General Conversion Settings

You can define the general conversion settings like the quality settings, log options, merge PDFs mode, etc., using the options provided under the Conversion tab.

General Conversion Settings:

  1. Click on the Conversion tab.

  1. Go to the General Conversion Settings section which is the first section under this tab.
  2. Output Format specifies if the generation process will create a 2D PDF (with optional content layers) or a 3D PDF, or a raw 3D file in U3DClosed Universial 3D Format, one of the data structures used to store 3D models as binary data streams within a PDF document. or PRCClosed Product Representation Compact, the latest and preferred method to encode 3D model data within a binary stream in a 3D PDF file. PRC is described by ISO 14739-1:2014. format. In 2D PDF mode, further settings can be adjusted using the 2D Drawing menu. When saving a U3D or PRC file, the output file extension, the Output Format and the Compression mode (see below) must all match. Alternatively, output format may be specified as glTF (for Web 3D viewing) or STL. If glTF is selected, there is a further set of parameters to control the characteristics of the glTF scene, and if ASCII or binary. If STL is specified, all polygon surface geometry of the model is merged into a single mesh and exported to a .stl file (exclusing lines, points, color, texture or internal part structures).
  3. Points Substitution Mode specifies if points should be points (i.e. 4 pixel squares) or short disjoint line segments to simulate points using line drawing primitives.
  4. In the Mesh Quality factor field, use the arrow buttons to scroll up and down till you find the desired quality setting for the converted file. During conversion of shaded meshes, a mesh reduction, reduced detail representation may take place. If the quality factor is set to 1.0 (default), no reduction takes place. If less than 1.0, some degree of reduction in detail occurs and the output file size may also be reduced.
  5. In the Texture Quality factor field, use the arrow buttons to scroll up and down till you find the desired quality factor for the converted file. During the conversion of meshes containing textures, the texture image will be compressed by this quality factor, decreasing PDF file size. If the quality factor is 1.0, no compression takes place. At the default 0.85 value, modest compression occurs, which is acceptable in most cases. Compression increases and image quality decreases at lower values near zero. NOTE: Some platforms, such as Adobe Reader on Linux, may show poor shading when compression is used. If this is the case, then setting texture quality to 1.0 provides a work-around.
  6. PRC Tolerance value is a spatial dimension tolerance, applied in high compression modes. Coordinates below this size may be rounded or adjusted to achieve high compression.
  7. Relative PRC Tolerance, if it is checked, then (relative) tolerance is some automatically calculated percentage of each sub-mesh bounding box. Otherwise, is a global value, where (absolute) tolerance is set to a known distance value. For many applications, relative should provide good compression performance and good visual model results, unless zooming in to examine very fine detail.
  8. Compression (Internal Format) sets the current 3D compression encoding format. It can be chosen to be one of U3D, U3D-RHC, PRC or PRC-HCT. U3D is used for Adobe version 8 compatibility. RHC is the improved Right Hemisphere Compression extension, sensitive to the Quality factor. PRC-HCT is generally the highest level of file compression, sensitive to the spatial Tolerance factor. Pure PRC may be used for interchange with other 3D software. The Internal Format sets the 3D encoding data structure used within the PDF file, as follows.
    1. U3DClosed Universial 3D Format, one of the data structures used to store 3D models as binary data streams within a PDF document. original, backward compatible mode, ECMA-363.
    2. U3D RHC yields improved compression of U3D, using Right Hemisphere compression techniques.
    3. PRCClosed Product Representation Compact, the latest and preferred method to encode 3D model data within a binary stream in a 3D PDF file. PRC is described by ISO 14739-1:2014. Alternative encoding method, for Adobe 9.x or later.
    4. PRC HCT yields PRC with highly compressed tessellation techniques.
  9. Select the Extended Log checkbox to see a larger progress dialog with various progress and internal messages during conversion. If you would rather not see these messages, leave this checkbox blank. When you select this option, the Also Save Log In File also becomes enabled.
  10. Select the Also Save Log In File checkbox to save the progress and internal messages displayed during conversion to an external log file. The filename for the log file is automatically generated, by taking the base name and adding “.log.txt”. This is very helpful to debug or report some conversion problem to PDF3D support.

Output Coordinate System

Where possible the output coordinate system will match the input coordinate system, either automatically or by manual specification on the Geospatial tab. However, if multiple distinct input coordinate systems are present, or an explicit conversion is required, then all input systems will go through coordinate system conversion to match the specified output coordinate system.

  1. Output Coordinate System group of parameters defines how the resulting PDF will encode 2D and 3D coordinates.
  2. Model Units Type may be one of a list according to types available within the PDF specification.
  3. Coordinate System may be selected according the application and context. Cartesian means non-geographic X,Y,Z, whereas Geodetic means latitude, longitude angles in degrees with elevation. UTM/UPSClosed Projected geospatial coordinate system based on either UTM or UPS projection methodologies. UTM defines the earth surface in rectangular zones. This has the advantage that coordinate definitions can be more accurately defined, relative to the origin of the zone, rather than the whole earth. means easting, northing and elevation relative to the zone.
  4. Geo-Registration Method (for 2D only) allows selection for one of two available methods for PDF 2D Maps, either OGC Best Practice type, or cross-industry standard ISO 32000 type for using the standard Adobe ReaderClosed The freely available PDF viewing application, including the facility to view 3D on desktop platforms. geolocation probe facilities.

Export Parameters

  1. Select PDF/EClosed ISO 24517 specifies a restricted subset of conditions on the PDF file format standard ISO 32000 for the exchange and archiving of engineering documentation. Compliance if you wish to have additional restrictions, and medata data added to the PDF output. The PDF will be marked as being PDF/E (Engineering) compliant. The file properties will show additional information, keywords. Note, file may be larger, due to the requirement to embed fonts.
  2. Export Parameters are described in the Merge Mode chapter.

Sphere Substitution Menu

When enabled, and the input 3D model contains sphere primitives, this menu provides a shape substitution by an alternative 3D shape. These range from complex, such as the Pentakis sphere (see parameters below), to very simple shapes. This feature can help when a large number of spheres causes performance issues due to heavy geometry. When the Pentaki menu is selected, a further sub-menu is enable to set further options.

Pentakis Sphere Tessellation Options

When the input model contains spheres, typically in VRML, IV or X3D formats, the default is tessellation by latitude and longitude lines, leading to highly variable triangle sizes and tight convergence at the poles. By enabling Pentakis option, an equal-area uniform distribution of equliateral triangles is made, so the same density is present at all parts of the sphere. The min-max parameters are subdivision levels, the higher the value the more triangles will result per sphere.

WebGL - glTF Export Format

In parallel with PDF, PRC, U3D and STLformats, a further export format is available for HTML5 WebGL glTF format. This is designed to be used in an external WebGL viewer system which supports glTF. Typically the output is a single binary format comprising all the 3D scene resources. Please see chapter covering glTF Interface Settings for more details.

STL Export Format

In parallel with PDF, PRC, U3D and glTF formats, a further export format is available for the Stereo Lithography STL format. All polygon surface geometry of the model is merged into a single mesh and exported to a .stl file (exclusing lines, points, color, texture or internal part structures). A further menu is provided to specify ASCII or binary type.

Further Reading

  1. Go to the Advanced tab for additional options. Select other conversion settings as required. Once you are ready to convert your file, you can click on the Convert button available at the bottom of the screen under each tab to convert the file, or save the session for conversion later.
  2. If you would like to close PDF3D ReportGen without saving the settings that you have defined, just click on the Exit button available at the bottom of the screen under each tab.