Free CAD viewer software keeps everyone in the loop

During any product’s life cycle, there are a wide range of people that need to comment on, or take measurements from, CAD models. In an ideal world, all these individuals would have a copy of the company’s chosen CAD system to do their work. However, in reality, there are insufficient expert users of these systems to make this practical, even if the company could afford the cost of buying and maintaining enough software. Furthermore, it would be difficult to manage the changes that could occur with so many users having the ability to adjust a design. Great potential would exist for simultaneous different versions to be created of nominally the same design. Delcam’s PowerSHAPE-e solves these problems by giving anyone involved in a project the ability to experiment with the product design. However, these users can only save their changes locally. They cannot make unauthorised alterations to the original master model but instead can only save marked-up comments or recommendations on the CAD file. These suggestions can then be sent back to the designer, who retains control over the decision whether to implement the changes or not. PowerSHAPE-e can be downloaded from www.powershape-e.com.