Tag: dwg

Draftsight for Mac now available: Free 2D CAD

DraftSight for Mac (a new CAD .dwg editor) is now available for download!  It is a beta release, so there is still room for improvement (not that I know what needs improving on the Mac version).  If you are a Mac user who’s interested in DraftSight, please join the DraftSight.com community to get ideas or provide your suggestions.

DWGEditor is going to be renamed

As part of a settlement with Autodesk, SolidWorks Corp has agreed to cease their use of the term DWG in any products or trademarks.  I personally think this settlement was unnecessary.  SolidWorks Corp should’ve taken Autodesk all the way through the legal process to help Autodesk realize the counter-productiveness of their litigious ways.  That said, Autodesk still does not have any legal claim to the file extension .dwg.  This is their holy grail.  Much like the real holy grail, ownership of .dwg is mythological.

The end result of the SolidWorks-Autodesk settlement is that DWGEditor must now be renamed.  What would be come good alternative names for the SolidWorks editor of .dwg files?  Hmm, I wonder.  Here’s some suggestions:

  • .dwgEditor
  • SolidWorks .dwg Editor
  • .dwgWorks
  • DrawingWorks
  • DraughtingWorks
  • Naughty Draughting
  • NaughtyWorks
  • Old School CAD Tool
  • Run Your .dwg Files Here
  • FlatlanderCAD
  • CADland Editor
  • 2DWorks
  • LineWorks
  • XYEditor
  • AutoCAD SuxWorks
  • InfiniteCAD
  • Almost AutoCADWorks
  • AutomaticCAD
  • NoSoAutomaticCAD

Any other suggestions or votes for any of these?

Drawing ER Blitz results are in

The results are in for the SolidWorks Drawing ER Blitz by Dwight Livingston.  He listed the results in order of popularity.  Here are the topic five.

  1. 60% Provide hole callouts for holes in non-planar surfaces.
  2. 59% Greatly reduce drawing user interface delays.
  3. 55% Provide the ability to item balloon sub assemblies that are inserted after the BOM is created using the Top assembly, ie 3.9 from BOM in a separate sub assembly.
  4. 54% Provide option in view properties window to add view title and/or view scale to view.
  5. 54% Create ability to combine multiple identical hole callouts in a single callout with a combined quantity.

It surprizes me a little that the view title/scale issue is in the top five.  That’s why we vote, though!  The top five seems to be a list that spreads across several difference topics, with a bias towards hole callouts.  In general, the list seems to put a higher priority for dimensioning and more ability to control tables.  It seems to put a lower priority of symbol functionality and handling.  There is a common complaint that broken views cannot be added to detail views.  For whatever reason, this appears low on the list.

The list is a bit surprizing.  Of particular note, very few items even got a majority vote.

Results