OnShape - the promise of CAD in the future is here now

I signed up a free account at OnShape and tried it today. I would say it is a promising CAD solution that could shape the future of CAD. By using OnShape, a user can experience what the things will come in CAD industry.

OnShape is a CAD system built on the cloud. Your internet browser is turned into a platform on which the CAD programs like OnShape can run. Whereas OnShape is more than a CAD program and that is why I call it a system. It comprises not just the CAD program, but the online collaboration tool, online data storage, and mobile app. Literally it is a Software as a Service system.

For starters: If you are not familiar with SaaS concept, you can look at the example of  salesforce.com as the harbinger of SaaS, or later Adobe’s Creative Cloud. The software is built on an online platform and is subscription-based without upfront purchase of the entire software. So a user of the software does not own a copy of the software and only pay the subscription.

As in the case of OnShape and other SaaS programs, the programs are constantly updated without version installation and/or upgrades. That is why OnShape is what the CAD programs look like in the future.

The 2 most distinctive features to me in OnShape are the direct editing function and online realtime collaboration. Given OnShape is a feature-based parametric modeling program, it allows a user to break the ranks of feature tree to directly alter the parameters on a feature and to determine the scope of propagating changes after the alteration. As far as online collaboration, OnShape’s development team claims that multiple users can work on different portions of the same part or assembly simultaneously.

The modeling tool in OnShape at this moment is heavily depending on 2D sketches and solid modeling. As an industrial designer, I would expect that more Spline curve and NURBS surfacing modeling tools will be added later to strengthen form creation capability inside OnShape. Or even further, it will be ideal that the subdivision modeling be also available in the future.

I have not tried out every major feature in OnShape but if all claims made by its developers are true, OnShpe will be an amazing and ground breaking development in CAD industry.