Mastercam Direct for SolidWorks Add-in Opens New Machining Possibilities for SolidWorks Users The SolidWorks World 2005 Conference ushered in the Mastercam ® Direct for SolidWorks add-in, a new way to boost productivity from the world's most widely used CAM software. Free to the Mastercam and SolidWorks communities, Mastercam Direct allows users to open a model in Mastercam while in a SolidWorks session, and then apply existing toolpaths to that model. With the latest release of Mastercam Direct for SolidWorks, users can now import the model into Mastercam, complete with the solids history tree intact. Futhermore, the direct interface can detect changes made to the original file when re-imported to Mastercam. Mastercam will flag the user of any changes, thus allowing the user to modify any associated data such as geometry or toolpath information. Also enabled in Mastercam Direct is support for SolidWorks file type .SLDDRW, which is a drawing file. There is no Feature tree output, but it can pass the 2D drawing data onto Mastercam. Another new feature is the ability for any SolidWorks user to save a standalone file that can be used by any Mastercam user without the need to have SolidWorks on their system. This allows for better communication between the designers and any manufacturing partner they work with, as long as they are using Mastercam. Mastercam Direct for SolidWorks can be added directly to the SolidWorks toolbar. When the add-in is selected, the current SolidWorks part will be opened directly in Mastercam. The user can immediately update existing toolpaths for the part, or easily select an entire set of operations from another similar part to apply to the CAD model.