{"id":1265,"date":"2017-06-30T08:00:55","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T15:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/eagle\/blog\/?p=1265"},"modified":"2022-11-14T10:52:32","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T18:52:32","slug":"complete-history-failed-ecad-mcad-exchange-file-formats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/complete-history-failed-ecad-mcad-exchange-file-formats\/","title":{"rendered":"The Complete History of Failed ECAD-MCAD Exchange File Formats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do you ever feel like today\u2019s engineering is stuck in the past? <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like we\u2019re all living in an age where engineers still work on assembly lines, but instead of a real factory, we\u2019re making the same motions at our desks? <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"ecadmcad-exchange-file-formats\">ECAD-MCAD Exchange File Formats<\/h2>\n\n\n<p>This, my friends, is the bane of every engineer\u2019s existence. You spend hours working on your design, hours perfecting each trace and place of a component. And then what do you do? You select the File \u00bb Export button, wrap that multi-layered board of complexity into a tiny little black box, and probably email it to your mechanical designer. And then maybe you retrieve a black box from your MCAD guy, and so the process continues. It\u2019s like we\u2019re all playing musical chairs, but with design data instead of people. Are we just forever stuck with this process? Maybe we need an even better file format to save us? Let\u2019s see what history can teach us.<\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"from-the-beginning-iges\">From the Beginning &#8211; IGES<\/h2>\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/IGES\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGES)<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a file format published in 1980 by the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nist.gov\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">U.S. National Bureau of Standards<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. At the time, digital CAD software was just coming of age, and the world needed a way to exchange data across a variety of engineering disciplines. IGES was the answer.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This file format allowed the complexity of a design to get wrapped up in a container (black box) and stored in one of two file&nbsp;formats, either as a fixed-length ASCII file which could store information in 80-character records or a compressed ASCII format.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For its time, IGES solved a problem that had no solution. How were engineers across multiple disciplines going to share their digital data when every CAD system was locked behind a <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">proprietary file format<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">? Use IGES. But today, the file format isn\u2019t in the best of shape that it once was, and suffers from some serious problems as it continues its slowly descend into the grave, including:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><b>It\u2019s really old<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The last official update for IGES was in 1996. That makes this file format now 20 years old. And yet even today a lot of manufacturers are receiving this file format from engineers designing modern products. <\/span><\/li><li><b>It\u2019s limited<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Unlike other model-based file formats, IGES can\u2019t provide any intelligent connection between 2D drawings and 3D models. This makes it a pain when you need to hand off your design files, leaving the receiver with no idea about which footprint connects with which 3D model.<\/span><\/li><li><b>It\u2019s broken<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. IGES files only provide models for surfaces without any rich property information like weight, volume, surface area, centroids, etc.; let alone any meta or parametric information. Plus, it&#8217;s common to get IGES files where the 3D surface models need to be repaired, or even completely remodeled.<\/span><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"failed-ecadmcad-exchange-file-formats-a-step-in-the-right-direction\">Failed ECAD-MCAD Exchange File Formats &#8211; A STEP in the Right Direction <\/h2>\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">IGES wasn\u2019t getting the job done. And so a new standard was born with the goal to create a file that covers all aspects of a product\u2019s creation from conception to completion. This file type would include things like geometries, tolerances, materials, and a whole lot more for a variety of engineering specialties. To make this happen, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/ISO_10303\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ISO 10303<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was created, known as STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First developed in 1984, STEP allows data to be exchanged between a variety of CAD systems and provides a rich source of product data from a number of engineering disciplines. For example, you as an electronics designer <\/span>wrap up your PCB layout in a STEP file, send it off to your MCAD engineer,<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and allow them to do some useful things like:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Check for interference between the PCB and mechanical enclosure.<\/span><\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Run a detailed thermal analysis to identify any heat issues with components and copper.<\/span><\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Created detailed models of your finished board layout and all components. <\/span><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>STEP sounds amazing, doesn\u2019t it? But the problem lies in its size. Unlike other exchange file formats which rely on the process of cutting down data, STEP instead includes it all! This usually makes for a massive file size that can be a pain to quickly exchange back and forth between electrical and mechanical design teams. Each time the file is exchanged the models are created again and again, as everything in the STEP file is self-contained and not referenced to a centralized library. Because of its large size and difficult processes, you\u2019ll commonly see STEP files being used for design review and final validations, instead of serving as the bread and butter of daily engineering collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"making-friends-with-autocad-dxf\">Making Friends with AutoCAD &#8211; DXF<\/h2>\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 1980s were a heck of a time for the introduction of file formats. In the same span of time as STEP and IGES we also saw the<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/images.autodesk.com\/adsk\/files\/autocad_2012_pdf_dxf-reference_enu.