Studies show that approximately 80% of design solutions in the automotive industry are variant designs or adaptations of existing solutions. The full potential for cost and development reduction inherent in variant designs cannot be implemented yet due to restrictions relating to data exchange. Fully modifiable designs, including parametric and feature information, cannot currently be exchanged across different CAx systems – neither in a standardized nor in a proprietary manner.

Some CAD vendors offer initial solutions for importing CAD models from systems of other vendors while at the same time retaining feature information (e.g. feature recognition in CATIA V5). But these solutions are unidirectional, and they are neither fully functional nor have they yet been standardized.

Several international standards relating to parametrics have recently been published. These are Part 55, 108, and 109 of the ISO 10303 (STEP) standard. The objective of the ProSTEP iViP project “Parametrical 3D Data Exchange via STEP” was therefore to overcome this limitation and enable the exchange of parametric CAD models in a standardized (STEP-based) manner. Members of this group were Audi, BorgWarner Turbo Systems, DaimlerChrysler, Delphi, University of Applied Sciences Augsburg, University of Applied Sciences St. Gallen, PTC, PROSTEP, Robert Bosch, Siemens VDO, UGS, Volkswagen, ZF Friedrichshafen et al.

The main results achieved in the “Parametrical 3D Data Exchange via STEP” project are discussed in the following. This includes a description of the relevant use cases, as well as the experience gained within the context of a comparative analysis. The aim of the analysis was to evaluate the feasibility of a STEP-based parametric data exchange between leading CAD systems.

More detailed information can be found in the final report of the “Parametrical 3D Data Exchange via STEP” project group, which is available in the download area of the ProSTEP iViP website (www.prostep.org).