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What are Onshape Custom Features?

Certified Onshape Professional Too Tall Toby explains how to supercharge your workflow using community-created tools. In this insightful tutorial, he dives into the world of FeatureScript -- the powerful coding language behind Onshape. Learn where to find new scripts and how to use them. Save time. Learn new skills, shortcuts, and maybe even better ways to do things. Incorporate Custom Features into your everyday work. Very useful.
View the video.

What can the new Autodesk Inventor AI Assistant do for you?

Autodesk Assistant brings industry-specific context to help execute tasks and orchestrate actions across your 3D models -- not just answer questions. Designed to understand your workflows, Assistant appears as a dockable panel alongside your Inventor workspace and includes the ability to perform complex tasks or gather information from your designs without writing a single line of code. Find out what this new AI "colleague" can do for you.
Watch this informative Autodesk video.

AI and collaboration in SOLIDWORKS

Discover AURA, the new AI assistant built into SOLID-WORKS, in this informative video from TriMech Group. What can AURA do for you? It can streamline workflows and make collaborating on and tracking projects even easier, for starters. Other top features of SOLIDWORKS Design 2026 are also covered. Some good tips here.
View the TriMech Group video.

Digital Engineering: How a private jet gets a high-end refurb

Ever wonder how private jets get overhauled from standard OEM layouts to exotic, artful interiors? It takes engineering expertise, specialty design skills, and true craftspeople. Increasingly, it also takes automation provided by middleware to weave a digital thread through CAD, BOM, ERP, and PDM software.
Read the full article.

How AI is quietly transforming simulation

Is AI really useful, or is it just a passing trend? Balavignesh Vemparala, an R&D Engineer II at ANSYS, lays out a compelling case for how artificial intelligence is already hard at work in the simulation world with real results for users. From faster solves to accelerated workflows, improved quality and traceability, generative models, and more, discover what you might be overlooking when it comes to real-world AI application. Worth the read.
Read this informative ANSYS blog.

SOLIDWORKS 2026 assembly updates: GoEngineer

In this GoEngineer video, you can learn how SOLIDWORKS 2026 is making assembly workflows smarter, faster, and more efficient. Explore the latest enhancements to assemblies, including: streamlined display and configuration tables, AI-assisted fastener mating, improved performance for lightweight components, and more.
View the GoEngineer video.

Xometry's CAD Add-Ins: Get instant pricing, lead times in your workspace

Xometry's add-ins for SOLID-WORKS, Fusion, and Onshape allow engineers and designers to purchase custom manufactured parts within their preferred CAD workspace. These no-cost add-ins analyze the geometry of CAD designs and allow users to select their preferred material, process, and part quantity to get real-time pricing and lead times. This seamless integration of custom manufacturing quotes allows you to move efficiently through your product development process.
Get the Xometry add-in for your favorite CAD program today.

Mastercam 2026 is here!

Mastercam 2026, the powerhouse for precision machining, is packed with exciting new features designed to boost productivity and streamline workflows. Highlights include: enhanced solid hole functionality, classic mill toolpath support in Mill-Turn, new levels and planes managers, PrimeTurning enhancements, the all-new AI-powered Mastercam Copilot programming assistant, and a whole lot more.
Learn about all the new features.

Automatically generate technical drawings in SOLIDWORKS 2025

Did you know you can generate 2D technical drawings directly from a part or an assembly environment automatically with SOLIDWORKS 2025 release FD01? What a great feature for creating tech manuals, detailed production drawings, and more. Learn from the experts at TriMech Group how this tool "eliminates repetitive setup tasks and helps you focus on real engineering and design."
View the video.
Like this tip? Learn how to create an exploded view too.

10 best updates from the last 5 years: SOLIDWORKS

Follow along with the experts at TriMech Group as they chronicle the top feature updates in SOLIDWORKS. Are you still using SOLIDWORKS 2020 -- or an even older version? Find out what you are missing, such as: enhanced rendering and new technical drawing tools; improved file sharing, collaboration, and workflows; advanced customization and UI improvements; faster and more efficient assemblies and simulations; and more.
View the TriMech video.

