The demand for the use of 3D CAD data over the Internet environment has been increased. However, transmission of 3D CAD data has delayed the communication effectiveness because of the CAD data size. Lightweight CAD file design methodology is required for rapid transmission in the distributed environment. In this paper, to derive lightweight CAD files from commercial CAD systems, a file translation system producing a native file is constructed first by using the InterOp and API of the ACIS kernel. Using the B-rep model and mesh data extracted from the native file, the lightweight CAD file with topological information is constructed as a binary file. Since the lightweight CAD file retains topological information, it is applied to the dimensional verification, digital mock-ups and visualization of CAD files. Effectiveness of the proposed lightweight CAD file is confirmed through various case studies.