# Evaluating HOOPS Exchange

Depending on your objectives, allocated time, and role, HOOPS Exchange can be evaluated in different steps:

1. HOOPS Demo Viewer desktop application to quickly visualize your 3D CAD models.
2. HOOPS Exchange API using our samples and tutorials to quickly build your first application.

If not already done, use our User Dashboard page to create or access your user account and download the HOOPS Demo Viewer as well as the HOOPS Exchange API. Detailed instructions related to the User Dashboard page are available down below.

## HOOPS Demo Viewer

Whether you are a Product Manager or a Software Engineer, the quickest way to explore HOOPS Exchange is by using HOOPS Demo Viewer.

This non-commercial user-friendly application, built on top of HOOPS Exchange, provides a graphical interface for loading, viewing, manipulating, and exporting CAD files. It can be installed on any Windows (x64) platform and comes with a 30-day evaluation license.

The HOOPS Demo Viewer will allow you to:

- Read and visualize your 3D CAD models (assemblies and parts) from all the 30+ CAD, standard and BIM formats that HOOPS Exchange API supports.
- Access to the model structure (tree, views…), properties (meta-data), and other business critical information like Product Manufacturing Information (PMIs).
- Export the loaded models into standard formats such as OBJ, STEP, Parasolid and more.

### Installing HOOPS Demo Viewer

1. Getting HOOPS Demo Viewer:

   This is your first visit to our website, and neither you nor your company has ever used or licensed our products before:

   > - Go to our User Dashboard page.
   > - Click on the ‘Sign Up’ link and create your self-evaluation account.
   > - Click on Download Desktop Demo Viewer and install the application:

2. Obtaining the License:

   HOOPS Demo Viewer comes with a 30-day evaluation license. if you need to extend your evaluation key please Contact Us.

1. Getting HOOPS Exchange:

   Your company is already evaluating or licensing one of our products and you already created an account, you can directly download HOOPS Demo Viewer here. Download will start immediately and will take from a few seconds to a few minutes (package is about 500 Mb). Run the installer to install the application.

2. Obtaining the License:

   HOOPS Demo Viewer comes with a 30-days evaluation license. if you need to extend your evaluation key please Contact Us.

### Loading a model

Using HOOPS Demo Viewer is very intuitive to load a model from your collection, open the file from the File/Open dialog, you can also open a file by dragging it from Windows Explorer and dropping it into the application main view.

Use the default parameters and press OK:

HOOPS Demo Viewer contains a set of very advanced functionalities, don’t hesitate to read the dedicated HOOPS Demo Viewer Documentation.

## HOOPS Exchange API

After becoming more familiar with the HOOPS Demo Viewer application, you are now ready to have a look at the HOOPS Exchange API.

The following tutorials will guide you through the step-by-step process of configuring and utilizing HOOPS Exchange to import CAD files using a third-party graphics library:

Set Up Your Environment (C / C#)
  Learn to set up your environment and license for HOOPS Exchange.
File-to-File Translation (C / C#)
  Learn how HOOPS Exchange API can be used to translate any file format to another.
Traverse CAD Structure (C / C#)
  Traverse an entire CAD structure and print each of its entities to standard output.
Write a CAD Viewer
  Build a basic CAD viewing application with HOOPS Exchange and OpenGL.

## Using C# for HOOPS Exchange

HOOPS Exchange is avaiable for as a C and an C# API. The latter is provided through call bindings to the C binaries.

For more information, see Runtime Platform Support (C#).

## Contact Us

During your evaluation, for an extension of your free evaluation license of the HOOPS Exchange API or HOOPS Demo Viewer or any technical assistance, please Contact Us.

Now that you are more familiar with the capabilities of HOOPS Exchange, the formats supported by HOOPS Exchange and the Supported Platforms, you can now jump to the Tutorials section.

Ready? Simply press the button Next below to get started!

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