Dassault Systèmes Takes The Wraps Off DraftSight

Fresh off its beta launch last June, Dassault Systemes announced the general availability of DraftSight for Windows, a free 2-D CAD product and community aimed at engineering professionals, students and educators.

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DraftSight, which runs on multiple operating systems, including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and eventually Mac OS, lets users create, edit and view DWG files. The formal release incorporates a number of user-requested enhancements, among them, performance and usability improvements in addition to localization of Help files in a number of languages. There is also new API support (available for a fee), which lets users write add-on programs for DraftSight, and a command variables feature, which lets users set and change system variables directly from the command line.

"Users provided great feedback that enabled us to identify areas of improvement that we have implemented into the general release for Windows, increasing the overall performance and usability of DraftSight," notes Aaron Kelly, senior director, DraftSight at Dassault Systemes, in a prepared release. To date, Kelly said more than 400,000 users have downloaded DraftSight.

Accompanying the new release is an open, online community where users can access support and training resources as well as interact, ask questions and share opinions with peers. The DraftSight community is based on Dassault Systemes' SwYm online collaboration and social innovation platform, which incorporates such Web 2.0 capabilities as rich profiles, blogs, micro-blogging, "iQuestions", wikis, media sharing spaces (data, audio, video, and even 3D) and status updates within a unified layout that facilitates collaboration.

In addition to the online community, DraftSight users will be offered a variety of support options, including no-cost Community Support as well as fee-based Premium Services that offer telephone and email support, network licensing and access to DraftSight APIs.