If you have Tetra 4Ds 3D PDF Converter product, which includes a plug-in for Acrobat X Pro, or you have one of the version 7, 8, or 9 Acrobat products that supported 3D (i.e, Acrobat 3D or Acrobat Pro Extended), you can extract 3D models in various neutral formats. Furthermore, if the PDF was created using PRC B-Rep, you can extract exact geometry to STEP, IGES or Parasolid. If the 3D PDF is created with U3D or 'PRC-tessellated only', you can only extract a tessellated file (STL, U3D, PRC, or VRML).
If you have Acrobat Std or Pro, you can set the document security properties to disallow this extraction. But you must take explicit action. You can also encrypt the PDF and require a password to open using Acrobat controls. You may have an option with the 3d PDF export feature of Composer to set the security, but I do not know if it is provided or not.
Stronger encyrption and access control can be implemented using PKI/certificates and Adobe's Dynamic Rights Management server software.
@jim_merry wrote:
If you have Acrobat Std or Pro, you can set the document security properties to disallow this extraction. But you must take explicit action. You can also encrypt the PDF and require a password to open using Acrobat controls. You may have an option with the 3d PDF export feature of Composer to set the security, but I do not know if it is provided or not.
Stronger encyrption and access control can be implemented using PKI/certificates and Adobe's Dynamic Rights Management server software.
If you are worried about IP, pdf 3D is redundant.
No matter what security you use, you can still see individual parts and look at cross sections of any part of the drawing.
It is absolutey ridiculous that you can not turn this off, but, having spoken to Adbobe, it is just the design and they have no intention of changing it.
Thank you both for sound advice. IP is my concern, do you know if the autodesk mobile platform is safe?
Regards,
Henry
True you cannot suppress the model tree in Acrobat or the Reader, but you can suppress 3d measurement and 3D cross sectioning with document security. Here's a screen shot of the security settings you would need to have in place: Going to attach a 3D PDF with these settings.
We at Tetra4D are looking at BOM tools for our 3D PDF publishing tools and will take your comments about security into our design process. Would it be of use to be able to collapse the entire product structure to a single node, so even if your users could see the product structure with the model tree, they get no useful information? I could see this being a conversion time option that could be configured as part of a conversion preset...
Aside from the issue of how secure a pdf actually is, look at what you can do:
An internal view of one particular part. You can do this in seconds. Adobe will not be changing this in the future and the only way round it is to shrinkwrap at source. This is not an option personally for me and others. The only way I can ever see it working is if Autodesk incorporate an option where by, before 3D pdf conversion, the 3d model can be merged in to one solid object.