slash.

Once you go past facetted ( mesh, triangular ) models or simple analytics then import/export starts to incurr a reliability penalty hence the various software vendors who sell translators - these are not mere converters, they have to repair and replace geometries and topologies to get a model from one system to work in another.

I have not used Design CAD 3D so I cannot tell you if it can import AutoCad solids say 95% but 100% is doubtful between any two packages that do not share the same base code under the hood so to speak.

This is probably more detail than you wanted I just thought some users might profit from understanding that 3D models cannot in general be trivially moved from one bit of software to another in the way that we expect graphics files to move from one drawing package to another.

Jon