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Drawing Exchange Format<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (DXF) arrive in December of 1982 as part of AutoCAD 1.0. But why the need for yet another file format? Different companies and industries rely on a variety of CAD programs, each with its own file formats. But you still needed a way to share design data between AutoCAD and other CAD systems without relying on AutoCAD\u2019s native DWG file format.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Compared with STEP files, the size of DXF files is<\/span> small considering the kind of data packed<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in. Back in the day, you could bring together a complete circuit board or landscape design with dozens of layers into a compressed file that was no bigger than 10MB. These days though, DXF is having trouble keeping up with the pace of change.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As AutoCAD becomes more complex and powerful, the DXF file type is struggling to support the new object types being added. A large part of this has to do with complete documentation for new object types as they\u2019re added, which in turn affects how easily another software developer can support those objects in another CAD program. And if you load a DXF file into your CAD program of choice and some objects aren\u2019t supported, then you\u2019ll wind up with data that gets lost in translation.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"built-for-collaboration-idf\">Built for Collaboration &#8211; IDF<\/h2>\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If there\u2019s one file type out there that was born for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/solutions\/ecad-and-mcad-software\">ECAD-MCAD collaboration<\/a>, it\u2019s the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.simplifiedsolutionsinc.com\/images\/idf_v30_spec.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Intermediate Data Format<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (IDF). This file type was developed in the early 1990s with the idea to create a text-based file that would allow data to be easily exchanged between electrical and mechanical CAD programs.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With IDF, you can quickly send over your design data to a mechanical designer, who can then extract your footprint data to make some simple 3D models. But that simplicity is also IDF\u2019s downfall. All you\u2019ll get is basic block models for all of your components without any of the rich details that show what those parts will look like in reality.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are currently three versions available for the IDF format, these include:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><b>IDF 2.0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This version is a simple text-based format that doesn\u2019t include any support for keep-outs, keep-ins, and outline object types.<\/span><\/li><li><b>IDF 3.0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This version is just like IDF 2.0 and offers a simple text-based format to exchange data with the addition of keep-outs, keep-ins, and outline objects.<\/span><\/li><li><b>IDF 4.0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This version was released in 1998 and did away with many of the limitations of IDF 3.0 by offering an XML file structure and support for new entity types. Despite all of the new functionality, the change was just too drastic for manufacturers and support has never caught on for IDF 4.0.<\/span><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These days, IDF 2.0 and 3.0 are the most popular versions of the IDF file format. But whatever version you use, you\u2019ll encounter some similar limitations. The first is that each IDF file includes two files that you\u2019ll need to manage. The first file contains all of the information necessary to model the&nbsp;board, including where holes and cutouts go, and the positioning of components. You then need a second file that describes the actual shape of the components. Put all of this together, and you now have two individual files to manage at any given time, and that just increases the chance for versions to get mixed up.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s also no unified method of naming file suffixes between CAD programs for IDF 2.0 and 3.0. In some programs, you&#8217;ll find <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.emn<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for the board file and <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.emp<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for the library file. In others,<\/span> you might see a .brd\/.rpo combo<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.brd\/.lib<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. What a headache that is trying to keep track of all those variations!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"i-thought-this-was-about-failed-ecadmcad-exchange-file-formats\">I Thought This Was About Failed ECAD-MCAD Exchange File Formats?<\/h2>\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Aha, right you are! And this is where we need to have a talk. Do you notice any kind of pattern in the file formats above? Most of them were made in the 80s. Let that sink in. We still depend on collaboration technologies that are over 30 years old. Not only that, we\u2019re relying on collaboration methods that are over three decades old to design today\u2019s rocketships, pacemakers, satellites, life-saving devices the list can go on.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The real question that you need to ask is this process of importing and exporting design data back and forth doing us any good. Because when you really boil it down, what we\u2019ve created here is an assembly line method of working with our fellow engineers. We\u2019re not connected together, working on complete products. We&#8217;re just working on our own little parts, and then passing our design down the line, potentially never to see it again. \u00a0Saying the whole time, \u201cThat is someone else\u2019s problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Right here, this method of collaborating and communicating by relying on the exchange of files and emails is the kind of engineering made from the Industrial Revolution. But now it&#8217;s time for an Engineering Revolution! So let me leave you with a few questions to think about:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What does the future of engineering look like if you don\u2019t need to rely on the exchange of file formats?