Approximately 23% of CAD professionals globally use SOLIDWORKS on daily basis. Together they generate tremendous volume of 3D files in native format, which are troublesome to feed into 3rd party major and minor CAD systems due to format specifics.
SOLIDWORKS files (previous to version 2015) use the Microsoft Structured Storage file format. This means that there are various files embedded within each SLDDRW (drawing files), SLDPRT (part files), SLDASM (assembly files) file, including preview bitmaps and metadata sub-files.
CAD Exchanger seamlessly reads SOLIDWORKS data (.sldprt and .sldasm extensions) and converts to the file format of your choice.
An IPT file extension is used for Autodesk Inventor objects.
Autodesk Inventor is a CAD application that engineers and product designers use to construct prototypes of mechanical products. These prototypes, referred to as assemblies, consist of several individual parts joined together. Each Inventor part is saved in an IPT file.
Inventor users can import IPT parts from outside the program or create their IPT parts using the Inventor's part design tools. Typically, users begin by creating a 2D drawing of a part before transforming that drawing into a 3D model. Thus, an IPT file may contain either a 2D or 3D object. Files in IPT format can be opened using Autodesk Inventor 2017, Autodesk Inventor View 2017, Autodesk Fusion 360, and SpaceClaim Engineer.
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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