Capvidia joins PDES Inc. to further extend its STEP interface implantation

Capvidia takes an active participation in the PDES Inc. to further extend its STEP interface implantation and contribute to a project aimed at Long Term Archival and Retrieval (LOTAR) of Digital Product and Technical Data lead by major aerospace companies (Boeing, Airbus, EADS).

Participation in PDES gives us an insight into industry directions and requirements for integrating with suppliers, strong customer relationships and participation in pilot projects with them, new business with leading companies and insight into industry requirements for product data exchange. Based on those inputs we can extend our products to include the latest industry standards.

PDES, Inc. is a member-supported consortium accelerating the development and implementation of standards ISO 10303, commonly known as STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product model data) to support model-based engineering, manufacturing and sustainment. STEP provides an unambiguous, computer sensible description of the physical and functional characteristics of a product throughout its life cycle.

Capvidia’s participation in PDES Inc. gives us an opportunity to stay up-to-date with the latest STEP development and extensions. Our intension is to provide those latest standards as part of our products for 3D CAD data translation, validation and quality assessment.

A common practice in today’s industry is to combine with 3D CAD model additional information such as e.g. PMI (product Manufacturing Information). This type of information has traditionally being transferred in form of 2D drawings. As many companies go away from 2D documentation a capability to save 2D information in neutral (widely readable) data format is increasing.

The PMI information can be now stored in STEP format using special STEP AP 203 E2 extensions for configuration controlled 3D designs of mechanical parts and assemblies. Major CAD vendors (Dassault Systems, Siemens, Pro/E) start to support the extended STEP AP 203 E2 format allowing more smooth and advanced CAD data interoperability. Capvidia is also implementing those emerging new standards in its CAD related products.