STEP/XML Reader

STEP/XML is an XML specification used to represent EXPRESS schemas such as STEP. STEP/XML is standardized under the name ISO_10303-28.

HOOPS Exchange allows you to read STEP/XML files. Generally such files can have these extensions:

  • .STPX for uncompressed text files
  • .STPXZ for compressed binary files

Structure

STEP/XML is a structural format which makes use of the hierarchical nature of XML to represent complex assemblies. The file then references external CAD files which can be any supported format.

Assembly

Upon reading, the PRC structure is created with respect to the hierachy of the STEP/XML file. Yet, each time a CAD file is referenced by an XML node the reader generates two instances of A3DAsmProductOccurrence instead of one:

  • A first node maps to the PLM semantics of the product occurrence. This node has a specific flag bit set in A3DAsmProductOccurrenceData::m_uiProductFlags: FLAG_EXTERNAL_REFERENCE.
  • A product occurrence which directly maps to the CAD data.

See also

  • A3DAsmProductOccurrenceData specifications.
  • a3d_product_flag

Attributes

In addition to reading the assembly structure and CAD files, our reader stores the attributes from the STEP/XML file into generic attributes.\ For more information about how to retrieve them, check out our generic attributes pages.

How to read a STEP/XML file

To create an A3DAsmModelFile from a STEP/XML file, use our standard read functions:

// ... Initialize HOOPS Exchange ...
A3DRWParamsLoadData sParams;
A3D_INITIALIZE_DATA(A3DRWParamsLoadData, sParams);
A3DAsmModelFile* pModelFile = NULL;
A3DStatus eStatus = A3DAsmModelFileLoadFromFile(FILE_OK, &sParams, &pModelFile);
assert(eStatus <= A3D_SUCCESS);
top_level:0