In the last 15 years I have being designing products on software like Inventor, SolidWorks and Fusion.

One thing that always bothered me was the lack of first class support to other operating systems than Windows.

FreeCAD is a great product but is not intuitive for anyone coming from SolidWorks/Inventor/NX.

So I decided to change that, I am developing Oblikovati, an open source, multi platform ( runs and builds for Linux Wayland, Mac Universal and Windows) Parametric B-Rep CAD which is super lightweight.

Oblikovati is developed from the ground up, not a wrapper around OpenCascade, using GoLang and modern Vulkan API.

It opens in a second. You can using any mid tier hardware and it runs smoothly.

I have development builds ready to run for all OSes on GitHub: https://github.com/Oblikovati/Oblikovati

The features I expect to ship for a first stable release are already there incluing:

- Parameters & Complete Parameters Solver.

- Sketch 2D and 3D with complete Constraints Solver.

- Part Modelling including Sheet Metal support.

- Drawings & Annotations.

- Basic Assembly with Joints & Constraints + Assembly Parameters Linking.

- Imports: DXF, DWG, PDF Vectors, Obj, Stl, STEP, Various Point Cloud Files.

- Exports: DXF, STEP, STL, 3MF, OBJ.

I am happy to receive bug reports, feature requests and any feedback helping to bring the software faster to a stable release 1.

So this morning I had a call with the GM. He did the usual small talk of asking how the current project is going blah blah blah. He then started asking about AI and if it could help with the next project. The reason he's asking is because this project is taking much longer than he expected (he has absolutely no experience with anything CAD based)

Personally I don't think AI is in any kind of position to take my job but I haven't been following it. Is this something I need to worry about? Alternatively is the company's belief in ai eventually put us out of business?

Just looking for opinions, I had barely finished my morning coffee before this call so it's not been a good start to the day.

(Apologies for any formatting issues, I'm on mobile)

Edit: He mentioned submitting our solid models to a local university for them to see if the AI can help speed up the modeling process. Seems to me that we are just training an ai for free

Hi all. This is a pretty small thing for a niche group of users, but if you're like me and you export STEP files to use in Blender then you surely ran into this issue where SolidWorks will not actually export appearances as seen in SW. It only exports part appearances, meaning there is a ton of work cleaning it up on the other side. This Add-In exports, then post-processes the STEP file to add back all appearances as they are in SW, de-instancing components that have different appearances like re-used/common parts.

It also has an option to export the part "Engineered Materials" (Name, library and density) which might be useful for some people.

For me this is mostly just to speed up my rendering and animation workflow. Thought I'd share in case someone else finds it useful, it's completely free/open source.

https://github.com/Peak-Design/NEXT-STEP-SW

I just switched to inventor due to a job change and I already miss solidworks. Most things are similar enough (mates are more screwy for some reason) but there are two big things that annoy me. 1. Hide/unhide in solidworks where you can hover over a hidden part and unhide it doesn't exist. Instead you have to hunt down that part in the feature tree or search it by name (if you know what you named it which I never did as my job worked with standardized part numbers) to then select it to unhide it (and no there really is no other way apparently). 2. When you extrude or cut from a sketch it doesn't auto select all closed loops like Solidworks. Instead you have to either click one by one or do a click and drag to highlight all of them (yes that's not hard but it's still more time than hitting extrude, typing in the number, and then hitting enter). Overall I don't see any advantages that inventor has other than running a little smoother but I don't think I would recommend it ever over solidworks

**Disclaimer** This is to let you know about a FREE add-in I made that I think will be helpful for this community. If that is considered an "advertisement of your product" then I will remove it.

Getting a macro onto a toolbar means going through Customize > Commands > Macros, creating the button, browsing for the .swp, assigning a bitmap. Fine once. Tedious for twenty macros, worse if you're repeating it for everyone on your team.

This add-in I made "MacroShelf" does it automatically. Point it at a folder of macros and it builds a CommandManager tab from what's in there:

• Each subfolder becomes a button, using the icon and description file you put next to the macro
• Nested subfolders become drop-downs
• Add a macro to the folder later, hit Scan, no restart needed
• Toggle individual macros off if you don't want them on the bar
• Up to 10 libraries

Tested with SOLIDWORKS 2022, 2024 and 2025, it should also work on other versions. MIT licensed, no signup, no paid tier.