What's new in Creo Parametric 11.0?

Creo Parametric 11.0 is packed with productivity-enhancing updates, and sometimes the smallest changes make the biggest impact in your daily workflows. Mark Potrzebowski, Technical Training Engineer, Rand 3D, runs through the newest functionality -- from improved surface modeling tools to smarter file management and model tree navigation. Videos provide extra instruction.
Read the full article.

SOLIDWORKS 2025: Sheet metal design top features from an expert

Find out what's new in SOLIDWORKS 2025 when it comes to sheet metal and weldments, and learn some valuable tips and tricks along the way from TriMech. Topics covered include copying cut list properties, bend notches, tab and slot enhancements, groove beads (a new type of weld bead), performance enhancements, and more. When you're done, check out TriMech's full YouTube channel filled with educational material.
View the video.

Tech Tip: How to create high-quality STL files for 3D prints

Have you ever 3D printed a part that had flat spots or faceted surfaces where smooth curves were supposed to be? You are not alone, and it's not your 3D printer's fault. According to Markforged, the culprit is likely a lack of resolution in the STL file used to create the part.
Read this detailed and informative Markforged blog.

Can SOLIDWORKS run on a Mac in 2025?

According to SOLIDWORKS experts at TriMech, there's good news and bad news when it comes to the possibility of running the popular product development solution on a Mac. This video covers the possibilities and the limitations, including tweaks that may be helpful. Check out TriMech's full YouTube channel for tons of helpful tips.
View the video.

Supercar of the skies: Autodesk Alias design

Learn how Hill Helicopter is using Autodesk Alias to design the innovative HX50, the "supercar of the skies." The next-gen, private copter marries high-end automotive and aero design and materials to create a futuristic flying five-seat SUV for a discriminating clientele. A neat insider look.
View the video.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory begins widespread adoption of Maplesoft technology

Maplesoft recently announced a major adoption of its products by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL is implementing Maple, MapleSim, and MapleNet in its various projects. Whether creating America's first satellite, Explorer 1, sending the first robotic craft to the moon, or exploring the edges of the solar system, JPL has been at the forefront of pushing the limits of exploration.

Curiosity, JPL's latest space rover (launched at the end of November 2011), aims to explore Mars to investigate whether the planet could have ever supported microbial life. Current JPL projects include spacecraft missions to comets, asteroids, and the edge of the solar system, as well as satellites that monitor the land, oceans, and atmosphere of our own planet.

Maplesoft products are expected to help JPL save time and reduce cost by providing more efficient and smarter methods for mathematical analysis, modeling, and simulation. Maplesoft solutions are built within a natively symbolic framework, avoiding some of the worst sources of error and computational inefficiencies generated by traditional, numeric-based tools – and thus providing great tools for precision-rich projects such as those of JPL.

Maplesoft technology is used in a variety of engineering applications,
including space robotics.

 

 

In addition to using Maple for advanced mathematical analysis, JPL will use MapleSim, Maplesoft's high-performance physical modeling and simulation platform, as a key tool in its engineering workflow. MapleSim works in combination with Maple. It accesses Maple's symbolic computation technology to efficiently handle all of the complex mathematics involved in the development of engineering models, including multi-domain systems, multibody systems, plant modeling, and control design.

"Maplesoft products will allow JPL to unify their approach to mathematics, modeling, and simulation," says Paul Goossens, vice president, Applications Engineering, Maplesoft. "MapleSim's intimate connection to the underlying physics of the system models, combined with the knowledge capture and analysis capabilities inherent in Maple, will make project design and development faster and more accountable. JPL scientists will arrive at optimal solutions much faster, and their models will be much more reusable."

Maplesoft technology is also being used in other space robotics research. Dr. Amir Khajepour, Canada Research Chair in Mechatronic Vehicle Systems and Professor of Engineering in the Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering department at the University of Waterloo, is working with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to develop a full solution for the power management system of autonomous rovers. His team is using MapleSim to rapidly develop high fidelity, multi-domain models of the rover subsystems.

Source: Maplesoft

Published January 2012

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