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PLM / PDM Connectors

Many engineering models never arrive as a local upload — they live inside a product data system. Connectors import a selected revision or configuration directly into Quatrion as a derived model for viewing and spatial reasoning, while keeping the source item the authoritative CAD record.

Page summary

Read-only connectors that pull a selected revision from cloud CAD, PDM vaults, and enterprise PLM into Quatrion as a derived model — with source provenance preserved behind every finding.

Why connectors exist

Asking engineers to manually export, rename, upload, and explain every model gives away the workflow advantage Quatrion is built to create. Connectors close that gap: connect to the customer's engineering source of truth, import the selected revision into Quatrion as a derived model, and preserve enough source provenance that every downstream claim is auditable.

The goal is not to become a PLM. The source system stays the system of authoring, release, and lifecycle control. Quatrion becomes the review and reasoning layer on top of it.

How an import works

1. Select a source

Paste a source URL — for example an Onshape Part Studio or Assembly — and choose the revision, workspace, or configuration to import.

2. Resolve a source model ref

The URL normalizes into a stable reference: source system, tenant/domain, item and revision/version, configuration, element id, and BOM path when the source provides them.

3. Request a derived model

The connector requests or identifies a GLB/glTF-derived artifact for the model surface, labeled as derived from the source ref rather than as the authoritative file.

4. Land in object storage

Derived artifacts enter Quatrion through provider-neutral object/file references with hashes, size, media type, and creation time; large transfers are streamed and bounded.

5. Open and reason

The imported model opens through the same viewer, outliner, runs, and evidence surfaces as a local upload, and can follow the existing tokenizer path for spatial reasoning.

What an import preserves

A visible source summary on every loaded model: system, revision, configuration, and BOM path.
Assembly hierarchy, part names, and source ids when the source system provides them; flattening is only ever a visible degraded mode.
Conversion provenance: connector id, source format, target format, translation settings, timestamps, hashes, and warnings.
A user-visible audit record of the import run, including any skipped provenance fields.

Source systems

Onshape — first connector

Cloud-native CAD with documented translation/export APIs for Part Studios and Assemblies, including glTF export. The cleanest source-URL-to-derived-model flow.

Autodesk Vault + Platform Services — planned

Vault file-version access plus APS Model Derivative for broad CAD translation and viewer derivatives, with a post-process step when the source derivative is not already GLB.

PTC Windchill — planned

Enterprise PLM representation/structure ingest routed through the existing conversion and tokenization path; may require customer-specific deployment and auth setup.

Siemens Teamcenter — planned

Enterprise PLM JT-style visualization assets routed through the same conversion and tokenization path.

Aras · SOLIDWORKS PDM · 3DEXPERIENCE — roadmap

Modeled by the same connector contract, sequenced after the first connectors prove the ingest package, viewer handoff, credential posture, and derivative provenance.

Credentials and customer data

Connections reference credential profiles or platform credential handles, never raw access tokens.
Raw tokens, refresh tokens, signed URLs, cookies, and API keys never enter the workbench, exported packs, logs, or committed fixtures.
Source URLs are redacted of query strings and token-like path segments; object references never expose local host paths.
Users remain responsible for source-system licenses and export rights; connectors do not bypass source-system permissions or lifecycle controls.

Honest failure

An unsupported source or a failed derivative returns a typed, actionable blocker — for example auth required, permission denied, unsupported format, derivative failed, or rate limited — and leaves no partially trusted model in the workspace. A connector never falls back to a silent mesh, a stale file, or a fabricated source claim.

Boundaries

Connectors are read-only in v1: they do not check out, modify, lifecycle-promote, or write back to the source system. Imported models default to mesh-derived provenance, so no direct source-edit affordance is exposed until a future contract proves identity, editability, and write permission. GLB is the viewer and reasoning artifact, not a guarantee of exact B-Rep recovery; the source item/revision remains the authoritative CAD record.

See deployment & security