Samples · Tech pubs

CAD models your PDF reader can rotate

Every model below was exported by NativeCAD as a 3D PDF — an ISO 14739-1 (PRC) model embedded in an ordinary PDF page — from one zero-dependency pipeline: B-rep in, tessellation, PRC serialization, PDF container. Some are imported from STEP AP242, the rest are authored by the kernel itself. Each ships as the 3D PDF, the bare PRC stream, and STEP.

Open the PDFs in Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Reader (free). Browser PDF viewers don't run 3D annotations — they show a flat poster page. In Acrobat: click the page to activate the 3D scene, drag to rotate, and use the view list for the PMI annotation views.

The gallery

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What these demonstrate

STEP in, PDF out, one pipeline. AP242 import → B-rep tessellation → PRC serialization → PDF container, all inside NativeCAD's zero-dependency kernel — no HOOPS Publish, no external converter.
PMI carries through, and PMI can be authored. Graphical callouts in a source AP242 file travel into the PDF as PRC markup with per-annotation views; the dimensioned samples go further and author their callouts — leader, arrowheads, extension lines and the values themselves — directly as markup polylines.
Assemblies stay assemblies. A patterned model stores its geometry once and places it with occurrence matrices, so 28 pins cost one mesh.
Deterministic bytes. The same model exports to the same file, byte for byte — the property that makes exports diffable and archival workflows auditable.

The same export is one call on the MCP surface: cad_export_body { format: "pdf", path: "part.pdf" }.