Solidworks Industrial Designer

Well… what do we think?

There’s a nice little video of the software on in that link.

It seems you are trying to trick this old dog into a new trick.

You are a bad man Mr. NURB. A very bad man.

Unless of course you are showing me this so I can inflict it upon my crew. Then I give you this laurel and hardy handshake.

But seriously, I’ll let the young folks know. Thanks for the link.

If this were 2010 then I’d have throw a ticket tape parade… but now, it just seems like it’s a decent first attempt but, and this is at least from what’s been explained about it at Solidworks world 2015, is the following: (Let this be prefaced with what information has been put out there by Solidworks HQ, so some of this may no longer be placed holders).

  • It’s cloud based only.
  • Files made in it will only be able to imported as dumb geometry. (i.e. no interoperability between any changes made in SWID and SW).
  • Materials applied in SWID for rendering are not transferable to materials to SW or PV360.

These are just a few points, among others, that are worth touching upon and looking deep at as a paradigm. If a new feature, tool set, or level of functionality is introduced into the pipeline it had better be fully thought through and not take several years to implement. (aka Photoworks to Photoview to PV360). This is part of the reason why software like Keyshot has just taken over as the rendering tool because of the very slow and painful transition.

-I’m all for cloud applications, but not having to option to also install locally can potentially be limiting, but that aside, it’s a subscription based only model. So there’s always the question of being able to view files or retain access to it if not downloaded locally.

  • Because anytime there’s a disconnect between software it creates a world of havoc. Now II don’t think that it stands to ask that at the very least updates from models made in SWID wouldn’t be able to push down to SW locally and have thing update. This idea that designers and engineers can’t collaborate is only being further divided with this kind of data wall diving them.

  • PV360 is finally getting some very nice upgrades with an improved version in the pipeline. One would think that, again thinking ahead, that connecting between these 3 platforms would be a given out the gate.

SWID is going head to head against Power Surfacing which is already an SubD modeling system that is installed and used within Solidworks. It’s a gold partner which basically translates to models made in Power Surfacing are associative to any features made in Solidworks. In other words change the SubD model and see the features based upon it update.

Got deeper pockets and not worried about models updating, then Modo offers a whole world of SubD goodness that already talks to SW files. Topped off with both rendering and animation capabilities and there’s just no going back.

Conclusion: SWID is a definite WIP. It solving a problem that actually been address quite nicely by already existing products in the market place. It would really only be worth really biting into if data could be fully exchanged 100% as a two way street at least in terms of geometry updating from SWID down to SW local.

That final render of the ski pole handle in the snow looks great! Let’s go to tooling! We saved months of time!

(and detached mouse based sketching is really just like paper except for being able to sketch in three dimensions!)

Have been poking around the SW website (as a logged in paying customer) and I don’t get it:

If it’s cloud based subscription model, how can I try it out? I’m not interested in submitting my details and getting a quote making it into a big deal and non-transparent process. Is there really no option to just register and get a 15day trial or something?

I’m actually more interested in SW Conceptual Designer for mechanical concepts. SWID adds nothing I don’t already have, but SWCD looks like a very quick was to test mechanical motion, not easily done with pen/paper. Or is there a tool that does that in a similar way already?

I played with SubD modeling in Maya. It blew my mind, but I never used it since. I like what I see with Modo though. Maybe I need to investigate this again.

The SW ID looks like something that might be ready for prime time in 10 years or never. Itès like an expensive half-baked idea.

The ideas looks dated. Most of the tools they are adding can be replaced with inexpensive softwares like sketchbook or keyshot. I’d rather have more powerful surface tools in SW.

To me, it reminds me of what Autodesk is doing with their Fusion product. The difference though, is that you can actually machine parts out of Fusion…

But, does anyone really use ANY of the collaborative elements within software packages? Adobe has stuff, Autodesk, Dassault, I’m sure others. Does anyone really post images to a timeline, hashtag it, LOL it, etc.? That all seems well and good, but wouldn’t you need your entire team, and all your clients on it to really take full advantage? Seems like it’s reaching for an audience, to me.

I agree, that if it doesn’t directly integrate with SW, there’s no point to it. If I could model that ski pole, dump it in to SW and create production parts from it, then you might be on to something. I wish they’d explain that a bit further. Maybe they will…

Basecamp seems a much easier way to have a running blog of dev. process. You can also invite clients who don’t need anything more than a browser to contribute.

I second van de bar. I want better surfacing. I’m sure we’re not alone in this! I think surfacing isn’t as sexy for the execs as creating a solid-modeling facebook / tinder.

Haha. Swipe left on this one, guys!

Seems like a very odd choice to make it cloud only and incompatible with full blown Solidworks…

It’s like they’re admitting that Solidworks isn’t very good at quickly blocking up ideas and surfacing or in the case of the conceptual designer package, doing quick motion analysis without doing a fully fleshed out assembly. So their solution is to let you play in a sandbox with those tools but have you rebuild everything once your design is set?

I’m also not too keen on the social/project management aspect. There are well established apps like Asana and Basecamp that seem like a better choice for most.

It was stated years ago they were moving away from the Parasolid kernel to the CATIA kernel because of limitations. SWID is this evolution and due to different kernel it is incompatible.