Having worked with Adobe’s product line the last 5 or 6 years through college and beyond, I find it interesting to see that they’re going 3D. As if eating up Macromedia wasn’t enough! They have created a high-end version of Acrobat, aimed at boosting sales in the manufacturing industry, that displays three-dimensional images within PDF documents.

Acrobat 3D is expected to go public later today which will allow a person to create a PDF with embedded images from CAD style applications (like AutoCAD, Promis-E…. hmmm, Promis-E, the troubles with that one!). Of course anyone interested will have to off and update their copy of Acrobat Reader / Adobe Acrobat in order to get the use of it.

From the release…. “Adobe developed the 3D product specifically for manufacturing customers who regularly exchange CAD files in the design process, said Rak Bhalla, senior marketing manager. Car manufacturers, for example, share their product descriptions and designs with their suppliers to get bids for component parts. ”

I’ve been coaching my father of late on zipping and PDFing CAD drawings for the business, albeit on a 2D basis but I’d be very interesting in seeing the outcome of the 3D development!