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=== Third-party translators ===
Several companies specialize in CAD data translation software that can read from one CAD system and write the information in another CAD system format. There are a handful of companies that provide low-level software toolkits to directly read and write the major CAD file formats. Most CAD developers license these toolkits, to add import and export capabilities to their products. There are also a significant number of companies that use the low-level translation toolkits as the basis for building standalone end-user translation and validation applications.<ref>Yares, E. (2012, November 28). CAD Interoperability Today. ''Design World''. Retrieved October 29, 2016, from
Some companies also use these low-level toolkits to create import or export plug-ins for other CAD applications.
====List of software toolkits for developers====
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As each CAD system has its own method of describing geometry, both mathematically and structurally, there is always some loss of information when translating data from one CAD data format to another. One example is when the translation occurs between CAD systems using different geometric modeling kernels, in which the translation inconsistencies can lead to anomalies in the data.<ref name=":05" /> The intermediate file formats are also limited in what they can describe, and they can be interpreted differently by both the sending and receiving systems. It is, therefore, important when transferring data between systems to identify what needs to be translated. If only the 3D model is required for the downstream process, then only the model description needs to be transferred. However, there are levels of detail. For example: is the data wireframe, surface, or solid; is the topology ([[Boundary representation|BREP]]) information required; must the face and edge identifications be preserved on subsequent modification; must the feature information and history be preserved between systems; and is [[Product and manufacturing information|PMI]] annotation to be transferred. With product models, retaining the assembly structure may be required.<ref name=":15" /> If drawings need to be translated, the wireframe geometry is normally not an issue; however text, dimensions and other annotation can be an issue, particularly fonts and formats. No matter what data is to be translated, there is also a need to preserve attributes (such as color and layer of graphical objects) and metadata stored within the files.
Some translation methods are more successful than others at translating data between CAD systems. Native formats offer the simple translation of 3D solids, but even so there are few pitfalls to watch out for. If two CAD systems use different representations for one type of geometry at some point the representation must be converted or even discarded, regardless of the type of translation. Neutral formats are designed partly to solve this problem, but no format can completely eliminate all translation issues.<ref name=":3">Dimitrov, L., & Valchkova, F. (2011). Problems with 3D data exchange between CAD systems using neutral formats. ''Proceedings in Manufacturing Systems,'' ''6''(3), 127-130. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from
The most common CAD data exchange problems via neutral formats are:
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