Comparison and evaluation of lightweight formats of 3D models

The 3D models created by the CAD software have different internal formats, which leads to the poor software compatibility. It takes much longer time while loading 3D models containing much more information by CATIA and so on. During the digital collaboration process of the product design, the quickly transmission of the 3D models is the indispensable part. However, the storage space occupied by 3D models of a large document, resulting in a longer transmission time, thereby will reduce the real-time performance of the collaborative process. A good solution in the industry is to use the lightweight format in product collaborative design. Nowadays there are a variety of lightweight formats. This paper focus on the comparisons of three lightweight formats(3D XML, JT, U3D) often used in the industry. Some experiments are given to evaluate the format effectiveness. In the end, the trend of lightweight formats is also predicted.