Solidworks launches new Office suite

For engineers who develop complex products from start to finish, design software vendor Solidworks’ new Office suite can offer them a wide range of productivity and presentation tools to help them bring more cost-effective designs to market faster. Released yesterday, the Solidworks Office suite combines Solidworks 2001, the vendor’s flagship Windows-based 3D modelling product, and six of its most popular add-on applications in one package. This means users now get a very broad range of functionality from the suite, from part and assembly modelling to drawing generation, data interoperability, photo-realistic rendering, standard part libraries, design animation, 3D web publishing, feature recognition and design analysis tools. On the productivity side, Solidworks Office includes ‘Solidworks Toolbox’, which gives users access to design automation tools and a standard parts library. Also, ‘FeatureWorks’ eases the sharing of 3D data between companies using different CAD systems. And ‘Solidworks Utilities’ speeds up the design process further by allowing users to analyse, compare, edit, suppress and modify different features between two models. On the presentation side, Office provides three tools: Photoworks (for producing photo-quality images); Solidworks Animator (for demonstrating moving parts prior to manufacture); and 3D Instant Website (for creating and publishing live web pages with 3D interactive content). Solidworks Office costs $7,500, unless you’re an existing Solidworks customer. They pay just $6,000 for the suite.