<\/span><\/li><li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What if there was some kind of the single point of data that could address the needs of every engineering design domain, without having to import\/export a file?<\/span><\/li><li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And more importantly, if we didn&#8217;t have to throw dumb black boxes around, what would that do to our engineering processes as a whole?<\/span><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dm-consumer-products-photo-iterate-uk-9146-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"ecad-mcad-fusion-360-autodesk\" class=\"wp-image-35828\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dm-consumer-products-photo-iterate-uk-9146-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dm-consumer-products-photo-iterate-uk-9146-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dm-consumer-products-photo-iterate-uk-9146-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dm-consumer-products-photo-iterate-uk-9146-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dm-consumer-products-photo-iterate-uk-9146.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"your-ticket-to-freedom\">Your Ticket to Freedom<\/h2>\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This might sound a little crazy, but the world doesn\u2019t need another exchange file format. Because no matter how much more data we include when we hit that import button, we\u2019re still not getting to the root of the problem. We\u2019re still focusing on designing and engineering in silos instead of working together on complete products. That\u2019s the real problem, and we need to fix.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here at Autodesk, we believe in the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/future-of-making-things\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Future of Making Things<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that aren&#8217;t bound by black boxes of data. Look around you, and you\u2019ll see electrical and mechanical engineering starting to blend into one in things like <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/eagle\/blog\/future-electronics-mids\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">molded-interconnect designs<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (MID). How is another black box going to help us design these kinds of products that are almost entirely merged?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is why we see the current reliance on exchange file formats as a failure. They\u2019ve gotten us to where we are today, but they won&#8217;t get us to where we\u2019re going in the future. It\u2019s time to think differently&#8230;time to think out of the black box.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Want to be a part of the change? <\/span>Never second-guess your mechanical constraints and eliminate the headaches of old interchange file formats. Your PCB data is your mechanical data. Get started with Fusion 360 electronics today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/electronics-engineer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"766\" height=\"128\" src=\"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Download-free-trial.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31486\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Download-free-trial.jpg 766w, https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Download-free-trial-300x50.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 766px) 100vw, 766px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Still dumbing down your data to pass it down the line to the next guy? We all are. Learn about the complete history of failed ECAD-MCAD file formats, and what the future might hold. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3911,"featured_media":35828,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[359],"tags":[207],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-electronics-engineering","tag-electronics","dhig-theme--light"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>History of Failed ECAD-MCAD Exchange File Formats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn about the complete history of failed ECAD-MCAD exchange file formats including IGES, STEP, DXF, and IDF.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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IDF.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/complete-history-failed-ecad-mcad-exchange-file-formats\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"History of Failed ECAD-MCAD Exchange File Formats","og_description":"Learn about the complete history of failed ECAD-MCAD exchange file formats including IGES, STEP, DXF, and IDF.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/complete-history-failed-ecad-mcad-exchange-file-formats\/","og_site_name":"Fusion Blog","article_published_time":"2017-06-30T15:00:55+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-11-14T18:52:32+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1920,"height":1280,"url":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dm-consumer-products-photo-iterate-uk-9146.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Edwin Robledo","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Edwin Robledo","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/complete-history-failed-ecad-mcad-exchange-file-formats\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/complete-history-failed-ecad-mcad-exchange-file-formats\/"},"author":{"name":"Edwin Robledo","@id":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/81f7fc85212bfa6e804abcca6343e62a"},"headline":"The Complete History of Failed ECAD-MCAD Exchange File Formats","datePublished":"2017-06-30T15:00:55+00:00","dateModified":"2022-11-14T18:52:32+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/complete-history-failed-ecad-mcad-exchange-file-formats\/"},"wordCount":1943,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/complete-history-failed-ecad-mcad-exchange-file-formats\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dm-consumer-products-photo-iterate-uk-9146.jpg","keywords":["Electronics"],"articleSection":["Electronics Engineering"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/complete-history-failed-ecad-mcad-exchange-file-formats\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/complete-history-failed-ecad-mcad-exchange-file-formats\/","url":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/complete-history-failed-ecad-mcad-exchange-file-formats\/","name":"History of Failed ECAD-MCAD Exchange File 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