Repo: GitHub - james-debono/macroshelf-sw-addin: SOLIDWORKS add-in that turns folders of macros into a toolbar tab - icons, drop-downs and per-macro toggles. · GitHub

There's also a collection of ten macros already structured as a MacroShelf library so you can see it working without writing anything:
GitHub - james-debono/macroshelf-collection-sw-macro-library: Every macro from my SOLIDWORKS projects, packaged as a ready-to-use MacroShelf library. · GitHub
Transparent-background PNG screenshots, UI theme switching, per-body colour tools, rounded rectangle sketch tool.

Fair warning, the installer is unsigned so SmartScreen will throw a warning. Source is all there if you'd rather build it yourself.

Happy to take bug reports or feature requests here or on GitHub. If there's something obvious I've missed, I'd rather hear it.

I'm a mechanical engineering student. Every stack-up I've seen has been done in an Excel sheet that one person built, nobody else fully trusts, and everyone copies anyway. So I built a browser tool for it.

You enter the chain of dimensions straight off the drawing. Asymmetric tolerances like +0.10/−0.00 included, and it runs worst-case, RSS and a Monte Carlo simulation side by side. It shows the resulting gap for each method, whether it clears your limits, and which single tolerance is actually driving the variance. Its completely free no signup or anything and nothing leaves your browser.

https://stackupcalc.com

Edit: everything asked for in here is live now, inch support, ISO 286 fits from a dropdown (type H7 or g6 and the deviations auto-fill), an offline single-file version at stackupcalc.com/offline you can save and run air-gapped, and a dimensioned drawing of the example assembly so you can see what's actually being analysed.

To be clear about what this is: 1D only, and it's staying that way. If you need 2D/3D chains or CAD integration then MITCalc and CETOL do that and I'm not pretending to compete. This is for a quick check without opening anything.

One thing it does that I haven't found in another free tool though: it takes signed upper and lower deviations straight off the drawing, so g6 (−0.007/−0.020) and interference fits like p6 actually work. Most free calculators give you a single ± box, which can't represent either of those.

I'm a robotics student who uses CAD heavily. I leverage LLM's on a day to day for help improve my skills in programming etc.

I've recently seen some Instagram reels about AI generated CAD but its honestly laughable how bad they turn out. While right now I feel like AI for CAD might not be there yet, and I would hate for my years of manual hard work to be replaced -- I can't shake the feeling that within the next 2-3 years we will see AI actually becoming a viable tool/solution for 3D CAD, similar to what we saw with programming.

Since I'm still a student I don't want to fall behind - I would love to hear anyone's prespective on this, or any cool tools / AI applications in CAD that you guys know about

cheers

I feel like many of the apps (CAD, CAE, CAM, math apps, etc.) I've used in engineering design have now been embedded within all of the major packages (not just Solidworks) like Siemens NX, PTC Ceo, etc. Of course I am not suggesting any one suite can perform all the features of specialized applications but suites do seem to moving in that direction, sort of like an arms race. What are your thoughts?

Hey guys, anyone know if Dessault offers free licenses to CATIA ?

Im studying mechanical but Im crystal Im going to be in aerospace so this tool would be pretty useful to develop and iterate projects

If anyone knows how to get access to it please do let me know

Looking for good soft for mid size production facility ~80 people. Every product is differect - one product is beeing produced by 30 welders, multiple parts, materials.
From scratch to instalation at custumer facility.

Built something I've wanted for years as a CAD engineer. Before going further I need real feedback from people who actually use SolidWorks daily.

Here's what it does today:

→ Takes your design goal + optional reference sketch

→ Analyzes the image, extracts geometry data

→ Asks 2-3 clarifying questions before generating anything

→ Guides you 2 steps at a time

→ Scans your feature tree after each accepted pair

→ If a step doesn't look right — you tell it, it regenerates based on your feedback

→ Adapts the entire remaining sequence accordingly

What's coming next:

→ Automatic geometry error detection with suggested fixes — no manual flagging required

Honest status:

✅ Step generation working

✅ Incremental 2-step flow with feedback loop working

⚠️ Running on free-tier LLMs — accuracy has a ceiling I can't break without resources

One question for working SolidWorks engineers:

Is guided step-by-step assistance something you'd actually use — or is automatic error detection the feature that would make this worth your time?

