Open SOLIDWORKS files

Moving from SOLIDWORKS? Your students' projects come with you. SchoolCAD opens SOLIDWORKS part files (.sldprt) and assembly files (.sldasm) without SOLIDWORKS, so last year's work, a folder of class examples or a part a student made at home can be opened, measured, built on and 3D printed.

Open a part#

Drag the .sldprt file onto SchoolCAD, or use Open file (a new design named after the part) or Import (into the design that is open). It opens in a moment as a mesh, with its colour: the shape SOLIDWORKS saved for showing it, made of triangles. A few seconds later it becomes an exact solid, read from the part's own solid inside the file: the message says is now an exact solid. You can carry on working while it does.

As an exact solid you can do everything you can with your own parts:

• fillet, chamfer and drill it, with holes and rounds that follow its curved faces;
• sketch on any flat face and extrude, cut and hole from it; measure it, and see its mass once it has a material;
• mate it to your own parts, and Subtract it from a block to make a mould or a holder;
• make an engineering drawing of it with true edges and circles, 3D print it, or export it as STEP, STL or 3MF.

SchoolCAD uses the exact solid only when it matches the shape SOLIDWORKS saved (the same volume, within 1.5%). If a part uses something SchoolCAD cannot read yet, it stays a mesh and says so; a mesh can still be measured, sketched on, cut, mated and printed.

Its feature history (the sketches, extrudes and fillets) stays in SOLIDWORKS: SchoolCAD opens the finished shape, as eDrawings does. To change the design itself, rebuild it in SchoolCAD with the part beside you as a guide, or change it in SOLIDWORKS.

Open an assembly#

A SOLIDWORKS assembly keeps only a list of its parts and where they go; each part is in its own .sldprt file. So give SchoolCAD the assembly and its part files together:

• select them all in the folder (Ctrl+A, or ⌘A on a Mac) and drag them onto SchoolCAD, or
• use Open file and choose them all at once.

Choosing the whole folder is fine: part files the assembly does not use are left out.

Every part comes in where the assembly puts it, named as in the assembly's tree, as one Import feature. Parts inside sub-assemblies come too. Hidden and suppressed parts are left out, as SOLIDWORKS shows it.

Give it only the assembly and SchoolCAD lists the part files it still needs, with Choose the part files… to add them, or Open the ones that are here.

After the mesh comes in, each part file is read for its exact solid, one at a time (a big assembly takes a minute or two): the message says how many parts are now exact. Parts SchoolCAD cannot read exactly yet stay a mesh, in place.

Then add joints to make it move.

What opens#

SchoolCAD reads two things in a SOLIDWORKS file: the exact solid (a Parasolid B-rep, which every part saved by SOLIDWORKS has) and the display copy (the mesh SOLIDWORKS saves for showing the part). In tests with real school and open-source files, about three parts in four became exact solids, and all but a few opened at least as a mesh.

A part with several configurations opens in the one it was saved in. The exact solid needs SchoolCAD's 3D engine (the status bar says Exact geometry: on); without it a part stays a mesh. Everything is read in your browser: the file is not sent anywhere.

If it does not open#

• … stays a mesh: its exact solid could not be read. The part uses something SchoolCAD cannot read exactly yet. It still works as a mesh; for an exact solid, save it as STEP in SOLIDWORKS or eDrawings (File → Save As → STEP AP214) and import that.
• This SOLIDWORKS part was saved without its display copy. Neither copy could be read. Open it in SOLIDWORKS or the free eDrawings and save it again, or save it as STEP.
• That is not a SOLIDWORKS file. It may be a web page saved under that name, or a broken download: download it again.
• This SOLIDWORKS assembly could not be read. Save it again in SOLIDWORKS, or save it as STEP (every part comes, in place).

SolidWorks and SOLIDWORKS are trade marks of Dassault Systèmes. SchoolCAD is not connected with Dassault Systèmes. SchoolCAD reads the display copy with its own reader, written from the cadmpeg project's open description of the file format (CC BY 4.0), and the exact solid with cadmpeg itself (Apache-2.0, https://github.com/cadmpeg/cadmpeg), running in your browser.