STEP File

    

A STEP file is a popularly used file format to exchange a product Or design data (PMI – Product Manufacturing Information) between Different 3D CAD platforms.

STEP - Standard for the Exchange of Product Data.           

Editions:

1st – ISO 10303-21:1994 had some bugs, which were corrected by a Technical Corrigendum.

The second one – ISO 10303-21:2002 – included the corrigendum and extensions for several data sections.

Third – ISO 10303-21:2016, added anchor, reference and signature sections to support external references, support for compressed exchange structures in a ZIP-based archive, digital signatures, and UTF-8 character encoding.

Extensions:

.Step, .Stp - Contains 3D model data saved in text format. The file type is used in many cad platforms. Example: An organization working on a project using CATIA software. But the customer is using SolidWorks. Then how to transfer the CAD data? The company can share the data in neutral formats. Another doubt arises while transferring the data, whether to use IGES or STEP? It was a large topic but simply saying, if you want to transfer Solid model data, you can prefer to STEP. If the Surface model is the priority (complex organic shapes), you can go with IGES.

STEP can also be categorized into 3 formats – STEP AP 203, 214, 242 (AP stands for Application Protocol)

STEP AP 203 Vs 214 Vs 242

203 – Contains only the 3D model information.

214 – In addition to 203, it contains Appearance and Layer information.

242 – Contains 203 & 214 functions. Additionally, it contains the most important 3D PMI data.

As a user, you can prefer which type suits you the most.

.p21 - Three-dimensional product data representation and exchange; saved in an ASCII text format specified by ISO 10303-21; used primarily for industrial automation systems and integration purposes.