By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy for more information.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
2D CAD Services
CAD Perfect® Conversion with CAD / CAM Services
For many engineering departments, CAD Perfect® conversions are a simple way to save time, save engineering efforts, save money, and avoid headaches during your conversion process. Any time we speak to a department that has hand-drawn legacy engineering drawings, we offer our professional-grade CAD Perfect® conversions. For most companies, a CAD Perfect® CAD conversion is the only way to digitize their library of drawings and simplify the engineering, sales, logistics, and manufacturing efforts that go into making a part. That’s true whether you have one or one thousand hand-drawn engineering drawings.
Whether your engineering drawings are only seen by your internal teams, they’re shopped out to machine shops, or they’re shared with external customers, you need to make sure that your CAD files are digital, well-made, and correctly formatted. Our team at CAD/CAM Services can handle the full process and deliver CAD Perfect® drawings at the end of the day.
Request A QUOTE
What Are CAD Perfect® Conversions?
CAD Perfect® conversions are an offering from CAD/CAM Services where we take your original hand-drawn engineering drawings and convert them into digital Computer-Aided Drafting (CAD) files. We actually trademarked the phrase “CAD Perfect®”, because we believe we’re the only outsourced CAD team that can live up to that expectation.
When you order CAD Perfect® conversions, our team will manually redraw your shared legacy drawing. Luckily, we have a team of over 100 engineers and draftsmen who work on staggered shifts to offer 24/7 availability and around-the-clock effort. The result? Faster conversions that meet our “CAD Perfect®” guarantee.
A Quick Look at the CAD Perfect® Conversion Process
We make sure the process is super simple for your team, and it all starts with a consultation. This could be a quick phone call or conversation where you outline how many drawings you have, what CAD program you’d like the drawings to be made in, and what sort of timeline you’re working with.
From there, we’ll put together a quick and free quote that further explains how the CAD Perfect® conversion process works. Once the signatures are out of the way, our team will get started.
Our engineering department is massive and filled with highly trained CAD experts. We’ll take a 2D scan of your original hand-drawn engineering drawings and open your CAD program of choice on our computers. We will then meticulously redraw every line, arc, hatch, and detail from your original drawing in 2D or 3D CAD.
Since we’re drawing with the CAD program you use, the files will be native and simple for your team to use. We have experts that can make your drawings in any of the common CAD software options:
Siemens NX
CATIA
Autodesk AutoCAD or Inventor
SolidWorks
CREO (formerly called Pro/Engineer)
The drawing will then go through an internal peer review where another engineer checks the CAD model against the original scanned document, makes any corrections, and ensures the quality of the final file is CAD Perfect®.
Once everything looks good to us, we’ll send the final CAD files to you through an encrypted, safe document folder — this is the same method that the DoD uses to share government-classified files, and it’s been our go-to method of sharing documents for a while.
What can you expect to receive specifically? CAD documents in your native CAD program that will open up immediately without any problems. It’s also worth mentioning that you fully own the drawings, IP, and technical data in each design, we don’t.
If you find anything you don’t like about the drawing, we will fix it for free within 24 hours and send it back.
Why CAD Perfect® Conversions Matter
A lot of companies offer CAD conversions, but no one offers CAD Perfect® conversions. The difference comes down to our expert team at CAD/CAM Services. We’ve tried using our competitors in the past to see the difference, and it’s shocking: a lot of other outfits don’t have the same turnaround times, pricing, and quality checks that we have.
That means that choosing the wrong company will waste your time and money, and might result in unusable CAD files. Plus, giving your intellectual property to a shady outsourced CAD team can lead to big trouble.
At CAD/CAM Services, we offer CAD Perfect® conversions that you won’t find elsewhere. We want the final CAD file to be perfect, so we always go the extra distance to make sure that’s the case. With us in your corner, you’ll get high-quality CAD files every time.
Benefits of CAD Perfect® Conversions from CAD/CAM Services
A lot of people are confused when it comes to engineering CAD conversions. Why should you convert to a digital file when the Mylar drawing is perfectly fine? Well, what happens if there’s a flood, fire, break-in, or someone just misplaces the drawing? We’ve spoken to hundreds of clients that received CAD Perfect® conversions from us, and they all had similar reasons why they chose to convert their drawings with us:
Better security. Digital files are exponentially more secure than storing physical drawings in an unsupervised backroom. With digital copies, you can easily control who can access the drawings and you get a paper trail of who looked at the drawings, and when. As a result, your drawings are more secure.
