When developing engineering applications, CAD data access is a common roadblock. Developers often need to provide support for a wide range of formats, with users demanding both accuracy and speed. In most circumstances, developing and maintaining these capabilities in-house is a prohibitively expensive way to reinvent the wheel, ultimately resulting in a poor imitation of existing solutions. Software development kits (SDKs) allow teams to get market-hardened features with a fraction of the development effort.  

When developers research the best CAD data access toolkits, two of the biggest names that will come up are Tech Soft 3D’s HOOPS Exchange and 3D InterOp by Spatial, owned by Dassault Systems. While open-source and low-budget options exist, these two SDKs offer the highest quality and breadth of translation for many use cases.  

Here, we wanted to provide an honest breakdown of the two, offering our nearly 30 years of experience serving this market to discuss relative strengths, limitations, and who they might be right for. 

Of course, one of the most common questions regarding data access is format support: jump to the end for a table directly comparing the two toolkits read/write support for various formats. 

Common Strengths of HOOPS Exchange & 3D InterOp by SPATIAL 

As premium CAD data translation toolkits, both HOOPS Exchange and 3D InterOp by Spatial will provide a high level of quality, speed, and vendor support that open source and low-budget alternatives cannot match. Beyond broader quality and speed, there are a few specific capabilities to highlight that the toolkits share. 

Reliable Integration with HOOPS Visualize 

HOOPS Visualize offers developers multiple ways to provide their tool with the industry-leading graphics functionality they need, from desktop, XR, and mobile to web-native applications. As the name suggests, the toolkit is a part of the HOOPS product line, so it integrates natively with HOOPS Exchange. Despite competing on some fronts, Tech Soft 3D and SPATIAL maintain a close working relationship, with SPATIAL being a reseller of HOOPS Visualize. 

As a result, 3D InterOp also supports integration with HOOPS Visualize. No matter which CAD data translation toolkit you choose, combining it with a proven graphics SDK is going to be simple and well supported. 

Global Support for a Global Market 

Both Tech Soft 3D and SPATIAL have offices all over the world, allowing you to get support where you need it from those who understand your unique challenges. For both regional and global organizations, the technical and business support you will get from these two toolkit providers will far surpass that from smaller providers or open-source alternatives.  

Modeling Kernel Provided for Your Development Needs 

Both Tech Soft 3D and SPATIAL provide the modeling kernel and integration modules for their respective products. Additionally, HOOPS Exchange supports a strong integration with Siemens Parasolid.

HOOPS Exchange Key Strengths 

While both toolkits offer powerful data translation for developers, there are key areas where each product has a unique benefit. First, some of the strengths of HOOPS Exchange. 

Better Translation of 3D Visualization Information 

HOOPS Exchange offers best-in-class reading speed, minimal memory consumption, small DLL size, and broad platform support. For organizations where these are the highest priorities, this toolkit is likely to be the best choice.  

Support for Next-Generation and Innovative Applications 

Supporting organizations developing applications at the forefront of their fields requires data access technology that is open and neutral to various CAD vendors. HOOPS Exchange uses PRC, an ISO standard, as its internal data representation, rather than a proprietary, closed format. The format is also the basis of 3D representation within PDFs, developed as part of a close partnership with Adobe. This provides maximum transparency and flexibility for data representation and storage. 

For 3D data, while we still believe in the importance of B-Rep, we see a innovative, non-B-Rep 3D model inputs, such as point clouds and implicit models. We are also seeing the ever-increasing role that metadata, physically based materials (PBR), CAD features, mass property info, PMI, and constraints are playing in the market. The rising influence of formats like USD, glTF, and 3MF are examples of these trends in action.  

HOOPS Exchange is able to support all of these formats and data types* (note, excluding implicit geometry) because it is independent of B-Rep modeling SDKs. We believe that this provides a unique position in the market to provide toolkits for innovative applications. The toolkit is neutral and unbiased in the way it supports data access because Tech Soft 3D is an independent vendor, not tied to any 3D CAD leader like Dassault Systèmes, Autodesk, PTC, or Siemens. In addition, HOOPS Exchange does not require special libraries to provide cross-platform support to Mac, Linux, or Windows. 

Applications developed with toolkits provided by one of these organizations may face significant challenges to their neutrality. While 3D InterOp by SPATIAL is a powerful toolkit, they are a part of Dassault Systèmes, and this could potentially create issues related to neutrality. 

Support for Parasolid-Based Applications 

According to Siemens, 45% of the 3D CAD data used in the mechanical market is Parasolid-based. We believe that focusing on Parasolid data is one way developers can get an advantage in a competitive market and have outlined some of the reasons in our blog “7 reasons why you should think about moving to Parasolid.” 

3D InterOp by Spatial Key Strengths 

While we obviously love HOOPS Exchange, 3D InterOp by Spatial has a few core strengths we want to highlight. Many of these stem from the reality of coming from such a large organization, an attribute with both pros and cons.  

The Perks of Large Organization Ownership 

As discussed, SPATIAL is a part of Dassault Systèmes. While this may cause some issues with neutrality, it comes with the undeniable benefits of being a part of such an innovative, powerful company. SPATIAL has access to its powerful modeling technologies and extensive R&D resources. Simply put, the size, reputation, and skill of their development team will lead you to expect cutting-edge technology and support when you license their products. 

Dassault Systèmes is a leader in the PLM market, wielding substantial influence. Although SPATIAL is not a part of the 3D Experience platform, SPATIAL will still benefit from the significant market penetration that comes with this. They also have the benefits that come from co-marketing opportunities with the DS logo. For organizations that choose to license their toolkits, this recognition provides proof to your end users that the application is built with a name they likely already know.  

AGM & Application Starter Tools 

Along with their toolkit offerings, SPATIAL provides AGM, a multifaceted application framework that helps developers create robust 3D applications. SPATIAL claims that this can help to further reduce time-to-market and development costs. 

Tech Soft 3D takes a different approach, using the following resources to help teams streamline their application development process as much as possible. These resources include: 

• Tech Soft 3D Innovation Lab | Experimental Projects – Tons of source code available at no additional costs 

• Tech Soft 3D Forum – Our partners and Tech Soft 3D staff collaborate, openly sharing ideas, guides, instructions, and source code snippets to help each other as a community. 

• Tech Soft 3D YouTube – Video guides to help your team learn 

• HOOPS Demo Viewer – A powerful tool for testing, debugging, etc 

• HOOPS Learning Platform - Modules to help learn more about HOOPS toolkits

• Samples distributed with the SDKs 

Ultimately, we believe that both approaches greatly help you jumpstart your development and go to the market faster.  

HOOPS Exchange vs. 3D InterOp by SPATIAL: Which is Right for You? 

The choice between these two toolkits is going to boil down to your unique needs and the markets you intend to serve. Both offer a premium CAD data translation toolkit and are rightfully at the top of the industry for developers looking for the best-of-the-best. The best next step is to get in touch and help us learn more about your unique data access needs.  

Format Support Comparison Table

Below you will find a table providing a broad overview of read/write support from HOOPS Exchange and 3D InterOp by Spatial for various formats. For HOOPS Exchange, you can find a much more detailed breakdown of supported platforms, support for tessellation, B-Rep, PMI, and more, broken down by every format in our documentation. For SPATIAL’s table covering their formats, click here, though you may need to contact them directly for a more detailed breakdown.