Your New 3D ContentCentral

3D ContentCentral (3DCC) has recently been overhauled and drastically expanded.  It is now organized into these tabs: Home, Parts, Features, Blocks, and Macros.  Each tab has a Top Rated area and a Recently Added area.  For parts, there is a section where you can make requests for new parts.  These requests can be filled by other members of the 3DCC.  There is even a contest for who can fulfill the most requests; it has some cool prizes each month.

Parts is divided similar to how it was before, but now it is visually organized for easier identification of each area.  Featured categories, suppliers and user libraries are still available.

The Features tab is divided in many useful categories, with weldments heavily represented.  There is plenty of opportunity for us to populate these areas.  That’s the nice way as saying that Feature categories are currently pretty bare of content.

Blocks is another area that boosts the opportunity for users to populate its categories.  Some categories have a good start, while others are very bare.  Surprising to me is the fact that electrical componentry is currently highly represented in this area.

Macros is being populated fairly quickly by users.  There is already a decent selection of macros to choose from in various categories, such as Add-ins, Assemblies, Drawings, etc.

3DCC now give users the ability to both rate contributions and to comment on them.  This will be useful to determine if a download is worth your time.

My only complaint about 3DCC at this time is that it takes too many steps to get to these areas from within SolidWorks (at least in SW 2007).  Click on Design Library, then 3D ContentCentral, then User Library, then the Home icon.

Have fun with the new layout and content.  I hope to see many new additions soon! 🙂

Author: fcsuper

As a drafter, mechanical designer and CAD engineer, I've been in the mechanical design field since 1991. For the first 8 years of my career, I was an AutoCAD professional. I utilized AutoLISP and many other AutoCAD customization features to streamline drafting activities for 6+ drafters and designers. I authored several custom functions, one of which was published in the March 1997 issue of Cadalyst Magazine. Since 1998, I've been used SolidWorks non-stop. I've worked to utilize the SolidWorks' user environment to simplify drafting and design activities for 20+ engineers. I've created this website to provide current information about SolidWorks from a variety of contributors. More recently, I am now employed by Dassault Systemes as SOLIDWORKS Sr. Product Definition Manager to improve drawing, annotation and MBD related areas. View all posts by fcsuper