Guides

Practical writing about CAD exchange formats, aimed at the people who receive STEP, STL or IGES files without necessarily having CAD to open them — buyers, sales engineers, project coordinators, and anyone who needs to get a dimension and a weight out of a part.

• How to Open a STEP File Without CAD — 4 Ways Compared

  Why .step and .stp are the same format, what online viewers, FreeCAD and vendor tools each cost you, and how to tell whether a tool is actually uploading your drawing.

• STEP vs STL vs IGES — The Difference and Which to Use

  Exact geometry versus triangle meshes, why converting to STL is a one-way trip, and the fact that STL records no units at all — the source of those 25.4x mismatches.

Back to Orthoshot →　Drop a file in to read its dimensions, volume and estimated weight, and export ten standard views.