"Before it became widely recognized that holding designs in your hand attracted people to 3D printing like a moth to a flame, a lot of engineers were unaware of its benefits. While you can’t hold running code, today’s Pick of the Week gives you the pleasant surprise of showing what a full-featured CAD/CAM system can do for you."

Read full article.

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Here are some top features and commands that I've featured in a recent video:

• On importing, you have the options of "Autosew", "Break Trim Edges", and "Delete Duplicate Surfaces" -- a great start to healing and prepping the model.
• Also useful tool is the "Move" command which lets you orient the model by vectors to make it as handy as possible to heal.
• Then you have the centerpiece "Show Open Edges" command which highlights and guides you through all unresolved problems step-by-step -- it's an amazing confidence builder and time saver. 
• I often use "Concatenate Edges" to join surface edges by an angle deviation and automatically correct many problems.
• Then you have a powerful freeform editing toolset, highlighted by "Trim to All Curves" -- because you don't need to manually pick each curve, this tool alone saves hours.  Also remember, because Overdrive is a unified modeler, you can trim edges to either surfaces or shapes.

But the best news is that all this healing is simple and fast -- what used to takes hours now takes minutes.

​​Feel free to have a deeper look at the video below.

-- Randy Biebel, Manufacturing Advisor, ZWDirect

Given the upcoming change in the CAD market, we've been experiencing a surge in new membership -- so I thought I'd post an invitation here.

If you are a provider, feel free to post all new product and vendor materials in the promotions area and please do provide industry perspectives/counsel in discussions -- users and buyers certainly want to learn from you.

If you are a user or buyer, feel free to post your experiences, questions, or needs in the discussions area -- all others certainly want to help and learn from you. My overall perspective on this market is that you should and can be very demanding -- there are several very capable alternative/affordable CAD solutions in the market today.

My own recommendations for top criteria in seeking an affordable solution are: 1. Must provide 100% of the functionality that you need (and perhaps more), 2. Must scale to meet your design complexity/size requirements, 3. Must provide complete compatibility with AutoCAD/DWG, 4. Has made hundreds/thousands of customers like you successful, and 5. Is an organization that you trust for ongoing innovation and support for the future.

Again, I believe many strong solutions/vendors exists today and this group is committed to helping you find that match. We look forward to your thoughts!

You can join here.

Recently, many facility managers at schools have told us that their present CAD systems are no longer available to them at academic prices.  Unfortunately, this change leaves them and many of their peers in quite a quandary -- CAD is critical to their mission and services but, at the higher prices, these systems are no longer affordable.

Well, we have good news -- ZWCAD is high-performance, DWG-compatible CAD for FM and is available at the affordable price of $799 (permanent/full license).  And the per seat cost falls much lower with network licensing.  Better yet, ZWCAD Touch for field use is available for $0.

For elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and colleges, ZWCAD provides CAD that supports maintenance, operations, repair, planning, and project management of buildings, spaces, assets, grounds, utilities, and plants. It’s used by over 300,000 customers across the world in all areas critical to FM managers, including: buildings, mechanical parts and systems, civil infrastructure, process plants, and GIS.  

A review of ZWCAD highlights:

• High-performance... for speed regardless of file size
• State-of-the-Art Features... for maximum productivity
• Inherently Collaborative... for integration into all DWG-based projects and environments
• Affordable... so everyone can have the latest & greatest CAD
• Proven Across Industries... for complete confidence.
  
  

For more information, please visit the ZWCAD site or contact us.

All that said, we'd like to salute the work of facility managers at schools -- you are critical to creating productive learning environments and helping our students thrive.  Thank you!

Many of the world's largest engineered assets are not concentrated in a single locale but are distributed across locations and land areas.  This makes the operations, maintenance, and information management for these assets especially challenging.  Moreover, these assets are typically strategic to the operators and high-performance is a top priority.

These industries include:

• Power generation and distribution
• Water utilities
• Local and national telecommunications
• Fire departments
• Process manufacturing
• Energy exploration

More and more field organizations* in these industries are choosing ZWCAD as a critical component in the support of their assets -- typically in the process of capturing and entering field information back into their records.  The reasons?

• ZWCAD has all the CAD power they need in the field and back in the office
• ZWCAD is affordable enough so that everyone who needs CAD gets CAD -- no one is left waiting and nothing is lost in notes
• ZWCAD requires a small computational footprint and runs smoothly on older machines -- which makes things even more affordable.

It's gratifying that, in organizations where engineered assets are so critical, ZWCAD is adding to affordability, productivity, full automation, and performance.

* More later on the use of ZWCAD in the design of these assets.