CADEX Launches CAD Exchanger Cloud Beta

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1 CADEX Launches CAD Exchanger Cloud Beta Brief description Detailed description About CADEX Contacts Brief description February 12, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia CADEX to boost productivity of engineering teams by enabling convenient collaboration in the cloud. CAD Exchanger Cloud is a private or public service brought to accelerate the feedback loop and enhance communications on product designs. It allows to view 3D models, explore product structure, annotate designs, share 3D files with project members (even with those who do not have any CAD software installed), convert to a convenient file format for offline work. The service will be totally free during Beta, so we welcome early-birds to give it a try at The Challenge Detailed description Technologies are pressing forward and now we cannot imagine complex products being designed by a single person or a team. Many engineers from all over the world work together on mutual projects. Obviously, for effective work it s crucial to communicate with each other and share technical documentation, drafts and 3D files. If all participants of the project share the same employer, then most likely they have PLM system where the work is managed. However, if project members represent multiple organizations collaboration issues starts to pop up. How to provide third party with the access to project critical files while protecting own intellectual property? Who may have the access to those or other files? Which file formats should be in use? How to provide the feedback on designs?

2 In reality, 3D data, drafts, and technical documentation are handed out in an old-fashioned way via or public cloud stores. It rocks the boat, as recipient should have CAD system installed and ensure the interoperability, which is challenging without installation of additional, often expensive, software. Sometimes due to the incompatibility of CAD systems 3D models are subject to creation from scratch. The time losses may seem insignificant during small projects, but with the growing complexity of the product that operations can be very time-consuming, cause delays and eventually break the deadlines. To sum it up, sometimes a simple task of representing your 3D design (e.g. to get feedback), can be troublesome as: 1. Recipient must have CAD software installed; 2. CAD software must be compatible with the original one, where the file was created; These problems can be solved with the installation of additional CAD systems and converters or usage of neutral CAD file formats. However, each solution has its own pros and cons. Installation of a full-featured CAD system is like shooting squirrels with an elephant gun. Such software is noticeably expensive, requires a powerful hardware and has a steep learning curve. I doubt that such investments will be justified. Converters are much cheaper and simpler to use. However, licenses need annual maintenance (like for any desktop software) and often cannot be freely shared among employees. Again, such software also requires powerful hardware. Neutral data formats are supported by most of 3D viewers, however, the files may be corrupted or represented incorrectly due to specifics of the underlying geometric kernel. To sum up, current solutions are not convenient as: 1. They are not cost-effective 2. Have steep learning curve 3. Require powerful hardware 4. Licenses have to be maintained 5. Licenses cannot be freely shared among all team members The Solution We built CAD Exchanger Cloud to help engineering teams design products faster. Our public or private service allows to store, annotate, convert and share 3D CAD data in fast and user-friendly manner. Starting to work in CAD Exchanger Cloud is easy. Just sign-up and you can upload 3D CAD model, view it, convert to any available file format and selectively give an access to a certain circle of people, fine-tuning the access level for each participant. We focused on user-friendly interface to make our product suitable for both CAD veterans and those who had not had any CAD training at all.

3 3D Viewer Let s think of a designer, who needs feedback from a customer. Most probably customers product owner does not have any CAD software installed. In order for him to view a product s 3D file he has to involve colleagues with appropriate software and the simplest goal of providing a feedback becomes challenging. The feedback loop stretches and eventually, the deadlines are broken. The easiest way to solve this problem is to provide the customer with a familiar tool to view the 3D model, such as regular internet browser. At the time of writing this press release, CAD Exchanger Cloud supports STEP, IGES, ACIS, Parasolid, JT, Rhino, STL, Obj, X3D and VRML most frequently used formats in mechanical engineering. More formats to come. The maximum size of file during beta program is 50MB. File sharing We created CAD Exchanger Cloud to simplify data exchange. Sharing 3D CAD is a vital workflow of our product. We tried to carefully design this functionality and identified two key use cases: private and public file sharing. Private Authors may share 3D files with specific team members, while fine-tuning permissions for each particular user. By default, an access is given for file viewing only, optionally you can allow downloading, annotating and redistribution. Author can always manage an access list and change the status and provided permissions.

4 Public For some cases privacy is not a requirement. If you are a freelancer, building your portfolio, it is important to showcase your designs to the widest possible audience. Public access option suits this perfectly. While sharing publicly you receive regular URL, which can be sent via familiar messenger or posted on your Facebook page. Anyone who has the URL can view certain 3D model. The author may set a password for additional security. Annotations Annotations in CAD Exchanger Cloud are brought to facilitate interaction between project team members. Let s think of the designer and customer s manager. The most obvious and organic way to provide the feedback is to leave a note right in 3D model next to the place where the edition is needed. This way of communication reduces the risk of misunderstanding and allows to represent your ideas in the most straightforward and user-friendly way. When user adds a note, the system will keep track of camera position, so adding a few notes will create a mini-tour, suitable for showcasing your design to a customer. Security During the conversation with our prospective users the data security question had number one priority. Intellectual property is a key asset and therefore data leakage can lead to negative consequences. It s worth saying that several thousand cybersecurity experts are on a duty to protect your online data daily and nightly. We deployed our service on Microsoft Azure infrastructure, which is managed by our technology partner - Microsoft Corporation, who provides state of the art security for modern web applications. However. sometimes, businesses are forced not to use any online services or upload data to the public environment due to strict privacy policies. For such cases, we provide private version (deployable on clients owned servers), suitable for in-house usage. The architecture of our solution is cross-platform and can be deployed in any environment. (Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and or custom hardware).

5 For developers We started to receive requests CAD Exchanger Cloud API even before the release of the Beta version. The software world is moving online, so regular SDK s (Software Development Kits) are sometimes not the best choice for developing such applications. Fast and light-weight web APIs suit better, as they allow to build applications faster with fewer efforts. In the nearest future, CAD Exchanger Cloud will be also available as API, allowing to import, convert and export 3D CAD data within customers applications. About CADEX CADEX Ltd. Is a Russia-based start-up, developing CAD Exchanger product suite. At this moment there are Windows, MacOS, Linux applications available, as well as mobile app for Android. CAD Exchanger is also available as SDK for software developers, aiming to build their own engineering applications. CAD Exchanger is used by more than 6000 engineers from 55+ countries monthly. Customers include Altium, General Electric, JVC, Fujitsu, OMRON, NOKIA, Stanley Black&Decker, SENER and more. Contacts To test the service please Sign-Up by pressing the button below. For more information please refer to Ramil.Gasanov@cadexchanger.com.