Easier to change the design. Changing a hand drawing takes a lot of experience with manual drafting, and it’s certainly not easy. With a CAD file, you can save a new copy and change the design in less than a minute.
Faster drawing sharing. We can all agree that sharing a CAD file is much easier than sharing a physical drawing. After a CAD Perfect® conversion, you can share drawings across departments and with other companies within minutes.
Check for design precision. With a hand drawing, complex angles and components might be incorrectly measured, making the part impossible to make. After making it in CAD, you can get precise measurements that will help your manufacturer make the part.
Less stress finding the right drawing. The beauty of a professional outsourced CAD conversion is that you can store the files in your server however you’d like. You can organize each drawing by component type, vendor, market, date, or drawing ID. This makes it much easier to find the right drawing, instead of leafing through a pile of Mylar drawings in a drawer.
Get a Quote Today
Our team at CAD/CAM Services is here to help you. We take a lot of pride in our work, and we take our conversion services very seriously — that’s the sole reason why we trademarked “CAD Perfect®” in the first place. We want every CAD file to be perfect, giving you peace of mind.
Reach out today to get a free quote, and allow our expert draftsmen to walk you through the full process and answer any of your questions. After all, the only place to get CAD Perfect® conversions is at CAD/CAM Services.
Feel free to explore our FAQ section below to get quick answers to commonly asked questions.
Request A QUOTE
FAQ’s
Cad Conversion FAQs
Can you turn a sketch I have into an engineered CAD file?
Some of our most fun projects are taking someone’s sketch on a napkin, and transforming it into a manufacturable part. Yes, we can turn your sketch, idea, or dream into an engineered CAD file. Our team will go through engineering simulations, Design for Manufacturing (DFM) best practices, and tough calculations to make sure our designed part will work perfectly for you.
Allow our team at CAD/CAM Services to be your on-call engineer. We love going back and forth with inventors and dreamers like you, and our goal is to provide 3D CAD files and 2D manufacturing drawings. With our help, you can start building your dream part, assembly, or product today.
What is a CAD conversion?
A CAD conversion is when our team of engineers takes your sketch, physical drawing, existing CAD file, 2D CAD file, or idea and transforms it into a professional 2D or 3D CAD file. For instance, you can send us a picture of your legacy drawing, and we can create a 3D CAD model from scratch in your favorite CAD program (like NX, CREO, CATIA, SolidWorks, etc.).
A CAD conversion takes many shapes, and our engineers are able to perform most of the CAD conversions that you can think of. As long as you want high-quality 2D or 3D CAD files, then CAD/CAM Services can help.
What do you need to provide me with an accurate quote?
We need to know source CAD and target CAD software. Since large quantity orders can be discounted by us you can provide us with the number of parts you need to be converted.
If you tell us the desired purpose of the conversion we can offer you some conversion options. We can also convert your files into vendor-neutral file types (.STEP, .STL, etc,).
Please email us even cell phone photos, and the rough size of what you wish scanned and converted [email protected].
What do I get?
You get native Cad Perfect™ files with the full-featured model tree (where applicable, since some file types have no trees), and features can be fully parametric. It all depends on your goals. We prefer to not translate any files. Our goal is to deliver to you a file that you do not have to touch. Our work is exactly as if you had reproduced that work in-house.
Which CAD file formats do you work with?
All the CAD file formats are listed on this page but bear in mind that we also work with exotic and legacy CAD systems. After 31 years of providing CAD Services, we have run into almost any CAD file format.
Which CAD systems do you work with?
We support all the modern CAD systems including SolidWorks, Catia, Siemens NX, PTC Creo, Inventor, Revit, AutoCAD, and many others.
I have some weird CAD files from the previous century, can you help me?
Yes, absolutely. We can perform legacy CAD conversions. Just send us some example files, and what CAD system we need to wind up in, and let us design the best solution for you.We have worked with old Computer Vision tapes, Anvil, and many other 1980’s systems.
I have some exotic files nobody knows even how to open. Can you help me even in this case?
Yes, we performed successful conversions from many local or exotic and ancient CAD systems. You can continue the development of old projects in modern software with our help.
My company wants to change the focus of our CAD systems, is it possible to do this with your help?
Of course, we offer CAD migration services. If you want all the Cad Perfect™ files to comply with your updated company standard, just send us the guidelines and we will make Cad Perfect™ files which are perfect for you!
