by TenLinks Judge, Alin Vargatu
Flatter Files
PHOENIX, AZ (SOLIDWORKS World 2015) — Great cloud-based application offering controlled access of your company files for suppliers, customers and even other departments in your company (CNC, purchasing, planning) that need to see or use your models and drawings. Flatter Files is amazingly simple and can work in conjunction with or without a PDM product.
The files can be released to Flatter Files automatically or manually as part of a PDM workflow. Once they are in the cloud, you can provide various levels of access to other parties: viewing only or even downloading files in SOLIDWORKS, DWG, DXF, PDF, STEP, IGES, STL, Parasolid and other formats, including custom properties from the SOLIDWORKS files. Moreover, Flatter Files remembers that is connected to the SOLIDWORKS data, so if a revision is performed on the original SOLIDWORKS file, the corresponding entity on Flatter Files is updated to the same revision level, while still storing the previous revisions in the database. Even more impressive, it is capable of analyzing and highlighting the differences between one revision and the next when viewing drawings in PDF format!
The data can be accessed on any platform: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android. Basically you just need a browser to access the client. The search is Google-like fast, regardless of the size of the database. The pricing is based on the number of SOLIDWORKS licenses a company owns.
This solution is perfect for all teams, big or small, with or without a PDM system, that need to collaborate with suppliers, customers and other stakeholders while maintaining full control of the type of data that would be made available to third parties.
CETOL 6σ Tolerance Analysis Software by Sigmetrix
Makes SOLIDWORKS' own TolAnalyst look like an Xpress add-in. Compared to TolAnalyst, CETOL is really a 3Dimensional tolerance analysis software that can be used on complex assemblies.
Things that impressed me:
- The software pulls the necessary geometry features directly from the CAD system model, so moving to the analysis phase is quick and painless.
- There is an Analyser tool that allows you to interrogate the results in order to quickly identify the top contributors to quality and, as a result, make tolerance adjustments to understand the impact on assembly quality.
- Embedded sensitivity animation, both statistical and worst-case, shows you how a single variable is impacted throughout the tolerance range on both assembly position and measurements.
- You can instantly see and adjust measurements and tolerances by using key contributor analysis.
Smap3D: Intelligent 2D/3D Plant and Piping Design
This is like SOLIDWORKS Electrical 2D and 3D for piping: Smap3D P&ID, Smap3D Piping and Smap3D Isometric. If you like SOLIDWORKS Electrical, imagine having the same power for quickly designing 2D piping schematics and parametrically generating 3D models. Really impressive tool.
HandyScan3D from Adaptive Corporation
They had an optical scanner and a laser one, both handheld. The most impressive feature of these scanners was the self-positioning and the speed with which it acquired the data.
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About Alin Vargatu
Alin is an Elite AE and an avid contributor to the SolidWorks Community. He has presented at SolidWorks Worlds, Technical Summits, and SWUG meetings, while being very active on the SolidWorks Forum. More...
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