BricsCAD Communicator

Commands: COMMUNICATORINFO, EXPORT, IMPORT

BricsCAD Communicator is an optional plug-in for the Pro and Platinum editions of BricsCAD that imports and exports 3D data between major CAD formats. Its high quality translations facilitate the re-use of 3D CAD data, thereby improving productivity and reducing project costs.

Supported file formats

Export

• STE, STP, STEP: Standard for Exchange of Product data. The following export protocols can be specified: AP203, AP214, AP242.
  
  

• IGS, IGES: Initial Graphics Exchange Specification

• CATIA V4 and V5:

• VDA: VDA-FS

• 3D PDF

You can export BricsCAD assembly with mechanical components as a STEP file with product structure. To do that set the desired value in Settings dialog:

Import

• ACIS

• ASM, PRT: Creo Elements / Pro Engineer

• CATIA V4/V5/V6

• IAM, IPT: Inventor

• IGS, IGES: Initial Graphics Exchange Specification

• NX

• PARASOLID

• PAR, PSM: Solid Edge

• Pro/E/Creo

• PRT: NXSTE, STP, STEP: Standard for Exchange of Product data

• SLDASM, SLDPRT: Solidworks

• VDA: VDA-FS

• XCGM

When you import an assembly file, you can get its content as a plain geometry (a nonhierarchical set of entities) or map its product structure into native blocks or mechanical components.

PMI (product and manufacturing information) is supported for the following file formats: ACIS, CATIA V5, NX, Pro/E / Creo, SolidWorks, XCGM (Communicator license is required). PMI annotations are imported as graphical elements grouped in blocks.

If the assembly contains hidden parts, you can decide how to represent them in BricsCAD: import and hide, import and set visible, or just do not import.

The desired behavior can be changed in the Settings dialog:

You can also set other import options to automatically repair, stitch and simplify imported geometry. If you import a 3D model from SolidWorks, it makes sense to set an option to map Y axis into Z (because in SolidWorks the vertical axis is Y).

For SolidWorks and other native CAD formats it is possible to specify alternate search path, which will be used to look for parts absent in the imported assembly folder.