Cadasio Feedback Program

[cadasio]

Hi All,

Cadasio is an online product that can modernise the way you create, present, and deliver your instructions. For those of you who use SolidWorks/Catia Composer, a lot of what we do should be very familiar.

We are currently in the process of updating our SolidWorks addin, and are looking for any companies that would like to put it through its paces and give us feedback. Our new update will allow better updating of Cadasio projects when your original files and assembly structure have been changed, something that can be easy to “break” in Composer. Whilst we have tested this internally, and with a range of our current customers, we appreciate that there is a huge variety in how people work, so we would like to make sure we cover as many bases as possible.

If anyone is interested in taking part in our feedback program, then please drop me a message on here or contact us through our website. Of course for anyone that does take part, we will arrange a license of Cadasio Professional for you.

[zwei]

Look interesting on the first look.

How is it different from SOLIDWORKS composer (beside the insanely high pricing of Composer)?
If a part/assembly is updated will it reflected in the project/file?
How well do it work with PDM?
How well do it work with Large Assembly (eg: 1000+ parts)?
What "3D" file output format is available? html? 3DPDF? U3D?

And lastly, is it only on CLOUD??

Just dropping my question here.
However, I dont think I can test it out for you as we had a pretty strict cloud software policy.

[cadasio]

Hi, thanks for the questions, sorry for the long post below, however hopefully I have answered them sufficiently. If not, or if you have more then just say!

How is it different from SOLIDWORKS composer (beside the insanely high pricing of Composer)?

So whilst a lot of what we do is similar, we hope our differences set us apart. From my personal experience I always found that Composer does a great job of producing 2D images, specifically its vector output, but as you said, it is at an extremely high price point (not only the initial cost, but maintenance and the cost of the machine required to run it). I would also argue that it hasn't seen significant development over the years, certainly when it comes to displaying content online, which is what a lot of people are aiming for these days, not necessarily to completely remove printed/2D (yet!) but to compliment and offer more ways for their users to digest the material. There are things composer does that we don’t, and vice versa. We would like to think we are much easier to get to grips with and since we are SaaS we are continually improving and adding new features, pretty much every 2/3 weeks.

If a part/assembly is updated will it reflected in the project/file?

Yes! However, like Composer there are some caveats which is what we hopefully have sorted in our latest version of the addin. We are clever enough to know if you have used the assembly before and so you don’t need to redo all your Cadasio steps just because your design has changed. However, as part of this new update we are looking at really making sure that it is robust and useful for customers no matter what they have done. Different workflows do affect the structure of your documents, which is what we are looking at testing.

How well do it work with PDM

We don’t have any direct tie to your PDM, currently, our addin is very straightforward, on a basic level it converts your active SW file to a mesh and sends it up to your cadasio project. Again, this is something we are looking at getting feedback from as part of our new addin.

How well do it work with Large Assembly (eg: 1000+ parts)?

Displaying large assemblies on the web is a challenge, however, I know of a couple of customers that have 2000+ components and it seems to work fine even on an ipad (albeit the latest model). We have options such as to hide edges (permanently or when moving) and of course, depending on your instructions you may find that you don’t actually require your entire assembly up there. E.g. it would be quite common to supress all the bits you never see, so they don’t even exist in your project. We have users that purely use Cadasio to create 2D images, so as long as it works fine on their machine they are happy. We also have users who only want a quick way of creating a model online with a few labels (more of a showcase) in which case just the external parts are shown.

What "3D" file output format is available? html? 3DPDF? U3D?

You can share projects created with Cadasio, it's all based on the latest WebGL technology, so it can be viewed on any modern device. Your projects can also be embedded into your own website. Check out our showcase page to see some examples. You can also save out 2D images and movies.

And lastly, is it only on CLOUD??

Currently yes. We are working with a few larger customers to see exactly what the requirements would be, and self-hosting is on the roadmap.

[AlexLachance]

Hi, thanks for the questions, sorry for the long post below, however hopefully I have answered them significantly. If not, or if you have more then just say!


So whilst a lot of what we do is similar, we hope our differences set us apart. From my personal experience I always found that Composer does a great job of producing 2D images, specifically its vector output, but as you said, it is at an extremely high price point (not only the initial cost, but maintenance and the cost of the machine required to run it). I would also argue that it hasn't seen significant development over the years, certainly when it comes to displaying content online, which is what a lot of people are aiming for these days, not necessarily to completely remove printed/2D (yet!) but to compliment and offer more ways for their users to digest the material. There are things composer does that we don’t, and vice versa. We would like to think we are much easier to get to grips with and since we are SaaS we are continually improving and adding new features, pretty much every 2/3 weeks.


Yes! However, like Composer there are some caveats which is what we hopefully have sorted in our latest version of the addin. We are clever enough to know if you have used the assembly before and so you don’t need to redo all your Cadasio steps just because your design has changed. However, as part of this new update we are looking at really making sure that it is robust and useful for customers no matter what they have done. Different workflows do affect the structure of your documents, which is what we are looking at testing.


We don’t have any direct tie to your PDM, currently, our addin is very straightforward, on a basic level it converts your active SW file to a mesh and sends it up to your cadasio project. Again, this is something we are looking at getting feedback from as part of our new addin.


Displaying large assemblies on the web is a challenge, however, I know of a couple of customers that have 2000+ components and it seems to work fine even on an ipad (albeit the latest model). We have options such as to hide edges (permanently or when moving) and of course, depending on your instructions you may find that you don’t actually require your entire assembly up there. E.g. it would be quite common to supress all the bits you never see, so they don’t even exist in your project. We have users that purely use Cadasio to create 2D images, so as long as it works fine on their machine they are happy. We also have users who only want a quick way of creating a model online with a few labels (more of a showcase) in which case just the external parts are shown.


You can share projects created with Cadasio, it's all based on the latest WebGL technology, so it can be viewed on any modern device. Your projects can also be embedded into your own website. Check out our showcase page to see some examples. You can also save out 2D images and movies.


Currently yes. We are working with a few larger customers to see exactly what the requirements would be, and self-hosting is on the roadmap.

Great explanation!

[Jim Steinmeyer]

Ok, The cloud only issue would be a deal breaker for us. I assume this means that we would work on our own system and then host to the cloud, and not do all out work on the cloud like the 3DExperiance nonsense. We provide a hard copy of our manual with every unit we sell along with a CD or thumb drive. The hard copy is important as not all of our operators have access to the cloud at all times. We manufacture agricultural products that can be used far from local towers.

I was very interested until that answer.

[zwei]

Ok, The cloud only issue would be a deal breaker for us. I assume this means that we would work on our own system and then host to the cloud, and not do all out work on the cloud like the 3DExperiance nonsense. We provide a hard copy of our manual with every unit we sell along with a CD or thumb drive. The hard copy is important as not all of our operators have access to the cloud at all times. We manufacture agricultural products that can be used far from local towers.

I was very interested until that answer.

Yea i agree with Jim on this...
The cloud only is really a showstopper...