Which Industry Standards Does Cortona3D Support for Technical Documentation?

Updated

Cortona3D supports three technical documentation standards: S1000D, ATA 2200, and DITA. According to the company, RapidAuthor ships with pre-configured templates compliant with these standards, and you can attach an existing SGML/XML document that complies with S1000D, DITA, or ATA and generate a corresponding structure of the procedure. This matters most if you produce documentation for aerospace, defense, or other industries where these standards are contractually required.

The three standards at a glance

Standard Typical domain What Cortona3D says it provides
S1000D Aerospace, defense, and other complex equipment support Pre-configured templates; ability to attach an existing S1000D-compliant SGML/XML document and generate the corresponding procedure structure
ATA 2200 Air transport industry documentation Pre-configured templates; same SGML/XML attachment and structure-generation capability
DITA Structured topic-based technical content Pre-configured templates; same SGML/XML attachment and structure-generation capability

The common thread is that compliance is handled through templates rather than manual formatting, and existing standard-compliant XML/SGML content can be brought in rather than rebuilt.

How the compliance mechanism works in practice

The workflow described on the site has two entry points:

  1. Start from a template. You select a pre-configured template for S1000D, ATA 2200, or DITA, and author within that structure. This is the path for new documentation programs.
  2. Attach existing compliant content. If you already have an SGML/XML document that conforms to one of these standards, you attach it and Cortona3D generates a corresponding structure of the procedure. This is the path for migrating or reusing legacy content.

In both cases, the output is produced from a single source and can be published in different formats — interactive HTML5 with animated 3D illustrations, traditional PDF with 2D illustrations, or content for augmented reality.

Why the "attach and generate structure" step is the one to test

Generating a procedure structure from an attached SGML/XML file is the highest-risk part of any standards-compliance claim, because the result depends on how cleanly your source content maps to the target schema. Before committing, take one representative existing document and run it through this path. Check that the generated structure matches what your reviewers expect, not just that the import succeeds.

Which standard applies to your situation

  • S1000D — choose this if you are in aerospace, defense, or another sector where the customer or contract specifies S1000D for equipment technical publications.
  • ATA 2200 — choose this if you produce air transport maintenance documentation and your program follows ATA conventions.
  • DITA — choose this if your organization already uses topic-based structured authoring and wants to keep that model while adding 3D and 2D illustrations generated from engineering data.

If none of these are required by your contracts, the standards support is not the deciding factor — the more relevant question becomes whether authoring directly from CAD and PLM data fits your process.

What to verify before relying on compliance

The site states template compliance and the ability to attach compliant SGML/XML, but it does not publish the specific schema versions or validation rules behind those claims. Before you treat compliance as settled:

  • Ask which S1000D issue number, ATA 2200 revision, and DITA version the templates target.
  • Request a validation run against your own schema or a customer-supplied sample.
  • Confirm how the attached-document structure generation handles your existing content, since that step is where mismatches surface.

Cortona3D also offers a live demo and a free trial, which are the practical ways to test these points against your own files rather than against a generic example.