Adobe Acrobat 3D

Why Acrobat 3D

• Top reasons for engineering
• Top reasons for IT professionals
• Top reasons for business users

Top reasons for engineering

Convert virtually any CAD file to a 3D PDF file

Convert 3D designs from CAD applications such as CATIA V4 and V5, UGS NX, I-DEAS, JT SolidWorks, Pro/ENGINEER, Autodesk Inventor, and many others to rich, interactive Adobe® 3D PDF documents to empower customers, suppliers, and co-workers to easily review, mark up, and interrogate designs.

Easily create 3D PDF documents from OpenGL applications

Instantly capture your CAD designs in Adobe 3D PDF with one-button ease from OpenGL-based applications on Microsoft® Windows® and UNIX® systems.

Produce highly compressed, easy-to-share 3D PDF files

Create highly compressed and more secure Adobe 3D PDF files that can be up to 150 times smaller than the native CAD files, making it easier to share designs through e-mail.

Reduce the need to create 2D drawings by sharing PMI

Easily distribute 3D designs containing product manufacturing information (PMI) such as dimensions, tolerances, and annotations to your extended manufacturing teams, enabling them to access PMI in 3D PDF files directly on the geometry and from the assembly tree.

Enable 3D interrogation and collaboration tools in Adobe Reader

Let your extended team fully participate in e-mail– or web-based reviews of PDF documents. The collaboration tools in Adobe Reader® software enable them to mark up, add callouts to, rotate, zoom, measure, and interact with 3D assemblies and individual parts, as well as save new 3D views, cut cross-sections, and view internal structures and assembly relationships without the need for CAD applications or CAD viewers.

Share CAD data and other critical project documents in a single PDF file

Quickly create a single Adobe 3D PDF document package from multiple source files, including spreadsheets, Microsoft Office documents, e-mails, 2D CAD drawings, and 3D designs. Use the de facto PDF standard for more reliable electronic information exchange as the foundation of your process for releasing data to your customers and suppliers.

Export to neutral file formats for downstream manufacturing processes

Use Adobe Acrobat® 3D to convert virtually any CAD format to a neutral file format such as STEP or IGES that can be used in CAD, CAM, and CAE applications for downstream processes.

Retain control of your native CAD files and protect your sensitive information

Share 3D PDF files instead of native CAD files. Apply advanced document controls and security features that enable you to protect your proprietary information. Use password protection to restrict access to documents or assign permissions to help control who can print, save, copy, or modify documents.

Insert 3D CAD designs into Microsoft Office documents and convert them to PDF

Easily insert 3D CAD designs into existing and new Microsoft Office documents, including Word and PowerPoint files, and convert them to PDF for easy distribution.

Repurpose CAD design data to create richer documentation

Use the Acrobat 3D Toolkit to quickly clean up CAD designs; add and modify lighting, materials, textures, or colors; create exploded views and animations; and then save the designs as 3D objects or 2D raster/vector images for use in interactive marketing collateral or technical manuals.

Take advantage of all the features of Acrobat 8 Professional

Reliably create, combine, and control PDF documents for easy, more secure distribution, collaboration, and data collection.

Top reasons for IT professionals

Reduce risk and cost by using an open, industry-standard format

Eliminate the need to manage different visualization file formats. Adobe PDF adheres strictly to industry standards such as PDF/A for archiving, PDF/X for publishing, and PDF/E for engineering and enables you to maintain better control of your data. Learn more

Customize and deploy Acrobat 3D and Adobe Reader across the enterprise

Use the free Adobe Customization Wizard 8 to take greater control of enterprise-wide deployments of Adobe Acrobat 8 and free Adobe Reader 8. By supporting multiple tasks with well-known tools, IT organizations can dramatically reduce their cost of implementation, training, and maintenance. Learn more

Protect information inside and outside the firewall

Increase control of sensitive information, contracts, and electronic documentation across the extended enterprise. Leverage existing identity management systems and use 128-bit encryption and permissions to restrict who can print, save, copy, or modify a document, improving document security and adhering to your company's security standards.

