{"id":4730,"date":"2016-09-27T09:47:02","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T08:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4730"},"modified":"2016-09-27T09:47:02","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T08:47:02","slug":"how-to-work-with-non-solidworks-3d-designs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/2016\/09\/how-to-work-with-non-solidworks-3d-designs\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Work with Non-SOLIDWORKS 3D Designs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among the hundreds of new features and enhancements packed into SOLIDWORKS 2017<\/a> is 3D Interconnect<\/strong>, which enables users to to collaborate on all major proprietary CAD formats in a way similar to native SOLIDWORKS files.<\/p>\n

Do you need to insert a valve in Autodesk Inventor\u2122 format from a supplier into your SOLIDWORKS design? Do you need to use SOLIDWORKS to design molds, tooling and fixtures around your client\u2019s Creo\u00ae<\/span><\/sup> or CATIA data? Does another department of your company at a different location send you Solid Edge\u00ae<\/span><\/sup> files and you need to complete the entire design in SOLIDWORKS? Or do you need to resume a legacy design in UG NX\u2122 format now that your company has switched to the SOLIDWORKS platform?<\/p>\n

If yes, you are not alone. However, there have been many CAD interoperability challenges: unreadable files, lost features, misaligned geometries and duplicated files, which could result in massive remodeling time, crippling design discrepancies, messy data management and delayed productions. A report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States estimated that \u201cimperfect interoperability imposes at least $1 billion dollars per year on the members of the U.S. automotive supply chain. These costs are primarily due to supporting multiple computer-aided design (CAD)\/computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) systems and correcting errors in product data exchange.\u201d (Source: Interoperability Cost Analysis of the U.S. Automotive Supply Chain).<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if we could collaborate on all major proprietary CAD formats similar to native SOLIDWORKS files? Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if we could focus on design and forget about CAD formats? Wouldn\u2019t it be nice when source CAD files were updated, those updates could be reflected in SOLIDWORKS automatically?<\/p>\n

Now this dream has come true, thanks to SOLIDWORKS 3D Interconnect<\/a> in the SOLIDWORKS 2017 release. 3D Interconnect is a new functionality that allows users to read all major 3D proprietary CAD files into SOLIDWORKS and use them in the same way they would use native SOLIDWORKS files. It bypasses the entire data translation process, opens 3D CAD files directly as if they were created in SOLIDWORKS, and updates the 3D references along with surrounding SOLIDWORKS designs upon external changes.<\/p>\n