SmartDraw (Best 2D CAD For Mac) If you’re looking for something powerful for 2D CAD design but. A change in Mac OS or an upgrade to SOLIDWORKS may suddenly give you major headache. We would always recommend running SOLIDWORKS on a Windows PC. However if you have to run SOLIDWORKS on a Mac read on:- Running SOLIDWORKS on a Mac means you are making compromises on speed, functionality and stability. Being open-source meant you could customize, change, boost, and really experiment with what a computer but also software is capable of doing. As a result of that tandem evolution of PC and Software, SOLIDWORKS incorporates many tools and commands that were designed to interface specifically with a Windows operating system in mind.

1. Solidworks Recommended System Requirements
2. Solidworks For Mac Os X Torrent
3. Running Solidworks On A Mac
4. Solidworks For Mac Os
5. Vmware For Mac Os Download
6. Useful Solidworks Macros

This document provides general information about the SolidWorks® eDrawings® 2011 release. For more information:

Known Issues

eDrawings and component-level display states

• The component-level display state functionality is not yet supported in eDrawings.

Republishing assemblies

• If you republish an existing assembly in SolidWorks 2011 and open the .easm file in eDrawings, the display states might not work properly.

SolidWorks DimXpert. Dimensions and annotations created in SolidWorks using DimXpert for parts are not shown in SolidWorks documents opened in eDrawings. They are shown in documents published to eDrawings files.

Pro/ENGINEER. Pro/ENGINEER® models can be imported with the following limitations:

• Pro/ENGINEER version 16 through Wildfire 5.0 are supported.

• Parts and assemblies can be imported, but drawings cannot.

• If a model uses Pro/ENGINEER family table instances, then the .xpr and .xas accelerator instance files must be present for correct results. Although these instance accelerator files are optional for Pro/ENGINEER, they are required in eDrawings. When the family table instance modifies the top level of an assembly, open the .xas file corresponding to that instance.

• Colors in part files are recognized, but colors applied at the assembly level are lost during translation.

• Certain Pro/ENGINEER features, such as annotations, sketches, and layers, are not imported.

Adobe Acrobat 3D. Executing 3D Capture in Adobe® Acrobat® 3D causes eDrawings to consume large amounts of memory. The problem has been reported to Adobe.

Annotations. The SolidWorks eDrawings Viewer does not support the option Always display text at the same size for SolidWorks documents (in SolidWorks, select the Options tool, and then select Detailing for the Document Properties tab). Annotation text scaling is supported for eDrawings part and assembly files published from SolidWorks. Only 1:1 text scaling is supported for SolidWorks part and assembly files opened in eDrawings.

SolidWorks eDrawings 2011 for Mac. Known issues:

• Password-protected dxf/dwg files are not supported.

• The Search command in the Help does not work.

SolidWorks drawings. Perspective views created in SolidWorks drawings are not shaded in the eDrawings Viewer.

eDrawings Measure. Measure is disabled for non-draft quality broken views.

System Requirements

Operating system requirements:

• eDrawings 2011 supports Microsoft® XP Service Pack 3 or later.

• Tablet PCs require Tablet XP Service Pack 2 or later.

• SolidWorks eDrawings 2011 for Mac supports Macintosh® Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) or Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

Service Pack 5.0

There are no version-specific notes for this release.

Service Pack 4.0

SolidWorks eDrawings API. The new IEModelViewControl::Print5 method allows you to print an eDrawings document to a printer or to another file. Use the FileNameInPrintQueue argument to describe the eDrawings document to print so that it is easily recognizable in the printer queue. Use the PrintToFileName argument to print the eDrawings document to a file. See Help >API Help >SolidWorks eDrawings API Help for details.

Service Pack 3.0

There are no version-specific notes for this release.

Service Pack 2.0

There are no version-specific notes for this release.

This is a fairly long-standing issue we come up against on the Innova Systems technical support desk, and also while talking to prospective customers about SOLIDWORKS. The simple answer is that SOLIDWORKS do not develop an Apple Mac version of the software, so we can’t install SOLIDWORKS natively.

