Over the last several releases, Dassault Systemes has been initiating and enhancing the ability of the CAD user to remain within their chosen CAD desktop and reach various capabilities of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
The immersive environment of MySession is the primary tool for this continued effort to bring the designer into closer collaboration with the other stakeholders in their product development process.
MySession allows designers to both monitor the real-time status of components within their active design session as well as gain access to the extensive portfolio of applications available on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
The user interface for MySession is quite consistent across the CAD offerings as illustrated below in the connectors for SOLIDWORKS, Solid Edge and AutoCAD.
Today, Dassault Systemes offer MySession capabilities through the following Mechanical CAD integrations:
- Collaborative designer for SOLIDWORKS
- Collaborative designer for Solid Edge
- Collaborative designer for AutoCAD
- Collaborative designer for Inventor
- DraftSight
Beyond the access to the 3DEXPERIENCE information regarding the current design, the access to other platform apps can take on different forms. Numerous platform apps such as Change Actions, Tasks and Relations can run directly within the MySession user interface .
Applications such as these, are both useful to the designer during their session and work well in the limited space of the MySession, window that is intended to use the least amount of space possible. This is not true of the majority of 400+ apps on the platform, which work much better with more screen real estate. Since MySession allows the designer to launch any app available to your their login, such apps will automatically open within the default browser using the login information from the CAD session.
Drag & Drop functionality, which is prevalent on the 3DDashboard of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, is also becoming a part of the designer experience in CAD. This evolving functionality is available on some of the CAD solutions that Dassault Systemes integrate with as the underlying capabilities of the CAD system plays a big part in offering this capability. In the case of SOLIDWORKS, for example, CAD data can be dragged from a Task or a Change Action in MySession directly into the design session. A very handy feature, which eliminates any need for part searches and the errors associated with that activity. Additionally, the designer can drag data from these apps even if they are in a separate browser window running on the 3DDashboard!
Dragging data from one app to another is not everyone’s favorite method of manipulating data. There are a number of other ways to access data from the platform and open it in the design session. Designer’s have access to the power and filtering of 3DSearch for locating products within MySession. The Open or Open With commands then provide the ability to open a product into the CAD session. These commands provide the same functionality across other apps in MySession such as the ones mentioned above for change and task management.
Specific functionality aside, the MySession window provides the designer the opportunity to be directly connected to the overall product development process from end-to-end improving collaboration and reducing redesign and rework cycles – a costly component of the product development process.
