SolidACE announced the Beta testing of brand new structural data interoperability tool CIS2Works for SolidWorks CAD environment, the early access preview of which was announced early this year.
CIS2Works focuses to simplified, fast and intelligent import and export directly to and from SolidWorks of AEC and Plant industry accepted structural steel data exchange formats, namely:
- CIS/2, the CIMSteel Integration Standards Rev. 2 format, adopted by AISC as a standard for structural steel interoperability,
- SDNF, the Steel Detailing Neutral Format, maintained still in a variety of plant and structural design systems for importing and exporting of steel structures.
- STAAD.Pro – the direct support of this file format, newly added in this Beta release.
“The direct support of Bentley STAAD.Pro, the leading structural analysis & design software used by structural engineering professionals worldwide, format was the most requested feature in other our add-in application for SolidWorks – BuiltWorks, so we decided to include STAAD.Pro support not only through interoperable CIS/2 format, but also directly in our new data translation utility CIS2Works” – commented Beta release of CIS2Works Arūnas Urbšys, Chief Operations Officer of SolidACE. “With its moderate price policy, CIS2Works will be also very cost-effective add-in application for SolidWorks community to have a link to structural steel world, opposite to purchasing some full-featured structural design application”.
The Beta version of CIS2Works is distributed free of charge and works without activation or registration, though limiting the size of the structure to be imported or exported.
Key features of CIS2Works Beta are:
- Completely redesigned new exciting user interface, compliant with contemporary trends;
- Import and export of CIS/2 and SDNF industry standard data exchange formats;
- NEW direct support of STAAD.Pro structural analysis application file format;
- Direct and full support of SolidWorks native Weldment feature, incl. structural plates;
- Separate model preview window, facilitating very fast loading and preview of large models;
- Grouping of members and plates identifying reusable components for lighter model creation;
- Flexible mapping of imported member section profile names with Weldment library names.
The new CIS2Works Beta version will be available for download through SolidACE web site www.solidace.com/free-cis2works/ immediately. The commercial release of CIS2Works is planned for August 2014.
