Solutions
Plenty of RFQs arrive as a scanned print with no CAD model behind them. Partimation reads dimensions, tolerances and GD&T straight off the sheet, scores the confidence of every value, and cross-checks the print against the model on holes, envelope and GD&T-to-face when one finally turns up.
Where it shows up
The RFQ is a scan of a print, or a PDF exported from a drawing package that shipped before anyone here started. Asking the customer for a STEP file costs two days you are already behind on, and they may not have one either.
Dimensions, tolerances, datums, and feature control frames get read off the sheet by hand, one at a time. The callout buried in a general note gets missed, and nobody finds out until first article.
The package arrives as several sheets with the revision table on one of them. Two sheets disagree about the part number, and the quote gets built off whichever one was on top of the pile.
A STEP file lands a week in with a different hole count than the drawing had. The argument about which one is right happens after the price has already gone out.
What it costs
It costs you the job, most of the time. Waiting on a model hands the work to whoever answered first, and quoting by hand costs an estimator most of a day plus the risk that the one callout nobody read is the one that sets the process. Prints are the RFQs your competitors also cannot open — so they go to the shop that answers first, and they go at a loss to the shop that misread a tolerance getting there.
How it plays out
A scanned print, a PDF, a raster image, or a clean CAD export is enough by itself to pull dimensions, tolerances, and GD&T into a structured requirements model, with no 3D file anywhere in that path. Every value comes back with a confidence score and the source it was read from — vision off a raster image, vector off the drawing's own line data, or PMI off a model. DocDFM.
The revision table, the title block, and the parts list are parsed straight off the drawing, a multi-sheet package is merged into one job, and the sheets disagreeing with each other on part number is raised as a flag rather than absorbed silently. DrawDFM.
When a drawing and a 3D model both exist, the two are compared on holes, envelope, and GD&T-to-face, and anywhere they disagree — or anywhere one of them is simply missing the information — gets flagged for a person instead of being resolved quietly in the background. PartDFM.
Low-confidence reads are flagged rather than accepted into the numbers, and a tolerance tighter than the process can hold is called out against the callout it came from. That list is the email worth sending the customer — far better than asking them again for a model they do not have. DocDFM.
Already shipped
Every dimension, tolerance, and GD&T callout comes back carrying a confidence score and the source it was read from, and anything under the threshold is flagged for a human rather than accepted into the numbers. A twenty-year-old photocopy reads as a poor read on the screen instead of quietly becoming a requirement nobody questioned. That is the difference that matters on a drawing-only RFQ: not that a machine read the sheet, but that it tells you which values it read well and which ones somebody still needs to look at.
See it for your team
FAQ
Work from the sheet you were sent. A scanned, PDF, or raster print is enough on its own to pull dimensions, tolerances, and GD&T into a structured requirements model, with no 3D file anywhere in that path. Every value carries a confidence score and the source it was read from, so you can see exactly what the print gave up and what it did not.
Waiting is how the job goes to whoever answered first. Reading the print gives you the requirements now, flagged wherever the read was poor, and a model can still be reconciled against those requirements if one ever arrives. The questions worth putting to the customer fall out of the flagged values, which makes a better email than asking again for a STEP file.
Neither, until the two agree. Holes, envelope, and GD&T-to-face are cross-checked between drawing and model, and anywhere they disagree is flagged for a person rather than resolved silently. A hole count that differs between print and model is a question for the customer, and much better asked before the price goes out than argued after it.
Reading the whole sheet rather than the views. Dimensions, tolerances, and GD&T come off the print each with a confidence score, the title block and parts list are parsed alongside them, and a multi-sheet package is merged into one job with a flag raised if the sheets disagree on part number. Nothing rests on an estimator noticing note seven at five to five.
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