Onshape... opens its doors with a CAD pre-production offering

Onshape Incorporated  has just opened its doors, albeit slightly with a fresh and updated website providing a glimpse into this new company and the excitement they are bringing to the CAD community. With a welcoming and transparent view of the team and credentials, the company includes a robust mix of industry veterans in the fields of engineering, marketing, sales & support, user experience & product definition, along with a variety of interns getting in on the ground floor of something substantial.

Among the early surprises is the offering to be considered for an early access pre-production version of Onshape. The criteria to be considered includes a willingness to share details of your real design project, keep all information about Onshape confidential, and that you don't work directly or indirectly for a CAD vendor or reseller. If interested, you may want to hurry since the offering will be limited to a select number of design teams.

For what you might be giving up in this pre-production arrangement, you gain by receiving free early product access, technical support, the opportunity to steer the development of Onshape, and recognition / credits towards the production release.

No doubt the CAD community at large is eager to see and hear more about this new product, as the original pioneers of SolidWorks develop Onshape further, for as they say... "the world has changed."

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A single monitor is no problem... with SolidWorks Design Library

Many have experienced the frustrating constraint with having to design using a single monitor, whether with a desktop or laptop computer.  If having to do so, then you are sure to benefit from the Design Library of the Task Manager. Being both simple to setup and simple to modify as needed, the Design Library allows easy access to the Windows folders of your choice, without ever having to leave SolidWorks. Additionally, the workflow to using the Design Library eliminates the repetitive menu clicks of browsing for and inserting existing models, blocks, or annotations.

For example, suppose you have a folder of CAD models specific to a project, and another folder of common hardware CAD models.  By adding these two folders to your Design Library, the folders are now readily available to select.  When a Design Library folder is selected, the lower file view window provides icon imagery where the size can be adjusted to personal preference with a simple right-click menu selection. Although the Design Library only provides visibility / access to parts, assemblies, blocks and annotations, it does conveniently allow for drag and drop capability, saving time and effort in the design process.

Learning a new method or workflow always takes a measure of confidence that the initial effort in setup will bring real benefit. Utilizing the Design Library is just another example of that. Easily overlooked, it is especially helpful if you only have a single monitor to use with designing. By simply taking less than a minute to arrange, the Design Library can yield tremendous gains in finding the models you need quickly and efficiently, without ever having to leave the SolidWorks environment. 

The only question you might have after setting up and experiencing the advantage of using the Design Library to access folders is...  what will do you do with your added free time?!

Parasolid and D-Cubed... still the popular choices for 3D CAD software development

Owned by Siemens PLM Software, the 3D geometric modeling kernel known as Parasolid® and the CAD, CAM, CAE and PLM librariries of D-Cubed™ have been a popular choice among CAD software developers. These components are widely recognized as world leading and while used in Siemens products, are also licensed to many of the leading independent software vendors (ISV's), including SolidWorks. Their legacy of use continues with a new generation of cloud-based applications currently being developed by the likes of GrabCAD and the startup OnShape Inc.

Earlier this month, the announcement that GrabCAD had licensed Parasolid created a bit of a stir in the CAD community. So much so that they were impelled to issue a blog post explaining they were not developing a CAD system, but rather were simply pursuing development improvements of cloud-based PDM within the framework of Workbench. As it has already proven to be an effective collaboration tool, the viewer capability of Workbench will no doubt be enhanced by utilizing the Parasolid geometry engine. 

Within the past couple of years, OnShape Inc. too has been in the news in terms and intervals indicative of genuine growth. Numerous reports have well explained that the company's foundation includes the original pioneers and leaders of SolidWorks. Not surprisingly then, with a pattern reminiscent of early SolidWorks, this new enterprise began with a vision and determined entrepreneurial spirit. Here is an interesting timeline of key dates in its development thus far:

• November 2012: Belmont Technology incorporated @ Delaware USA
• founders include Jon Hirschtick (Chairman), John McEleney (CEO), Heung-Wing "Tommy" Li (Technical Lead), Dave Corcoran (VP Development), Scott Harris (VP Product Definition and UX), and Axel Bichara (Board Member)
• posted hiring for those skilled in distributed cloud-based architecture, rich web application development, and server infrastructure
• December 2012: secured $9 million in venture capital funding.
• April 2013: leased 4,930 sq ft of high-visibility first floor space at the One Alewife Center, Suite 130 @ Cambridge, Massachusetts USA
• April 2013: with 13 employees, added $25 million in funding earmarked to ramp hiring and to continue the development process
• January 2014: renamed OnShape Inc.
• homepage lists the team as including top engineers from the CAD, data center, mobile and streaming media industries
• posted hiring for marketing interns as a unique opportunity for anyone interested in the software industry, inbound marketing, as well as getting involved with an organization at the ground level
• February 2014: licensed the Parasolid and D-Cubed technologies

It's exciting to consider that OnShape may bring something refreshingly relevant to the CAD community, albeit perhaps anchored to Parasolid and D-Cubed. As SolidWorks users know well, having a great CAD software package is an important impetus to design.  So what will these original founders of SolidWorks and their team develop in this day and age with the current trends in technology, their collective knowledge and experience, an awareness of opportunity, and a clean slate?  We will simply have to wait and see.

HomeByMe... imagine, design, and share 3D housing projects

As a CAD service provider, it's always exciting to learn of new products that can extend one's repertoire of 3D services.  Especially when the new products announced are part of the ever expanding 3D Experience platform of Dassault Systemes. Among the new DS product offerings announced during Monday's General Session at SolidWorks World 2014 in San Diego, California USA, HomeByMe merits attention and is now available to users in a beta release.

HomeByMe is an online 3D space planning service to imagine, design, and share housing projects. With HomeByMe, you can create an entire home in 3D and experiment with thousands of products and textures before sharing your project.

Powered by 3DVIA, it's easy to sketch a home. With a simple yet effective interface, external and internal walls can be placed and arranged, along with doors, windows, additional floors, and stairs. Essentially, everything you might need to transform a vision into a 3D reality.

As SolidWorks users know well, we are accustomed to the many facets of mechanical design projects. But to keep things fresh, it can be rewarding to take on the occasional 3D modeling project of a home, deck, or other entity, be it personal or for business. Yes, HomeByMe is certainly a convenient means to develop a 3D home design, furnish it, decorate it, and render it. All in the comfort of the 3D Experience platform!