Exploring New Territory with 3DEXPERIENCE DraftSight Mechanical

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It’s been about a year since DraftSight Mechanical was launched. Have you heard of it? I hope so, you all requested it. In a nutshell, DraftSight Mechanical includes all the features in DraftSight Premium, plus advanced features that allow you to create and update drawings containing mechanical entities in DWG format.

As well as delivering great productivity tools, DraftSight Mechanical enables users to think of their design as a real mechanical assembly. It is purpose-built to work with mechanical entities and objects in the DWG file format. With DraftSight Mechanical you can read and modify part references and modify bill of materials (BOM) previously created with other 2D mechanical tools, as well as create new part references and BOMs. It also has support for national and international standards for ANSI, ISO, DIN, JIS and BSI.

At the same time as we launched DraftSight Mechanical, we also introduced 3DEXPERIENCE DraftSight Mechanical, a cloud-connected version with all the benefits of DraftSight Mechanical, that connects to the cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE platform for hassle-free upgrades and easy, secure file storage, and data management. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is so much more than just data management, with tools for design review, versioning and collaboration amongst many others.

This summer in both versions of DraftSight Mechanical, we also added the ability to customize your BOM to display and list custom properties. For example, you can create custom component properties for part references, BOMs, parts lists, and balloons. Choose component property among any company-specific property, such as unit, standard, NC number, order number, part number, revision number for PDM, ERP, etc.

This capability will help you meet your company’s standards and specific requirements, saving you time and streamlining your workflow.

There’s also a new visibility enhancement that enables you to specify how entities on inactive layers or locked layer groups appear on the drawing area. This lets you easily control the display of inactive layer groups.

For those of you who already have a version of DraftSight and want to take advantage of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, we have Collaborative Designer for DraftSight, which connects any desktop install of DraftSight to the platform. We also offer 3DEXPERIENCE DraftSight, a cloud-connected version of DraftSight for those who don’t currently have DraftSight.

A nice benefit of being connected to the platform is that whether you are a new or experienced user, you can take advantage of the new onboarding dashboard that includes videos on how to install/get started with either solution. In addition, you can access the EDU Space learning platform to get your hands on more in-depth tutorials.

Don’t overlook it, the dashboard helps you get onboard faster, so you can be more productive sooner, rather than later. You have valuable resources right at your fingertips when you need them.

That covers a few of the latest updates but stay tuned as I’ll be discussing more of this year’s top enhancements later this year.

Oh, and you may be wondering why I’m not discussing simulation. Not to worry, I’m still your go-to sim guy, but I’ve recently stepped into new territory to help advance the future of DraftSight. So, let’s explore this new territory together. Check out all the solutions if you haven’t already, then ask your VAR which flavor of DraftSight is right for you.

Learn more about 3DEXPERIENCE DraftSight and Collaborative Designer for DraftSight on the website here. Watch a quick demo on 3DEXPERIENCE DraftSight Mechanical here and learn more about the capabilities in this blog. You can also catch an on-demand webinar of DraftSight Mechanical here.

 

Stephen Endersby

Stephen Endersby is a Director of Product Portfolio Management at Dassault Systemes SOLIDWORKS. A passionate believer in the benefits of design analysis Stephen is confident that every designer can make use structural, motion, fluid and plastics simulation tools to improve their product designs and performance. With over 15 years of experience Stephen has worked with companies of all sizes to help them overcome the many design to manufacture challenges they face. Well versed in the application of technology to deliver end user value and improve productivity, for Stephen technology changes but his desire to deliver solutions and value remains the same.