Collada (COLLAborative Design Activity) is an interchange format for interactive 3D applications. Originally developed by Sony Computer Industry, now it is managed by the Khronos Group, a member-funded industry consortium, which now shares the copyright with Sony, Recently Collada has been well adopted by ISO as a publicly available specification, ISO/PAS 17506.
It is an XML-based schema that allows data exchange among 3D Digital Content Creation tools, such as SketchUp, Maya, 3ds Max, and Rhino. COLLADA files have the *.dae file extension, which stands for digital asset exchange.
Navisworks is a native file of Navisworks® project review software by Autodesk.
Navisworks files come in three formats: NWD, NWF, and NWC. An NWD is a single file that contains all model geometry, environment, viewpoints, and review markups. An NWF file is a list of links to the original files. It doesn't keep model geometry and, to be opened, requires access to the original CAD files. An NWC is a cache file created from any native CAD or laser scan files, when opened in Navisworks.
A CAD file is an output of a CAD software, containing key information about the designed object: its geometry and topology representation, 3D model hierarchy, metadata, and visual attributes depending on the format of the file.
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