If the comments board on the recent Mechanical Conceptual SolidSmack post is any indication, SolidWorks has a lot of passionate users that want to stick with the brand…but feel uncertain about the pricey new 3D Experience structure. While SolidSmack will most certainly be the first to report back to you with any updates on the manner, here’s something else that was working its way around the San Diego convention center at last week’s SolidWorks World: an update preview to the popular eDrawings Augmented Reality app that brings the popular real-world viewing capabilities of the existing app to a new sharing platform that allows teams to collaborate world-wide on models in real-time.

What is the eDrawings Augmented Reality Viewer?

Using an AR Marker, a user is able to display their model in real-world size against a real-world background. For example, if you were sharing a model of an over-the-ear headphone design with a client at a coffee shop, you would be able to ‘place’ the model on the table in front of you next to your macchiato and use the real-world elements as size comparisons. It would be at this stage that a client could say that the headphones are too big or too small rather than judging by dimensions on a 2D blueprint. Of course, there are other applications that this could be useful as well, but what if you wanted to share the headphone design to multiple clients in off-site offices? Well, that’s where the eDrawings Meetings update comes in.