STEP to U3D
Please find below the list of our other useful resources related to STEP and U3D interoperability and exchange that could help you with the STEP to U3D conversion.
STEP File
STEP (STandardized Exchange of Product) is a very popular file format for the data 3D exchange between different computer systems e.g. CAD, CAM or CAE. As the STEP geometry data are stored in a text form you can expect bigger file sizes when exporting triangular meshes with thousands of faces using the Autoconverter software. However, if your geometry defines manifold solid it will try to create optimized faceted STEP brep representation which should reduce STEP file size by one-third. The STEP file format supports colors per assembly, but without the alpha component, therefore any transparency setting will be lost in the final STEP file.
U3D File
U3D (Universal 3D) is an open source compressed file format initiated by the 3D Industry Forum to store three dimensional triangular meshes with the additional properties e.g. color, transparency or texture coordinates for the general 3D graphics industry. The U3D file format is mostly used in combination with the 3D PDF technology which allows you to generate PDF documents containing interactive 3D data from the U3D files. Autoconverter and Automesher Application, our U3D file converters can read and write to and from U3D file format thanks to the publicly available open source IFX converter library provided by the Intel company. To simplify generation of 3D PDF documents our converters create a common TEX script which can be easily used to generate a PDF document with the standard and free LaTeX software.