I have created a 3D PDF sample using some of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) test parts. To give a little background, NIST recently conducted their 2017 MBE PMI validation and conformance test for CAD vendors. NIST has created a "test system to measure the conformance of computer aided design software to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers standards for product manufacturing information (PMI), specifically geometric dimensioning and tolerancing" [1]. The test system includes a set of 11 models specifically designed to test the limits of Model based definition software. The test cases are designed to determine whether or not the CAD software correctly implements the PMI concepts of ASME Y 14.5-1994 and ASME Y 14.5-2003. Along with validating the implementation of standards, NIST’s key objective was to verify the semantic representation of PMI for downstream manufacturing purposes.

I personally was fortunate enough to manage and work very closely with the upcoming validation and conformance testing of SOLIDWORKS MBD 2017. I was in charge of upgrading the models and there product manufacturing information from SOLIDWORKS 2012 to SOLIDWORKS 2017. With all this being said, while we await the results I decided to assembly a few of the NIST test parts and create some 3D PDF’s using SOLIDWORKS MBD. One of my goals in assembling and publishing a PDF with the NIST assembly was to ultimately learn about 3D PDF’s but also test its capabilities while doing so. To test 3D PDF's I created a multi-configuration assembly with multiple display states, and exploded views. I even created a PDF for each individual part and conveniently attached them directly to the assembly. The full interactive 3D PDF is attached.

[1]lipman, Lubell, Hedberg, Feeney, Frechette,2017, “MBE PMI Validation and Conformance Testing Project.” From https://www.nist.gov/el/systems-integration-division-73400/mbe-pmi-validation-and-conformance-testing