3D-Tool vs meshio

3D-Tool is a Windows CAD viewer and converter for opening, inspecting, measuring, analyzing and converting 3D models and 2D drawings without a separate CAD system. It reads more than 30 3D formats and supports DXF, DWG and HPGL drawings, though available formats depend on license edition. Measurement tools cover distances, angles, radii, wall thicknesses and clearances, and calculate centers of mass, surface areas, contour lengths and minimum bounding boxes. Analysis includes tooling, wall thickness, collisions and model comparison, with results shown as heatmaps. Models can be exported as EXE files or 3D-PDF; Premium adds 3D-HTML conversion and native interfaces for listed CAD systems. The Free Viewer opens DDD, STL and 3MF files, has no time limit or registration requirement, and permits commercial use. Paid single-user licenses are one-time purchases: Basic is € 200, Advanced € 400 and Premium € 800, plus VAT. A 14-day trial unlocks all functions and import formats.

meshio is free, MIT-licensed software for reading and writing unstructured mesh files and converting among supported formats. Its format coverage includes Abaqus, ANSYS msh, CGNS, Gmsh, STL, VTK, VTU, and XDMF. A Python API reads meshes, exposes points and cells, and writes them in a selected format. The command-line tool converts, inspects, compresses, decompresses, and switches files between ASCII and binary forms. XDMF support handles time series that use one shared mesh. A ParaView plugin opens meshio-supported files after installation when ParaView uses the matching Python major version. Installation is documented through pip and conda-forge. Some formats need optional netCDF4 and h5py dependencies from the all extra. meshio specifies Python 3.8 or later and supports Windows, macOS, and Linux. Project metadata targets science, engineering, and scientific research.