×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Save-As 3D PDF

Save-As 3D PDF

Save-As 3D PDF

(OP)
When you save-as a 3D PDF are your file sizes quite large?  I have a modest assembly that becomes a 10 Meg PDF.  Are files created in Adobe a reasonable size?  We are looking to buy it and would like to know if the files are this (too) big.

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

my advice, download the trial version... I believe you can play with settings (similar to image quality) and reduce the size.

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

(OP)
I tried that... what a nightmare.  I could not get it to work, it would crash, uninstall/reinstall, crash again etc.  I tried to get support but they will not support trial versions.  So they won't help me make it work so that I could give them $700, go figure.  In all it was an aggravating experience.

I was hoping some who uses it could give me an idea.  The eDrawing of the above assembly is 700K.

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

I think the purchased version comes witha compression utility that makes the files less than half the size. I don't think the trial version has this.

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 06/08
ctopher's home (updated Apr 30, 2008)

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

That's a big risk, considering how well eDrawing works without paying any extra for it.

Anyway, this is something I've been interested in seeing myself, but the fact that the cost is so high and that it comes from Adobe are both strikes against it.  Chris, have you seen a decent 3D PDF file yet?  I've not even seen one.  Their demo certainly ought to contain the file compressor, or they're not advertising for themselves very well.

 

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
What did you dream?  It's all right--we told you what to dream.
    --Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

(OP)
We deal with the government and it takes around a decade to get new software installed, so eDrawings is not an option for us right now.  Also, most others have acrobat so I don't have to send them to a website to download the program, they just open it.  With some that's the best we can ask for.  That's why PDF is attractive for us.

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

Jeff,
No, I have not. I don't know anyone that is willing to pay the price yet. It has nice features, but not for the price.

suelflow,
Why can't you use eDrawings? I worked on numerous military projects and eDrawings was acceptable with some of them. None of them ever asked for 3D PDF. They usually require iges or a parasolid, or sometimes the SW file.

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 06/08
ctopher's home (updated Apr 30, 2008)

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

I reviewed Acrobat 3D some months ago. You can view it here: http://designsmarter.typepad.com/jeffs_blog/2007/05/acrobat_3d_gett.html

Also, Josh Mings over at SolidSmack.com did a review of it: http://www.solidsmack.com/acrobat-3d-your-pdf-on-crack/2007-11-01/

I did find that file sizes grew, but I do believe it's controllable, I just can't remember how anymore. It's been too long since I tried it.  

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP, Certified DriveWorks AE
http://designsmarter.typepad.com/jeffs_blog
Dell M90, Core2 Duo, 4GB RAM, Nvidia 3500M

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

I wish Acrobat Pro came with 3D PDF.

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 06/08
ctopher's home (updated Apr 30, 2008)

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

Jeff, it sounds like it's rather irrelevant to you.  How come?  Are you preferring eDrawings to 3D PDF?

I'm sorry to hear about the limits of the government gig.  Thanks for the reminder of why I don't deal with them.  (Seriously, I don't envy you being in such a position.)

It's probably obvious I'm a HUGE fan of eDrawings (and not a huge fan of government practices).  It perfectly accomplishes what it attempts to accomplish, and this makes collaboration with fellow design team mates or clients or vendors SO much simpler and descriptive than it used to be--in a small file format.

 

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
What did you dream?  It's all right--we told you what to dream.
    --Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

CorBlimeyLimey, that looks cool.  Unfortunately, it's got about a ten year waiting period for government adoption.  winky smile

Suelflow, is there a possibility you could export/save the eDrawing to HTML format?  This way, it could be viewed in Explorer (but I don't think it quite works in non-Explorer browsers--ug).

 

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
What did you dream?  It's all right--we told you what to dream.
    --Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

Jeff's idea to save an eDrawing as a HTML sounds good, we do that with customers who don't have SWX and it works well.

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

An eDrawing can also be saved as a self-executable file. The recipient doesn't need to have SW or eDrawing.

Although an HTML file is usually much smaller, unless it or the browser (?) is configured properly, the file can only be viewed in IE.

cheers

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

Yeah, I think it requires ActiveX or some such nonsense to run (which I do NOT patch into Firefox [check out NoScript extension]).  The executable file would be good too, although I doubt the firewall would like that--perhaps send it Zipped?

 

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
What did you dream?  It's all right--we told you what to dream.
    --Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

... or just change/remove the extension before sending ... and have the receiver change/add it back.

cheers

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

Same here about a year ago I couldn't get the trial version working. Adobe's tech support was no help as it was a trial version.  I didn't want to ask my boss to buy software that I wasn't sure was going to work.

I liked it for the reason a customer wouldn't have to install any different software they just needed the most upto date version of acrobat reader.  Edrawings has been fine though haven't had a customer say "our IT person wont let us install edrawings".

Just my 2 cents.

Grant
Applications Engineer
SW2008 X64 SP 0.0
Dell Precision T5400
Nvidia Quadro FX 3
P4 3.4 GHz, 4GB RAM
XP Pro X64 SP2.0
 

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

(OP)
I too like the idea of no new software.  Like I said, the government takes forever to upgrade.  We have to save word documents in 97 format so they can read them.

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

I too, had problems with the trial version of Acrobat 3D. There are some updates that needed to be installed, and then it seemed to work OK. The updates are available here: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=112&platform=Windows

I went ahead and bought it, for a couple of reasons: First, the difference in file size between a 3D pdf created in SolidWorks vs. a 3D pdf created in Acrobat (BIG difference). Second - a lot of my files go to our aero guy, who doesn't have the hottest computer available, and my eDrawings of some larger assemblies was stalling his machine. Also, it seemed more times than not, an eDrawing file I'd send to someone was a newer version that the viewer they had installed for the last time I'd sent them anything....

Just my $.02

RE: Save-As 3D PDF

Another package to check out is Document3D. http://www.quadrispace.com/index.htm
They offer a 30 day fully functional trial. I find it a lot easier than acrobat 3d. File size grows as you add textures/materials or exploded views, but there are some functions to decrease size/reduce polygon counts, but as you can guess image quality  is also reduced. I am using this tool to communicate with salespeople, as more of a presentation purpose. The sales reps are not always real computer savy. The salespeople and clients like the 3d pdf, and without having to install any e-drawing viewers. They only need the free acrobat reader v.7 or higher.
I think 3d pdf's are great for non-tech people and for small assemblies or parts. We design POP displays, usually our assemblies are around 100-200 parts. I revert to 2d pdf's with drawings/renderings for larger assemblies.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources