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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| SOLIDWORKS | |
|---|---|
 | |
 SolidWorks 2023 displaying a 3D assembly. | |
| Developer | Dassault Systèmes |
| Release | November 1, 1995[1] |
| Stable release | |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Available in | Chinese, Chinese Simplified, Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish |
| Type | CAD CAE PDM PLM |
| License | Proprietary, term |
| Website | solidworks.com |
SolidWorks (stylized as SOLIDWORKS, officially rebranded as SOLIDWORKS Design in 2026) is a brand of software used for solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE). It was one of the first 3D CAD applications designed to run on a desktop PC.
The brand is owned by French software company Dassault Systèmes.
Manish Kumar is CEO of SolidWorks, as of 2025.[3]
SolidWorks, originally a privately held company, was acquired by Dassault Systèmes in 1997 through a stock transaction valued at $300 million. Prior to the acquisition, it was named Solidworks Corporation.[4]
As of 2024, SolidWorks had an estimated 7.5 million users.[5]
SolidWorks Corporation was established in December 1993 by MIT graduate Jon Hirschtick. During this time, computer-aided design software was only compatible with UNIX systems. Hirschtick aimed to create a software that was easy to use and affordable and so created SolidWorks for Microsoft Windows.[6]
SolidWorks was originally based in Concord, Massachusetts with Hirschtick as its first chief executive officer. Its first product, SolidWorks 95, was released in November 1995 after two years of development. The next year, John McEleney succeeded Hirschtick as CEO.[6][7] In 1997, Dassault Systèmes acquired SolidWorks for $316 million.[8]
Under McEleney, SolidWorks increased its number of customers to over 40,000 and had a market valuation of $1.5 billion.[9] After 12 years as CEO, McEleney stepped down and was succeeded by Jeff Ray.[7]
In 2011, Dassault Systèmes purchased a new office in Waltham, Massachusetts, where SolidWorks became headquartered.[10][11]
By 2013, SolidWorks was used by 62 percent of engineering professionals.[12]
Gian Paolo Bassi was named CEO in 2015. During his tenure, he was credited with modernizing SolidWorks by adding cloud features, utilizing databases in the software over files, and pushing for environmental initiatives. Bassi stepped down in 2022 and was succeeded by Manish Kumar, SolidWork's vice president of research and development.[7]
Dassault Systèmes Korea previously maintained territorial exclusivity for its dealers, but it was discontinued after regulatory sanctions. Following the discontinuation of territorial exclusivity, eight SolidWorks dealers NodeData, Maven, Solco, Webs System Korea, Wivermansi, K&Solution, Hanyoung Solutec, and Prism conspired and colluded on customer allocation and pricing causing SolidWorks pricing to increase by over 50% from August 2021 to July 2024. These companies have set a price floor on SolidWorks and restricted dealers from soliciting other dealers existing customers.[13]
SolidWorks is a solid modeler, and uses a parametric feature-based approach which was initially developed by PTC (Creo/Pro-Engineer) to create 3D CAD models and assemblies. The software uses the Parasolid modeling kernel.[14]
SolidWorks software includes tools for analyses and simulations, such as Finite Element Analysis, which supports modeling, design, and collaborative work.[15]
SolidWorks offers multiple work tools to be used when building system assemblies such as the interference detection tool. This enables the detection of potential interfering parts which could cause issues in the assembly system.[16]
SolidWorks users could simply click and drag elements of a widget to move them around. When the software debuted in 1995, a trade publication called it "possibly the best ever" first release of a CAD product. Two years later, SolidWorks was bought by Dassault Systemes for $316 million.
Under Mr. McEleney, SolidWorks grew to more than 40,000 global customers, $350 million in revenue and a market valuation of $1.5 billion.
The French product design software company Dassault Systèmes will open its new North American headquarters in Waltham today, bringing 850 employees from Lowell and Concord to a sleek new 27-acre campus on the edge of Route 128.
Dassault Systemes/Solidworks, 185 Wyman St., Waltham.
Today, SolidWorks is used by about 62 percent of engineering professionals, according to a 2013 survey by the site CNC Cookbook
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
SolidWorks (stylized as SOLIDWORKS, officially rebranded as SOLIDWORKS Design in 2026) is a brand of software used for solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE). It was one of the first 3D CAD applications designed to run on a desktop PC. The brand is owned by French software company Dassault Systèmes.
CATIA (, an acronym of computer-aided three-dimensional interactive application) is a multi-platform software suite for computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), computer-aided engineering (CAE), 3D modeling and product lifecycle management (PLM), developed by the French company Dassault Systèmes. Since it supports multiple stages of product development from conceptualization, design and engineering to manufacturing, it is considered CAx-software and is sometimes referred to as a 3D product lifecycle management software suite. Like most of its competition, it facilitates collaborative engineering through an integrated cloud service and has support to be used across disciplines including surfacing & shape design, electrical, fluid and electronic systems design, mechanical engineering and systems engineering. CATIA is most widely used in automotive and aerospace industries, due to its advanced surface modelling capabilities. Besides being used in a wide range of industries from aerospace and defence to packaging design, CATIA has been used by architect Frank Gehry to design some of his signature curvilinear buildings and his company Gehry Technologies was developing their Digital Project software based on CATIA. The software has been merged with the company's other software suite 3D XML Player to form the combined Solidworks Composer Player.
PhotoWorks is a raytrace rendering program created by Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corporation, formerly supplied as a photorealistic rendering add-in for SolidWorks. The program is based on the Mental Ray rendering engine. It has a library of scenes and materials that can be used with user-created SolidWorks files to create still frame images within the SolidWorks GUI. Since the 2011 release of SolidWorks, PhotoWorks has been replaced by the PhotoView 360 rendering utility. A 2010 review comparing PhotoWorks with three other rendering programs for SolidWorks (including PhotoView 360) gave the program high marks for render speed and built-in materials, but low marks for realism and user interface. Appearance File Type: *.p2m
Flowcode is a development environment commercially produced by Matrix TSL for programming embedded devices based on PIC, AVR (including Arduino), ESP32, Raspberry Pi and RP2040 and ARM technologies using graphical programming styles (such as flowcharts) and imperative programming styles (through C, State Machines and Pseudocode). It is currently in its eleventh revision. Flowcode is dedicated to simplifying complex functionality such as Bluetooth, Mobile Phones Communications, USB communications etc. by using pre-developed dedicated open source component libraries of functions. This is achieved by dragging virtual representations of hardware onto a visual panel, providing access to associated libraries. Flowcode is therefore ideal for speeding up software development times and allowing those with little programming experience to get started and help with projects. This makes it appropriate for the formal teaching of principles of programming microcontrollers. Flowcode allows the user to develop and view their program using four different visual modes. These are the Flowchart view, the Blocks view (a graphical programming paradigm inspired by Blockly), the C code view and the Pseudocode view. There is also a fifth state machine way of entering code. Flowcode also has a mode named App Developer which is capable of creating Windows based applications via a runtime executable. This allows the software to also create applications for testing or interacting with the embedded system. Flowcode also has compatibility with Solidworks.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
