The 3D model and the PDF print, measured and read inside the quote
An open-source CAD kernel inside VenturusEQ measures your STEP, IGES, DXF, DWG and STL files, and a PDF viewer with calibrated measurement lets you read and measure the print beside them. Every number carries an exact-or-estimated badge, nothing leaves the container, and no value reaches a price until an estimator confirms it.
What the kernel measures
The kernel opens the file inside the product's container and writes the facts to the line, each badged as exact topology or an estimate.
Size and mass
Bounding box, volume, surface area, faces and bodies, and mass once the material is confirmed. A face census shows where the machining lives.
Holes
Counted from the solid and grouped by size, with depth ranges and a confidence per group. Threads come from the print, never guessed from the solid.
Sheet metal
Bends, the flat pattern and wall thickness. On a DXF the unit assumption is flagged, because a DXF does not always declare inches or millimeters.
Milling
Pockets and the number of setups. Each detected setup can become one proposed operation, which the estimator accepts or ignores.
Turning
Whether the part turns, maximum outside diameter, minimum inside diameter, slenderness, off-axis holes and whether live tooling is needed.
Flat 2D work
From a DXF or a DWG (converted first): cut length, pierce count, blank area and contours, ready for the laser and nesting arithmetic.
A 3D viewer served from the product itself
The viewer is served from the product with no outside network call.
What you can see
Orbit, snap views, fullscreen, native colors from the file, opacity to see inside, and PMI where the model carries it.
What you can measure
Distance, angle and radius between picked points, a bounding box, and a precision setting so a number reads the way your shop reads it.
How it connects to the quote line
Isolate and explode an assembly, highlight a hole group, jump from a solid to its bill-of-materials row and back, and send a face area straight to a cost line.
Assemblies from STEP
A STEP assembly opens as a tree of components with quantities per parent, to 25 levels and 2,000 nodes, with a note when a tree is truncated. Each component can become a quote line, and the bridge between solid and bill row works both ways.
Measurement caps
Measurement runs in the background, is retried on failure and can be re-queued from the line. The caps are 192 MB per model and 8 MB per mesh file; a file over the cap stays with the package unmeasured.
A PDF viewer for the print, with calibrated measurement
Reading the print
Rotate, fit to page, width or one-to-one, text search with match counts, a rail of sheets, wheel and marquee zoom, and a memory of where you were on each drawing. The viewer runs no script embedded in a PDF.
Measuring on the print
Two clicks on a known dimension calibrate the sheet. Every later measurement is recomputed on the server from the stored scale, and the result becomes a fact on the quote line with its source.
Pairing the print with its model
The drawing is paired with the right model by ranked evidence: a bound file, the part number read from the title block, dash variants, the file name, the folder. The package's first file is never assumed.
35 manufacturability rules with your own thresholds
What the rules check
The rules run over the measured geometry and the read drawing, grouped into geometry, secondary process and sheet metal: deep holes and slots, features below a tooling minimum, thin walls, a bend radius too tight for the sheet, a hole too close to an edge, a slender turned part, a tight tolerance, and call-outs that need heat treat, a finish or non-destructive testing.
Every threshold is set per company, so a deep hole in your shop is what your drills say it is. A finding is prose with a suggested action, never a priced value.
What a finding can do to the line
An administrator can write a rule that resolves a finding by refusing the line, which prints "No quote" with the reason, or by adding an operation to the method. An added operation survives repricing. Findings also land in the review queue for the right desk to claim.
Review queue and rules →Common questions
Which CAD files does it actually measure?
STEP and STP, IGES, DXF, DWG and STL are measured inside the product. Parasolid, SAT and native SolidWorks part, assembly and drawing files are accepted and kept with the package, a SolidWorks file shows its embedded preview image, and a STEP export of the same part is measured alongside it.
Does my customer's model get sent anywhere to be measured?
No. An open-source CAD kernel runs inside the product's own container and measures the file there. There is no CAD seat to license, no plug-in and no outside conversion service, and the 3D viewer is served from the product with no outside network call.
Can I measure off the PDF print, or only the model?
Both. Click the two ends of a dimension you know on the print and type its value, and the sheet is calibrated. From then on any two clicks return a length, recomputed on the server from the stored scale, and the result is written to the quote line as a fact with its source.
What happens if the model and the drawing disagree?
Nothing is resolved for you. A value read from the print and a value measured from the model both arrive on the line as proposals, each with its source, and the estimator confirms the one that is right; threads only ever come from the print. If the part number in the title block disagrees with the line, a prompt on the line offers Relabel or Keep and names the evidence, and the line keeps its number until a person chooses.
See it on one of your own RFQs
Send us a drawing and a model you have already quoted and we will walk through it with you in the product, in your rates. If you would rather look first, the interactive demo is open, with no form in front of it.