In this industry where there are very few standards, Adobe has stepped
up to the plate and seen a market for standardisation. Adobe pretty much
did it single handedly in the document sector with Post Script. Perhaps PRC
in PDF could be the geometry equivalent. Adobe has also committed to licensing the PRC format, this could also lead to making it an open, documented standard. PRC could become an alternative to IGES and STEP, especially with its high-compression compact files.

Going back to the product, the mixture of two 3D formats may be confusing, but there are times when a faceted model will do but others when greater accuracy is required. When creating a 3D PDF, you are now faced with a dialogue that lets you set the accuracy and the detail of the model you want to create. For all 3D models, Acrobat creates a U3D faceted version which can be greatly optimised but the PRC component can go to much higher tolerances, enough to manufacture from. Obviously the more accuracy and greater detail, the larger the file, but even here, Acrobat 3D PDFs are a fraction the size of the original cad files.

Import

Getting the CAD data into Acrobat was always the issue and the company had to rely on licensed and purchased components. If Adobe didn't have an on the fly translator, then you could 'screen grab' the 3D OpenGL feed. When Adobe bought TTF last year, they got a first class CAD data translation firm and so now Acrobat 3D comes with translators for high-end CAD systems such as Pro/E and Catia. While dragging and dropping your models seems easy this really belies the amount of effort that Adobe has had to go to, to support all these CAD formats. The one notable exception in this release is Autodesk's Inventor. I believe support for this will be coming in an update or future release. The Open GL capture utility is still there and works on a variety of different applications.

When importing, you can choose to select/deselect solids, surfaces, wireframes, hidden objects and construction/ references. There's font options and assembly settings, as well as the file format for it to be stored within the PDF (B-rep Solid, B-rep and tessellated, just tessellated, U3D v3 or U3D v1. It's possible to select optimisation and any transforms here too. Adobe states that U3D was about 10% of the original file format. PRC's tessellations are 5% of the original file format and PRC B-Rep should be somewhere around 3% of the original file size (but within 0.01mm tolerance of the original).

One of the key new features is the inclusion of PMI (Product Manufacturing Information, such as tolerances) in the PDF display. These are now included in the conversion, making Acrobat 3D an interesting option for the shop floor - especially now it can work well with Catia, Pro/E and NX data. PMI data can be extracted and maintained from Catia V5, I-deas, NX, Pro/E and JT. So, over the last release, Acrobat doesn't just import geometry, it's actually capturing manufacturing information too.

One other thing to note is that Adobe has released an Extended version of Photoshop that allows you to import 3D into the program. You can edit textures and backgrounds, apply effects and filters to imported models. Great if you are using Photoshop as part of your technical documentation or marketing.

UI

Experienced users will find the Version 8 interface of Acrobat has been greatly enhanced. As the product launches, there are a number of options depending on the type of workflow you want to do, from creating a PDF and combining files to launching an over-the-web Adobe 'Connect' session. Connect is a new service-based feature which allows Desktops to shared for design reviews, with instant messaging, voice and interactivity. We'll have a look at this feature in more depth later in the year.