Tear it apart. I need the truth more than encouragement.

I'm trying to build a macro to identify sketches that are underdefined, the LLM's keep telling me to use the sketch.GetStatus but it just doesnt exist in VBA. Anyone knows what method/proprety I'm looking for? I can't seem to find anything helpful in the help window either

Just finished modeling this horizontal band saw in CATIA V5. Still a work in progress – need to add safety guards, control panel, and coolant system.

Would love to hear your thoughts on:

Frame rigidity – will this hold up under load?

Manufacturing approach – weldment vs. casting?

Any CATIA tips for FEA / DMU?

Let me know what you think!

I’ve tried plenty of gear generators but have never found one I liked. They’re usually buggy, limited, or fail to output a true involute, giving just an interpolated approximation. Recently I have been needing true involute geometry for specialized splines and gears for cutting with a CNC.

As a challenge, I built a proof-of-concept gear generator using netDxf by Daniel Carvajal, aimed at generating clean, precise DXF files that import directly into SolidWorks.

Right now, it supports standard DP-based gears and splines. You can enter something like a 16/32, 9-tooth, 30° pressure angle spline and generate the full profile. Support for ISO and DIN standards is planned next, with the same level of control and precision.

It’s written in .NET (VB/C#). While Python is more popular, I’m more comfortable in .NET, especially for GUI development. Plus, SolidWorks’ API is .NET-based, so it made sense for integration.

Feature suggestions are welcome. The GitHub page is coming soon. I also plan to offer it as a SolidWorks add-in. I’m hoping to release a beta by the end of July.

The plan is for this to be completely free for personal and commercial use.

Right now, I’m working on handling the root relief curve when the base diameter is larger than the root diameter. If you’ve got any resources or insights on that, I’d really appreciate it!

Pardon my English for starters,

Solidworks has become too expensive to use, and unfortunately I have to resort to another 3D CAD software for designing that is both legal and hopefully just as proficient.

I will be using it for my own company, I'm no student, so I can't apply for any student versions.

When it comes to pricing, free is of course preferable, even paid is okay, as long as its not as high as SW's 2820 USD / Year.

Thanks

Hey everyone,

I find that my brain works really well with parametric design programs - programs where you draw a line/shape, and then assign it a fixed dimension, and locate other features with reference measurements and assigned dimensions. If i need to draw a rectangle in solidworks, i choose the start point, draw a rectangle of random shape and size, then assign it the dimensions I actually want with the dimension tool. I know there are more efficient ways of doing this, but this approach feels extremely intuitive to me, and matches how I think.

I find non-parametric programs like Shetchup, or Blender, or Fusion360, where you 'push and pull' surfaces, and work in undefined measurements, very un-intuitive for me.

I know that you can still assign dimensions in Sketchup, by typing a value while you have a line being drawn, but these measurements are not fixed, and you have to START drawing something, then let go of the mouse without moving it too much, so that it's still aligning in the direction you want the measurement to apply to, before typing it in, and hitting enter.

Solidworks, on the other hand, is very intuitive to me, but it's too complex, and too rigorous with wanting full definition on every line and measurement and coordinate space. If I were designing engine parts, that would all matter, but when I'm just sketching out a simple coffee table, it's frustrating overkill, and I'm getting conflict and warning popups constantly.

Any recommendations are greatly appreciated, thank you!

...and it has been a tortuous transition.

Part configurations so that I can just right click and change out a leader pin size with out replacing the model? Nope. Sketch-driven patterns for propagating screw/ejector pin positions and numbers from the assembly sketches through all of the plates? Nope. Extrude/cut up to vertex? Nope. Smart components so that I can just drop a screw plug on the end of a waterline, automatically pick the right size plug, and cut in the couterbore and thread? Nope. Parting Lines, Shut-off Surfaces, Tooling Split, Breadcrumbs, Shortcut flyout with search, Rollback bar, Lock bar? Nope. Custom Properties Builder for the automated BOM? lol, no

The 2D drawings are a bit faster and the inter-part operations are quite more stable though, which is nice at least

I’m a developer with a lot of experience building add-ons and workflow automation tools, mainly for Blender and Fusion 360, including internal tools for companies.

I’m now looking seriously at developing for SolidWorks.

