National Instruments and SolidWorks Collaborate on a Virtual Prototyping Solution

National Instruments has begun shipping the production release of NI SoftMotion for SolidWorks, a pioneer mechatronics tool that helps mechanical and control engineers work together to lower the cost and risk of motion system design. Seamlessly connecting NI LabVIEW graphical system design software and SolidWorks® 3D CAD software, the new virtual prototyping solution helps engineers and scientists design, optimize, validate and visualize the real-world performance of machines and motion systems before incurring the costs of physical prototypes.

NI SoftMotion for SolidWorks requires SolidWorks Motion Simulation, included with SolidWorks Premium, SolidWorks Simulation Professional and SolidWorks Simulation Premium. Additional LabView modules may also be required.

National Instruments has an extremely information website with webcasts, whitepapers, getting started guides, etc. Check it out: http://www.ni.com/digitalprototyping/

As mentioned in a previous blog posting, Rockwell Automation is collaborating with SolidWorks on a very similar solution that will integrate RA Motion Analyser software with SolidWorks Motion Simulation. This software should be available later this fall. More info can be found at http://www.ab.com/motion/software/analyzer.html and http://www.rockwellautomation.com/partners/dassault.html