We used to recommend the Bootcamp route, which involves installation of Bootcamp and then Microsoft Windows on the partition Bootcamp creates. The issue here is that if you need to access the Apple Mac Operating System (OS), you would need to shut down windows and boot up the Apple Mac OS, because they cannot be running simultaneously. This allows the full use of the hardware (RAM and graphics card) you have in your Apple Mac for Windows.

The alternative solution that we used to steer people away from is Parallels, a virtual machine software that allows you to run another OS inside the Mac OS (inside a window). The reason for not recommending this is that you are sharing the resource of the machine with two operating systems, thus not necessarily having the required resource to run a demanding program like SOLIDWORKS.

There were also historic problems with not being able to use the graphics card properly which would result in exceptionally slow performance when selecting things. This is due to most Macs not having certified graphics cards for SOLIDWORKS and parallels using a virtual graphics card driver or the default Windows driver. The virtual or generic drivers don’t offer the level of performance needed to run SOLIDWORKS correctly.

Innova Systems Technical Director, Ed Hawkins, explains

We have now installed and configured this on over 20 users’ Apple Mac computers and I have to say the response from these people has been amazing.

I have a mid 2014 MacBook Pro, which I’ve been using as a test bed. The specs are listed below:

You will note that this machine has Intel Iris Graphics (specific to the Mac) and not a certified graphics card for SOLIDWORKS.

So, I installed the latest version of Parallels (version 10) and a fresh copy of Windows 10 into the virtual environment and then set about making SOLIDWORKS work!

Solidworks Recommended System Requirements

It’s pretty easy to get Windows installed, as Parallels guides you through that process very nicely. You can specify how much of the machine’s resource to give to the Windows OS – which is where a high spec Mac will stand you in better stead. It is always a good rule of thumb to assign half the available RAM to the Windows OS, so in my set up, I assigned 4GB of RAM.

The difficult bit is making the “Use Software OpenGL” button inside SOLIDWORKS become accessible. When you first install SOLIDWORKS, this button is ticked and greyed out, so we can’t turn it off. In our opinion, SOLIDWORKS is unusable at this point, as selecting geometry and navigating the software is too slow to be productive.

With a bit of effort, and some registry modifications, I was able to untick the OpenGL box, allowing us to use the graphics card to a much higher potential. The difference in performance was huge, and it allowed me to select and navigate the software much, much faster. One limitation that frustrated me early on was the lack of RealView Graphics (Accurate reflections and appearances), so I set about solving this problem too. I’m happy to report that RealView works perfectly on a properly specced Mac Book Pro!

Of course, this isn’t necessarily a new solution – Parallels has been around for some time, and installing Windows on a Mac for as long. The difference with our solution is that we can make SOLIDWORKS behave as well as a normal windows PC. No more slow selecting or poor rotational speed.

Above is a screenshot of the working set up, albeit in Window mode, not full screen. I have this running at a resolution of 2560 x 1600 in full screen mode and it is functioning very well. Please note: the specification of my Mac, and the resource I can assign to Windows is far from ideal. It would be recommended for people who are creating fairly simple parts with up to 100 features, and assemblies containing up to 500 components. Any more than that, and I think it would struggle.

In summary, the Parallels solution is now recommended by Innova Systems. We are confident of this working well in a production environment, but the spec of the Mac is key to the success. Along with our modifications to the registry in Windows, of course.

Solidworks For Mac Os X Torrent

Video: See SOLIDWORKS running on Apple Mac

Video: How to run SOLIDWORKS on Apple Mac Computers

Running Solidworks On A Mac

Solidworks For Mac Os

Get in touch with us to find out more

Are you based in the UK and interested in running SOLIDWORKS on your Apple Mac? We can demonstrate our configuration to you via a Team Viewer session, or if you prefer and are interested in purchasing SOLIDWORKS we can come out and show you live with some of your data.

Vmware For Mac Os Download

Call us on (01223) 200690 or complete this form to organise a consultation

Useful Solidworks Macros

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2015 and has been updated to feature new information on our process.