Adobe Acrobat 3D Feature - What are your opinions?

Hi all,

Seems like almost every day another Document Content provider is gushing with excitement about how their software creates embedded 3D content in PDF format.

I had a couple of minutes to look at a recent "convert". One of the first things to catch my attention was the huge size increase of the PDF file.

On average, the file size between the native application and the embedded 3D PDF was 10-20 times larger.

My question is do you see a practical application of this type of format and is the file size worth the hit?

Is anyone actually using it now - do you forsee using it in the future? Why would you want to use it?

Maybe I'm just being dense but I don't what the big deal is ...

Looking for enlightenment without the 3rd degree burns.......

Len

"If sense is so common...... why is it in such short supply?"

We use PDFs to freeze a drawing at a moment in time as a revision and use the Solidworks model and drawing as a dynamically changing environment for product improvement. I never expect the Solidworks drawing to stay still for long, so 2D pdfs work well for us both for design and for production. I haven't tried to use the 3D pdf, but it could be used to freeze a model of a part or assembly in time for future reference. Then again edrawings pretty much do the same thing.

A long time ago (around 1990) I proposed to Xerox that they could embed

3D objects in their Viewpoint documents for tech pubs. The reader could rotate it and so on and get a better visual perception of an assembly process. It sounded great at the time, but Xerox was just too self centered to see the greater good, although there was some interest from their customers (mostly military contractors). Nowadays you can embed video, edrawings, whatever, in a web page and get the same thing. Where I work we just use screen tiffs of the model for ATPs and that works just fine for production. No need for dynamic 3D integration.

So 3D pdfs? Meh. Just because they CAN do it, doesn't mean they SHOULD do it.

bp DVC Co.

snipped-for-privacy@edatasoluti> Hi all,