Files, versions and 3D preview

Versions and rollback

Every upload of a file name is a new version with an optional comment. The revision page lists the version history of every file; any version can be downloaded (name.v2.ext), previewed, or restored – a rollback that stores the old content as a new version, so history is never rewritten.

Large result files. A file can be set to keep only the latest version (⋯ → Keep only the latest version, while you hold the check-out): older versions are then removed after a grace period (default 7 days) as long as the revision is in work – released revisions keep all of their versions. See Data retention.

The vault is content-addressed (SHA-256): identical files are stored once, and teamcraft vault check --verify-hashes proves that nothing was altered.

File formats

TeamCraft stores files of any type and recognises the native and exchange formats of the common CAD, BIM, 3D and electronics programs – see Supported file formats. Recognised files are labelled with program and kind, get their registered content type, are searchable by program (Items → CAD program) and, where readable, scanned for the files they reference.

Preferred CAD program

When a part is kept in several CAD programs – an NX model next to a SOLIDWORKS and an Inventor copy, say – choose your program under Account → Preferred CAD program. On the revision page, in the detail pane of the vault explorer and in the Files tab of the desktop app, the native files of the other programs then move into a collapsed group below the list, e.g. 2 files in other CAD formats (SolidWorks, Inventor); one click opens it.

• A family is everything one program writes natively: for NX its parts, assemblies, drawings and simulation files (.prt, .sim, .fem, .afm); for Creo also its neutral and Creo View files; for CATIA also CGR and 3D XML. The families: SolidWorks, NX, Solid Edge, Inventor, Fusion, AutoCAD (DWG), Creo, CATIA, SpaceClaim, FreeCAD, SolidCraft, Rhino, Alias, OpenSCAD, Revit, Navisworks, MicroStation, Archicad, SketchUp, Blender, Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Modo, Houdini, KiCad, Altium and Eagle.
• Neutral and exchange formats are never collapsed: STEP, IGES, Parasolid, JT and PLM XML, DXF, meshes (STL, 3MF, 3DS, …), visualisation formats, point clouds, IFC, Gerber, simulation decks and results, documents and images.
• Only a revision that has at least one file of your program is grouped; any other revision lists its files as before.
• It is display only and personal: nothing is hidden from the search, downloads, Pack and Go, the REST API or other users. The default, All CAD programs alike, keeps the plain list. The REST API returns the setting as preferred_cad on GET /api/v1/me and each file’s family as format_info.family.

3D preview

Meshes, point clouds and STEP models open in a WebGL viewer in the browser and in the desktop app. Drag to rotate, wheel or pinch to zoom, arrow keys to turn, double-click to reset; Z up / Y up switches the convention. Below the model, Section X / Y / Z cuts it open along a plane: the slider moves the plane through the model (its position is shown in model units), flip keeps the other side – for a look inside housings and assemblies. Measure picks two points on the model (click, don’t drag) and shows their distance and its X, Y and Z parts in model units; the decimal places (0–6) are remembered in the browser and apply to the section position too. Measured points are on the visible surface, so a section shows inner distances such as wall thickness. Compare with … (on the preview page, when there is something to compare) lays another version of the file – or the file of the same name in another revision of the item – over the model as a translucent red ghost: red shows where the other model sticks out, so added and removed material is visible at a glance; sections and measuring work on both.

Add note pins a note to a point of the model for a design review: click the point, write the note. Notes belong to the shown version of the file, appear as blue points with a list below the model, and everyone who may read the file sees them and adds their own – also viewers. A note is removed by its author or an administrator; adding and removing are recorded in the revision’s history (annotation.add / annotation.remove). The REST API has the same notes under /api/v1/file-versions/{id}/annotations.

The server converts a file once, in a separate process with a time limit, and caches the result next to the vault; uploads start the conversion in the background so the first viewer does not wait. Everything is pure Rust: STEP is read and tessellated with the truck B-rep kernel (or from the tessellated geometry of AP242 files), the mesh readers are part of TeamCraft. Export STL (in the toolbar on the view) saves the shown triangles, e.g. for 3D printing. The same conversion computes the shape signature of the similar part search.

While the model loads, the canvas says so, and when there is nothing to show the reason appears on the canvas (and in the line below it) – in the web UI and in the desktop app alike: the server’s conversion error (for example a damaged or unsupported file), an empty, cut-off or invalid model, a graphics driver without WebGL 2 or one that could not compile the shaders, a model too large for the graphics memory, or a 3D view the graphics driver stopped (WebGL context lost). A preview never ends as a silently empty canvas.

When a STEP preview shows only part of the model, the line below the viewer says partial preview: N of M faces – the missing faces use geometry the kernel cannot tessellate. Details: STEP in the 3D preview.

Simulation results show the outer surface of the mesh with a colour scale (viridis), the range of the field above the canvas and, when the file has several fields, a selector – see Simulations.

