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About Supported Import Formats

You can import a number of 3D and 2D file formats in Composer, whether from CAD systems (such as SOLIDWORKS, CATIA, and Pro/ENGINEER) or CAD-neutral formats (such as IGES and STEP).

This page discusses:

Supported 3D Import Formats

Composer can import the following 3D formats.

Note: Not all import options apply to all formats. See (Default) Document Properties - Input. To view the import options matrix, see ../CpsUserExamples/SWXImportOptions.pdf.

  • All Composer formats
  • 3DStudio up to 3D Studio MAX 4
    Note: Animations and instances are not supported.
  • 3DXML V2 to V4
    Note: Favorite context is supported for 3D Tolerancing & Annotation captures, and the visibility of geometrical elements is properly managed, providing that the favorite context is defined on the annotation set that contains the capture.
  • ACIS up to 2023 1.0
  • IGES up to 5.3
  • Inventor
    Note: Requires SOLIDWORKS and Autodesk Inventor Viewer.
  • OBJ Wavefront
  • Pro/ENGINEER 16 to Wildfire 5
  • Pro/E Creo 1.0 to 9.0
  • SOLIDWORKS 2006 to 2025
    Note: Requires SOLIDWORKS or SOLIDWORKS OEM.
  • STEP AP203, AP214 & AP242
  • STL
  • U3D ECMA 1 to 3
  • VDA 1.0 and 2.0
  • VRML 2.0
    Note: VRML1.0 and animations are not supported. Unicode is not supported by this 3D format (this means that files which use a file path containing Unicode characters cannot be imported).

Supported 2D Import Formats

Composer can also import the following 2D image formats:

  • Bitmap (.bmp)
  • Jpeg (.jpg, .jpeg, .jpe)
  • Targa (.tga)
  • Rgb (.rgb)
  • SVG (.svg) (Raster images encapsulated in SVG files are ignored).


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