SOLIDWORKS support
Yes! From now on CAD Exchanger can process native format of Dassault’s flagship product. Approximately 23% of CAD professionals use SolidWorks on daily basis. Together they generate tremendous volume of 3D files in native format, which are troublesome to feed into 3rd party major and minor CAD systems. This is why a large portion of our users regularly demand SolidWorks file format in CAD Exchanger and it’s finally here. For several months we have been working on it’s support and now ready to showcase the results to the real world.
At this moment users can import SolidWork files (.sldprt and .sldasm) and convert to any supported file format. In the initial version CAD Exchanger supports core specifics of the format such as reading b-rep representations, multi-body parts and external files, product structure, colors, names and so on. Enjoy!
Manipulator
CAD Exchanger has long ceased to be a simple viewer and converter. During the last few years our product acquires functionality to become a tool to make simple engineering analysis. It enables users to build sectioning and exploded views, generate meshes, add LoDs, edit model’s contents (colors, names), manage outputs of the export. In 3.4.2 update we continue to enrich functionality and this time we added ability to move parts and assemblies
Users can enable “Manipulate” mode through a context menu (right click) in 3D view. The appeared manipulator allows moving the element along the XYZ axes and changing the angle in different planes. Edits made in this mode will be saved to the model contents. Thus, once exported and re-imported (or imported in 3rd party software), position of the elements will be updated.
Product and Manufacturing Information
For many our users PMI is vital. This is why we continue to work on it from release to release. Sometimes, especially on complex models, large volume of PMI makes it difficult to read. To clean the model and simplify the perception authors may create ‘model view’, which is an aggregate of camera position and certain PMI entities. With 3.4.2 we fixed several bugs related to specifics of JT format and updated PMI display and camera for STEP format.
Format updates
Key value of CAD Exchanger is ability to read CAD data regardless of the source CAD system. To achieve that we listen carefully to our users and take actions on the provided feedback. Thus, we maintain high quality of format interfaces. In this release we significantly improved JT, STEP, OBJ and IGES modules.
- JT. Added per-vertex export of colors, improved PMI support, enabled forward compatibility with future versions of JT. Finally, improved support of JT10.x files written with the most recent JT toolkit;
- STEP. Fixed import of specific faces and parts with several B-Reps, added support of several new entities;
- OBJ. Enhanced performance on heavy-weight models with textures, added support for mtlib files with non-Unicode names.;
- IGES. Enabled multibody export, fixed bugs reported by our users;
Thank you for being with us. Your feedback helps us to add meaningfull value to our product. If you have something to say, please contact us at info@cadexchanger.com. Your bug reports and questions are highly appreciated.