Previews of native CAD files

Native CAD files (Inventor, Solid Edge, SolidWorks, NX, Creo, CATIA, …) are proprietary; TeamCraft does not read their exact geometry (see Research: previews of native CAD files). The exceptions are NX, SOLIDWORKS, Inventor, CATIA V5 and Creo. The first four save a tessellation of every part into the file: NX in a documented format (JT 9), SOLIDWORKS (2015 and later) as the display lists it draws the part with, Inventor as the triangle lists of its graphics segment, and CATIA as the visualisation data it draws on screen (see Research: 3D preview of CATIA V5 parts). Creo stores no tessellation, but its exact faces with every edge already sampled; TeamCraft triangulates those faces itself – planes, cylinders, cones, tori, spline, fillet and ruled faces (see Research: 3D preview of Creo parts), and puts Creo assemblies together from their parts (see Research: 3D preview of Creo assemblies).

TeamCraft shows that tessellation in the 3D viewer, refined along the exact surface normals stored with it, so round faces stay round.

An assembly of NX, SOLIDWORKS or Inventor and a CATIA product are put together from their part files. Check the parts in, under their file names, either in the assembly’s revision or as items of their own. The assembly then shows every component in its place, sub-assemblies included (see Research: 3D preview of NX parts, 3D preview of SOLIDWORKS files, 3D preview of Inventor files).

A CATIA product stores no file names, only an id of each component’s document. TeamCraft finds the component among the CATIA files of the product’s revision by that id, whatever the file is called now; a renamed or copied part is still found. Otherwise it looks for <part number>.CATPart (or .CATProduct) by name, as above (see Research: 3D preview of CATIA V5 products). Keep parts whose part number differs from their file name in the product’s revision.

These components are left out:

• components that are not in TeamCraft;
• NX components on layers the assembly hides;
• SOLIDWORKS components that are suppressed or hidden;
• Inventor components that are hidden or suppressed in the assembly.

CATIA products show hidden components, too: TeamCraft does not recognise them yet.

Rhino models (.3dm, Rhino 1 to 8) are shown from the meshes Rhino saves with them: mesh objects, the render meshes of polysurfaces and extrusions, block instances in their places; SubD objects are refined from their control net. Hidden objects and hidden layers are left out. A model saved without render meshes (Save Small, or very old files) has no 3D preview and shows the picture Rhino stored instead (see Research: 3D preview of Rhino models). Fusion designs (.f3d) carry the triangles Fusion draws on screen; TeamCraft shows them, refined the same way (see Research: 3D preview of Fusion designs).

SketchUp models (.skp, SketchUp 3 to the current version) open in the 3D viewer as well: SketchUp stores plain polygons, so TeamCraft triangulates the faces (holes included) and places every component and group, nested ones too, in millimetres. Hidden faces, hidden components and everything on a hidden tag (layer) are left out; colours and textures are not shown. A file with only edges and no faces keeps its stored picture (see Research: 3D preview of SketchUp models).

For the rest TeamCraft shows what other PLM systems show:

• JT files (.jt, version 10) carry parts and assembly in one file: the 3D preview shows every instance in its place, and the file’s picture is rendered from it (see Research: 3D preview of stand-alone JT files).
• A picture of the 3D preview for NX, SOLIDWORKS and Inventor parts and assemblies, CATIA parts and products, Creo parts and assemblies, Rhino and SketchUp models and Fusion designs. It replaces the image stored in the file and is a 512 × 512 PNG with a transparent background, drawn once and cached. An assembly’s picture is drawn again when one of its parts changes. Drawings, and assemblies none of whose parts are in TeamCraft, keep the stored image.
• The preview image stored in the file. Inventor drawings and presentations (.idw, .ipn), Solid Edge (.par, .psm, .asm, .pwd, .dft), NX assemblies and drawings (.prt, a JPEG) and SolidWorks files (up to 2014 in their OLE container, from 2015 on in a compressed section that TeamCraft inflates) carry a picture the CAD program wrote when saving. It appears next to the file on the revision page and in the desktop app (GET /api/v1/files/{id}/thumbnail). Only the image is read; files saved without one simply show none.
• 3D from a STEP export. Attach a STEP export next to the native file. The desktop app on Windows creates it with your own Inventor or Solid Edge – the STEP button in the workspace or the option at check-in, like the Inventor add-in of Autodesk Vault or the Solid Edge integration of Teamcenter. It uses your licence (student licences included, within their terms); TeamCraft contains no Autodesk or Siemens software.

Full-text search

The item search ranks matches in numbers, names, materials, descriptions and file names, and in the text inside STEP and IGES files (product names, authors, organisations), plain-text files (with their decimal numbers), the text layer of PDF reports and the text of HTML reports (table rows as lines; scripts, styles and hidden elements skipped). PDFs and HTML files are read in an isolated child process with size, time and memory limits; scanned PDFs have no text layer (there is no OCR).