Rights-protect business-critical information at the document level

Combine Acrobat 3D with Adobe LiveCycle® Rights Management software to help maintain persistent protection and dynamic control over business-critical information while collaborating with suppliers and other supply-chain partners electronically.

Improve people effectiveness while reducing training cost

Let engineers work with their CAD system of choice and share 3D designs in 3D PDF with users of Adobe Reader, enabling them to view, manipulate, analyze, mark up, and comment on the designs without expensive, proprietary CAD applications or CAD viewers.

Leverage your existing investment in Acrobat and PDF

Reduce training, implementation, and maintenance costs. Build your engineering processes and workflows on the same trusted technology the rest of your company already uses to share data and information.

Increase operational efficiency

The Acrobat 3D platform also increases operational efficiency. Just as users save time by using common desktop productivity tools such as Microsoft Office, they will be more successful with common processes and workflows built on the ubiquitous Acrobat platform and PDF.

Eliminate the need to buy or deploy expensive CAD translators

Acrobat 3D helps you reduce the cost of managing incompatible CAD files by providing import and export features that virtually eliminate the need to manually translate or re-create CAD data or invest in costly CAD translators.

Streamline data collection with Adobe PDF forms

Collect data from employees, vendors, and suppliers using forms that can plug into back-end database systems. Automatically locate form fields in static Adobe PDF documents and convert them to interactive fields.

Communicate with confidence

Use one of the world's most trusted technologies, currently in use by more than a half billion people, to enable your valuable engineering information to be available well into the future. Also import all the major CAD formats and export STEP and IGES data.

Enjoy cross-platform support

Adobe PDF enables partners, customers, and suppliers to view, print, and interact with Adobe PDF documents on virtually any platform — including Mac OS X, Windows, UNIX®, Linux®, and many mobile systems.

Take advantage of support and maintenance programs

Adobe technical support plan offerings are designed to help you get the answers you need, when you need them. Learn more

Leverage Adobe Professional Services

Adobe Professional Services offers a full set of consulting, education, and support services for each phase of an IT deployment, from assessment and implementation to upgrade planning and user training. Learn more

Top reasons for business users

Reduce risk and cost by using an open, industry-standard format

Eliminate the need to manage different visualization file formats. Adobe PDF is a highly flexible, open standard that enables more secure visualization, collaboration, CAD data interoperability, and data publishing across the entire product lifecycle.

Accelerate design communication and collaboration processes

Improve efficiency, accelerate design changes and cycle times, and reduce time to market by using common tools that are already well known and trusted by virtually everyone in your enterprise.

Streamline sourcing, procurement, and supply chain communication

With Acrobat 3D, users in sourcing, procurement, and supply chain processes can instantly and easily share product information with the rest of your organization.

Improve people effectiveness while reducing training cost

Let engineers work with their CAD system of choice and share 3D designs in 3D PDF with users of Adobe Reader, enabling them to view, manipulate, analyze, mark up, and comment on the designs without expensive, proprietary CAD applications or CAD viewers.

Protect information inside and outside the firewall

Protect your 3D design data and other proprietary information. With Acrobat 3D, you can apply passwords to restrict access to documents; assign permissions to help control who can print, save, copy, or modify documents; delete any unwanted document metadata; and require digital signatures to certify document authenticity.

Reduce CAD data interoperability issues and cost

Reduce the cost of managing incompatible CAD files by providing import and export features that virtually eliminate the need to manually translate or re-create CAD data or purchase expensive CAD translators.

Leverage your existing investment in Acrobat and PDF

Protect your investment in Acrobat software and PDF files and extend it to new classes of users who could not previously use your 3D CAD data, but already know and trust Adobe tools.

Maximize the use of 3D CAD data throughout the product lifecycle

Dramatically increase and expand the value of your 3D product data assets by enabling more users in new processes to access and leverage these assets using the Adobe PDF forms they already use and trust.

Meet compliance and regulatory issues

PDF is already broadly used to manage and share documentation related to compliance and regulatory requirements, including control data and audit data. With Acrobat 3D, you can save time and increase efficiency by sharing more types of information more easily in compliance workflows.