Import of STEP, STL, IGS files and native mechanical CAD formats

The Mechanical Equipment Interface (MEI) feature has long been available in E3D Design for import of STEP files.

With the release of E3D Design 3.1.4, a new feature called MultiCAD Import was introduced. This feature covers a wide range of native CAD formats, and is in many cases more efficient than MEI in terms of time taken to import the models as well as the efficiency of imported CAD models, for Add-to-Drawlist time and so on.

It is recommended to use the MultiCAD Import for this scenario, and AVEVA intends to fully replace MEI with MultiCAD over time and then deprecate the MEI Import function.

While MutiCAD Inport works well for relatively small or medium-sized models, it is recommended to use Model Simplification for larger models to improve performance of the imported model. Please refer to Model Size and scalability for more information.

For the moment, the MEI Import is able to create native E3D Design nozzles which MultiCAD Import is not. AVEVA intends to cover this gap in MultiCAD Import over time. Until then, for cases where nozzle creation is of particular importance, MEI can be used.