Translate Catia files to SW with Inventor

I caught some flak for saying that the best way to get a feature into SolidWorks was to ask Inventor for it (last paragraph). Well, it turns out there was more than a little truth to that. SolidWorks users have long been able to import files from SolidWorks competitors like Pro/E, Solid Edge and Inventor. But when it comes to importing data from within the Dassault cartel, well, that’s a different story. It’s nothing short of really disrespecting your customers, and another nail in the coffin of the “customer driven” moniker. The idea is that if you can read the format, you can convert from that package. Dassault is apparently scared that people may figure out that they could pay less for a modeler, and get SW instead of Catia.

If you ever hang out on the forums, the first question newbies ask is if they can read SW09 files in their pirated SW05. The second is what is the best backdoor to get Catia data into SW. The Catia => SW translation is one of the messiest around.

So now, Grabowski points us to the Autodesk site, where you can now get a Catia translator for SolidWorks – er – Inventor, I mean. That’s probably all it will take for SolidWorks to suddenly say that users have decided they want this, and finally add it in. What do you think?