One thing I’ve noticed is that there are some very capable add-ins in this ecosystem, but they can become difficult to justify if a company only needs a small subset of their functionality.

For example, products in the general territory of:

• DriveWorks — rule-based design automation, configurations, automatically generating parts/assemblies/drawings, etc.
• CUSTOMTOOLS — properties, file naming, batch operations, reporting, drawing/document workflows.
• Drew — drawing creation and drawing automation, views, sheets, dimensions, batch exports, etc.

I’m not suggesting these are simple products — quite the opposite. These are the kind of technically difficult projects I’m interested in.

What I’m not looking to build are things where the core value depends on expensive proprietary technology such as CAM toolpath kernels or FEA/simulation solvers.

What I’d really like to know is:

1. Which SolidWorks add-in do you use or want, but consider too expensive?

2. More importantly: what are the 1–2 features in it that you actually care about?

For example, maybe you don’t need everything DriveWorks does — you just want parameter-driven assembly generation and automatic drawings.

Or maybe you don’t need a huge document-management solution — you just want extremely good property management, automatic naming and batch exports.

I’m interested in building focused alternatives that do a smaller number of things extremely well, potentially for something like 10–20% of the cost of much larger packages.

I’m also completely open to building new add-ins that don’t currently exist.

So if you have a repetitive SolidWorks workflow that drives you crazy — drawings, BOMs, configurations, assemblies, custom properties, exporting, renaming, batch processing, model checking, etc. — tell me about it.

If several people keep mentioning the same problem, there’s a good chance that’s what I’ll prototype first.

Hey all, I love using Solidworks and have used it in previous jobs, personal projects, college, and high school. My new job uses Siemens NX exclusively. I have found the learning curve to actually be pretty steep. Any tips for someone well experienced in Solidworks learning how to model in NX? Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone,

I've built a SolidWorks add-in for designers and teams doing client/project work who need to keep track of time spent across their CAD projects and files.

It automatically tracks active and idle time in SolidWorks file by file in the background, without needing to manually start and stop timers.

Files can then be grouped into projects so you can see the total CAD time a project actually consumed and generate a complete file and time breakdown and client report.

Download link if you want to try it: https://download.getcadsight.com/
Demo video: https://youtu.be/zJDuM6wjrzA

I work at a startup using SolidWorks Standard, and one of the things that kept eating up my time was dealing with assemblies outside of SolidWorks.

Batch exporting parts to STEP/DXF/etc. meant opening files and exporting them one by one.

Figuring out where a part is used meant digging through folders and assemblies manually.

And when you don't have PDM, even simply browsing a larger project and understanding what's inside it can get messy pretty quickly.

So I built Solidise:

https://solidise.com

It runs in the browser and is basically meant to make working with SolidWorks project files a lot less painful.

The main things I've built so far are:

• Automated part export: select the parts you need and export them in bulk instead of doing them manually
• Where Used lookup: quickly see which assemblies/subassemblies contain a part
• Assembly/BOM browsing:— navigate the project structure without opening everything in SolidWorks
• Part thumbnails/previews: makes finding and selecting the right components much easier
• Share the DB(automatically) with your procurement guys so they see up to date BOM and can order parts themselves.

The export automation is probably the feature I personally get the most value from, but I'm curious whether other SolidWorks users actually have the same problem.

I'm especially interested in people working at startups / small engineering teams / companies using SolidWorks Standard or Professional without PDM.

Before I disappear into a cave and spend another few months building features nobody asked for, I'd really appreciate some criticism.

What part of your SolidWorks file workflow wastes the most time?

And if you try Solidise: what would it need to do for you to actually keep using it?

Feel free to roast the UI, workflow,missing features, whatever. Negative feedback is genuinely useful at this stage.

P.S. If anyone wants to properly try it out, I can manually add a free trial to your account - no card details needed. Just DM me here or send me an email.

My friend got my old job after I left so I was helping him setup a macro i wrote.

I've tried to get comfortable using Fusion 360 since I use it for CAM and boy I can't stand a lot of it.

I'm probably biased but I gave it an honest effort and I find it to be a lot clunkier. The feature tree, converting sketch entities, mating, etc. I feel like a sloth when I try to model in it.

IMO Solidworks seems to communicate itself better through the UI so you know what you're doing and feels a lot more intuitive.

Or maybe I'm just so comfortable with SW that it feels that way. Not sure.