File Formats

ParametrIQ CAD saves drawings in its own format (File › Save). To bring in a drawing from another program, use File › Import › Import…: the format is chosen by the file's extension (and, for PDF, PostScript, Illustrator and SVG, by what is inside the file). To send a drawing to another program or a machine, use File › Export › Export… and choose the format from the file types in its dialog (or type the file's name with its extension); that format's options follow. HP-GL and HP-GL/2, and EPS and PostScript, are types of their own. PDF and Illustrator files can hold several of the drawing's pages: see PDF.

File › Export › Export… lists the formats for the drawing's industry (and those every industry uses); File › Export › Export All Formats… lists them all. To send a drawing to a machine in one click, with the format, options, layer names and pens, folder and file name it needs, use a machine profile (File › Send Using Machine Profile): see Export by Industry and Machine Profiles.

To bring another ParametrIQ drawing's elements, points and variables into the one you are working on, use File › Import › Merge Drawing… (MERGE); to place one as a single part, import it (IMPORT).

Drawings from ArtiosCAD, EngView or Impact come across as CF2, DDES3 or DXF exported from those programs: their own formats (ArtiosCAD's .ard and .mfg, say) aren't published, and aren't read. See Drawings from other programs.

Import and export options

After you choose the file, ParametrIQ CAD shows the options for its format: what to read or write (text, images, hatches, dimensions …), how (a DXF version, a rule thickness, a G-code machine and default tool …) and, under Advanced, the tolerances most people leave alone. Each option says what it does. Your choices are remembered for the next file of the same format (separately for millimetre and inch drawings); Reset to Defaults puts them back. Names that belong to one file, such as a design or program name, start from the file's name each time.

PDF, PostScript, Illustrator and SVG files can be written full size (the page is the drawing's own size) or on a page: A0 to A6, Letter, Legal, Tabloid or a size of your own, in landscape or portrait. On a page the drawing is centred and scaled to fit inside the margin (or, with Shrink to fit only, kept full size when it fits); line widths stay as they are. The messages say the scale it was drawn at.

What every import does

• The drawing comes in in your drawing's units: millimetres or inches are converted as needed. File › Import › Import… makes a new drawing in your default units.
• Lines and arcs that meet share a point, so moving one end moves the other too, just as if you had drawn them in ParametrIQ CAD.
• Each line goes on a layer: one of the die-making layers (Cut, Crease, Perforation …) when the file says what it is, otherwise a layer of its own named after what the file calls it. Each format's page says how.
• Anything that could not be read is listed in the messages after the import, where the format reports it.

What every export does

• Every element of the drawing is written, including imported parts and pictures, except hidden elements and the Construction layer. A switch part writes the part it shows.
• The die-making layers become what the format calls them: a cut layer is written as a cut, and so on.
• Curves a format can't hold (Béziers in a CF2 file, say) are turned into lines and arcs close enough not to matter.
• Line widths are written where the format has them.
• Before G-code, HP-GL and post-processor output, the drawing is checked against the design rules; if any finds a problem, you are asked whether to export anyway.

Machines of your own

File › Export › Export with Post-Processor… writes for a machine through a post-processor written in JavaScript: your machine's own G-code dialect, a header and footer, a plotter's speed and force.

3D models

A 3D page reads and writes 3D models: glTF (.glb, .gltf), OBJ, STL, COLLADA (.dae, .zae) and PRC (.prc, the 3D format of 3D PDF). 3D › Models and Products › Import Model… shows one with the folded drawing, and 3D › Export › Export 3D Model… writes the folded drawing as one: glTF with a part for each panel hinged at its crease, the fold as animations and the artwork as textures. See 3D pages, glTF, OBJ and STL and COLLADA. U3D (.u3d, ECMA-363, the first 3D format of 3D PDF) is read and written too, the fold as its animation and the artwork as textures.

File › Import › Import 3D for Unfolding… reads a STEP, STL or OBJ model and draws its flat pattern: a sheet-metal part's blank with its bend lines, or a carton's crease pattern. See Unfolding 3D Models.

File › Export › Export 3D PDF… writes the 3D page as a PDF page with the model on it in 3D, as PRC or U3D: Adobe Acrobat and Reader show it, folding up when the page opens; other PDF viewers show a picture of it. See 3D PDF.

For people who have no 3D program, File › Export › Export Proof (HTML)… writes the 3D page as one HTML file that opens in a web browser, offline: the model to turn, its fold to play, and what you choose to say about it. See HTML proofs.

For people who won't open a 3D file, 3D › Export › Export Proof Images… and Export Proof Video… make pictures (PNG, JPEG, a contact sheet as an image or PDF page) and video (MP4, animated WebP or GIF, PNG frames) of a 3D page. See Proof images and video.

For a customer with an iPhone or iPad, 3D › Export › AR Proof for iPhone and iPad… writes a USDZ file that AR Quick Look opens by itself, folding the pack up and standing it life-size on a table or the floor. 3D › Export › Export 3D Model… writes USDZ too, posed as shown. See AR proofs on iPhone and iPad.

Pallet software

File › Export › Export for Pallet Software writes a case for the programs that load cases onto pallets: a text file for TOPS Pro's import, and a COLLADA model for a Cape Pack shape, with the sizes to type in. See Cape Pack and TOPS Pro.

Printing full size

A drawing bigger than your printer's paper - a sewing pattern, a pipe wrap-around or stone template - prints at full size with File › Export › Export Tiled Print…: on sheets of A4, A3 or Letter with overlaps, alignment crosses, page labels and a test square, to trim and tape together. See Tiled print. For a projector over a cutting table, export a Projector PDF.

Emailing an export

File › Send by Email runs any of these exports and sends what it writes by email instead of saving it: ParametrIQ sends it for you, with replies to you, or it opens in a new message in your mail program, ready to address and send. See Emailing exports.