3D CAD collaborative commerce about to take another leap forward

SolidWorks, the high growth Microsoft-centric 3D modelling software specialist part of Dassault Systemes, is about to launch a powerful upgrade to its innovative emailable ‘e-Drawings’ system, with a new e-Drawings viewer and a professional mark-up system that could transform collaborative engineering for the broad swathe of engineering and manufacturing companies. Due out on general release at the end of the month, this new system is very impressive. The demo, if you get the chance, will blow you away. It builds on SolidWorks’ 1999 e-Drawings release, which hugely compresses 3D CAD drawings and provides them as a self-executing .exe files for emailing, so remote users without the application can open them, pan and zoom and, with the power of 3D, hyperlink to sections, rotate, etc. Now, the e-Drawings viewer has been enhanced to provide streaming graphics for better Internet use, sending of parts and assemblies views pre-drawings, OLE object support and review facilities. At the receiving end you can open assemblies or whatever, get the look, feel and detail and see the hierarchy of components involved and do the same with them. And if you’re concerned about .exes on emails, with the current escalation of viruses, you can use SolidWorks’ hosted website, which includes templates, Wizards and so forth to make it easy. Simply opening the HTML page, dowloading an ActiveX plug-in, and you’re away. All that capability is absolutely free with SolidWorks Office – £450 without. As for the e-Drawings Professional version, you get all of that and the ability to markup, measure and so forth with advanced viewing and interpretation tools on the active data. You can create a review-enabled drawing with, as it were, an embedded electronic marker pen, and send that anywhere – to users with or without the tool. It means that both internal departments, management and external collaborators, partners and customers can get in on the act of development at the earliest opportunity – and while the e-Drawings II viewer is free, the Professional version is just £950 for a seat. That’s all you need. This is real 3D commerce for everyone. Small wonder SolidWorks is doing so well (6,5000 seats sold in Q2 2001 and big names like BNFL Metal Box and Yamazaki signing in the UK this quarter). And small wonder it’s partner programme of ISVs and system integrators is proving so attractive.