There are special CAD translator software packages available on the market, why should I pay you guys?
It is better to ask the following question:
What can you do that a software translator cannot do?
Verify files.
Update files
Fix files
Convert the CAD data to native intelligent CAD data with full feature trees.
Update data to the current CAD standards.
Work in the native PLM systems.
Correctly write scripts for this process as needed.
General CAD Questions
How do I send a sample, in order to get a quote?
Fill out our quote form, attach your files, or simply send us an email. Tell everything about your project, like the model purpose.
For smaller files < 15 MB you can simply email them to us. For something larger, just drop them in any number of drop boxes like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and others. Or if you would like, just contact us for a private, hardened link.
It is fine to use most any time of compression such as *.zip, *.rar, *.tar, *.7z, *.arc, *.LBR, and even *.iso images.
We also use a hardened OwnCloud web file sharing platform for unlimited file transfers. We provide unique and very private Web Storage Portals, this also supports file syncing for extreme convenience for you. Because so much of our work is DOD or weapons design work, Security – and confidentiality is very important to us.
Will CAD / CAM Services Sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)?
Yes. NDAs are a common part of our business. All data is yours – not ours, and treated as proprietary data and not for public consumption or use. Probably 70% of our work is under NDA agreements. We can generally get these signed within the day.
What is the estimated delivery time?
It depends on the scope of work:
2D drawings – small quantity, normally 48 hours. We have several customers where they contract to us, keeping 4-8 drafters busy full time.
3D models – complexity dependent, but smaller jobs in 2-3 days. Some models we have spent months on. Again, we have several customers where they contract to us, keeping 6-10 3D CAD designers busy full time.
Simple jobs have a lead time of 48 hours. Larger projects are delivered and invoiced weekly.
Did you really own the trademark Cad Perfect™, Cad Perfect CAD Conversions™ and Cad / Cam Services™?
Yes, we did back in 2008. We started using Cad Perfect™ back in the early 1990s because all of our customers wanted only real Cad Perfect™ work. Back then the buzz words were terms like machine ready, or DXF Traceover and others.
The problem is, nobody wanted that. They all wanted drawings and models that they did not have to touch. Everybody wanted drawings just as if they hand redrew the work themselves.
Thus, Cad / Cam Services™ was the first company to start offering ONLY Cad Perfect™ work.
Do you support the PPD-21 Directive?
Yes we do, and have now for several years. In addition, we also support the industry specific plans as well.
What is the PPD-21 Protocall?
The Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21) is a Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience United States directive that aims to strengthen and secure the country’s critical infrastructure.The goal of this directive is to reduce vulnerabilities, identify and disrupt threats, minimize consequences and hasten response and recovery efforts related to critical infrastructure.
The directive defines resilience as the ability to prepare for and adapt to ever changing conditions, terrorists, and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions. Resilience includes the ability to withstand and recover from deliberate attacks, accidents, or naturally occurring threats or incidents.
Who is affected by the PPD-21 directive?
The Department of Homeland Security has identified 16 different infostructures:
Chemical Sector,
Commercial Facilities Sector,
Communications Sector,
Critical Manufacturing Sector,
Dams Sector,
Defense Industrial Base Sector,
Emergency Services Sector,
Energy Sector,
Financial Services Sector,
Food and Agriculture Sector,
Government Facilities Sector,
Healthcare and Public Health Sector,
Information Technology Sector,
Nuclear Reactors Materials and Waste Sector,
Transportation Systems Sector,
Water and Wastewater Systems Sector.
This is both Government and private sectors.
If you are in any of these industries, this directive is important to you for many reasons. Do you know where your critical sections are? Are they well protected? Are there concerns for Hazmat, security clearance requirements, and other concerns? Can you quickly rebuild what might be lost?
The important part of this means that critical infrastructure must be secure and able to withstand and rapidly recover from all hazards. Achieving this will require integration with the national preparedness system across prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery.
I need my project done today or tomorrow. Can you process rush jobs?
Depending upon when you catch us, yes, we can handle rush jobs. We often work over the holidays, Thanksgiving and even Christmas holidays. If you have a deadline – call us.
For years we have run three shifts of about 30 drafting folks per shift – allowing us to deliver work 3x faster, and seven days a week. Yes, we work 24/7, so you do not have to. The fun never stops here.
For 3D scanning, this is a different question. Because of the common setup work required, at best expect a 48-72 hour turn to be scanned. CAD or simulation services are in addition to that.
