3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Roles – How are They Similar or Different than SOLIDWORKS Desktop?

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3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Role(s) were launched and made available for purchase in July. If you are an existing SOLIDWORKS user or someone who is very familiar with SOLIDWORKS, you may wonder what are they and how are they different from SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD packages? With today’s post, I want to address these questions and help you learn a bit more about these roles.

First it is important to know that 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS has SOLIDWORKS CAD built at the heart of it. However, it is much more than CAD. 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS roles are complete solutions with built-in and secure cloud data management and collaboration.

3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Roles are transformational and move users from product thinking to platform thinking and also make it possible to connect people, ideas, data and solutions in a single collaborative and interactive cloud environment, available to you at all times and from any device.

As a user, this means you can continue to use the SOLIDWORKS CAD you love, but then collaborate securely without friction with your colleagues and partners and benefit from their knowledge and know-how.  It means you can further extend capability of SOLIDWORKS with interoperable solutions available on 3DEXPERIENCE Platform that work seamlessly together to give you the best experience.

Let us now dig a bit deeper and look at the some of the key differences:

  •  Licensing: The licensing is managed and assigned directly on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. The admin assumes a platform administrator role and gets his own dashboard to manage users and understand license usage and consumption. He can additionally perform other administrative tasks (e.g. define user groups, access rules, map CAD parameters, set communities etc.). You can read more on 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS licensing, on a previous blog, and learn about the Platform Adminstration here.

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  •  Installation: The entire workflow around installing SOLIDWORKS is greatly simplified. The user installs it directly from the platform onto his or her machine and requires just two clicks to install. Once installed, the SOLIDWORKS application can then launch directly from the platform. You get more frequent updates, and all updates are pushed onto the platform, ready to install by the user on next launch.  This makes the entire process straightforward for both users and adminstrators.

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  •  Integrated Cloud Product Lifecycle Management: All data you create using 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS is saved on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform’s secure collaborative space and is lifecycle-managed. The data can be easily found using powerful 3DSearch from within SOLIDWORKS application. There is no more browsing through directories or worrying about having files scattered across directories. New File options for opening, saving make working with 3DEXPERIENCE platform seamless and integral. If you have been thinking about your SOLIDWORKS file and need to use it some disconnected legacy application- there is an option to export the file in solidworks file formats along with other common formats. The integrated 3DEXPERIENCE session window makes it very easy to perform data and lifecycle management tasks within the context of your design session. You can even use 3DTasks to manage your design workflow.

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  •  Viewing: Maybe you are wondering on how you would view your files now that it is on the platform. Here is where 3DPlay comes to rescue and is your replacement for eDrawing. You can instantly preview your designs on any device with no plugin or software to install or files to move. 3DPlay has all the tools to help you interrogate and annotate the model and easily share the snapshot to the SWYM communities, which is where the heart of collaboration discussions happens.

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  • Configurations: The team at SOLIDWORKS has rethought configurations and now has made it simpler to capture the intent of configurations. A new UI lets you easily define configurations as a different part of representation of same part.

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  •  Renderings: Customers of SOLIDWORKS Professional and Premium roles benefit from getting Visualize Connected, a full-featured version of Visualize Professional now connected to the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. This is your better replacement for Photoview 360 and Visualize Standard with 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS.

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  • 3DEXPERIENCE Part Supply: With integration of Part Supply from within 3DEXPERIENCE, the 3D Components you need are now at your fingertips for free right from the context of your design session. Customers can additionally set up a common library in a collaborative space with their standard parts and use them directly in their designs. Powerful search capabilities in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform makes it easier to find and reuse any existing data.

These are just some of the key differences that I wanted to highlight today as they distinguish 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS from SOLIDWORKS Desktop. If you are interested in learning more or see the demo of 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS, you can reach out to your reseller.

 

Divi Lohiya

Divi is a Senior Manager, Product Portfolio Management at SOLIDWORKS. He is passionate about how new technologies are coming together to change the way how products are designed, made and sold and engaging/teaching kids in STEM activities. Divi graduated from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay with a dual degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters degree in Engineering from University of Texas at Austin.