A Look at IronCAD 2022

Easy to use MCAD program adds more features

Ever since its introduction over 20 years ago, IronCAD has developed a loyal following in the manufacturing world for its 3D modeling capabilities. That standing will likely be solidified with the recent release of IronCAD 2022, the latest version of their Design Collaboration Suite.

For CAD history buffs, IronCAD descended from a product called Trispectives, developed by 3D Eye, an Atlanta-based company. 3D Eye was acquired by Visionary Design Systems (VDS), a  Santa Clara, Calif, company that launched IronCAD in 1998. The development team later spun off from VDS to form IronCAD LLC, the Atlanta company that now produces IronCAD and other products.

The new collaboration suite includes a host of new features and improvements to existing features, such as tools for building 3D models and producing 2D drawings from 3D models. With already established capabilities for 2D/3D design, drafting, and dimensioning, the new tweaks further streamline the process of creating multiple sheet drawings from 3D models.

“The IronCAD Design Collaboration Suite 2022 drastically reduces the overall time to create 3D designs and move them into the 2D Detailed Production Drawing, saving engineers and designers time and allowing for companies to increase productivity,” said Cary O’Connor, vice president of marketing at IronCAD. “Automating and simplifying tasks will continue to be a focus in 3D design and communication to streamline the process from customer requirements, customer acceptance, and into production in order to win customer’s business.”

IronCAD enables design work to be done primarily in a 3D environment.

IronCAD enables design work to be done primarily in a 3D environment.

Solid Modeling

Building on its reputation for user-friendly 3D modeling, IronCAD adds several improvements to its repertoire with this release. As with previous releases, users can work primarily in a 3D environment, dragging and dropping shapes and components from catalogs to build parts and assemblies. The popular TriBall feature is alive and well, allowing users to graphically align geometry along selected axes with mouse clicks.

The TriBall feature allows users to graphically align geometry along selected axes.

The TriBall feature allows users to graphically align geometry along selected axes.

Extending the TriBall functionality, users now have additional orientation control to define the plane to create 3D curves, such as by toggling the plane definition with a tab key. The 3D curve creation and editing types have also been updated to support similar capabilities found in the 2D Sketch feature.

The 3D Rotation feature includes additional options to rotate about the scene center when the cursor is located in space, providing more predictable rotation results. New controls have been added to provide more control over shape behavior.

For calculating masses of solid objects, users can now multi-select parts or assemblies and perform calculations on multiple objects. Multi-select has also been added to dimensioning tools and the search browser for selecting parts or assemblies. With the new dimensioning tools, users can edit multiple dimensions at once to streamline drawing annotation.

Bending Sheet Metal

Along with the solid modeling improvements, IronCAD 2022 expands tools for working with sheet metal geometry. Sketched bends can now be shown in a dynamic preview that is updated when settings are changed. A new option has been added to disable and enable individual bend shapes within bend settings.

Sketched bends can be shown in a dynamic preview that is updated when settings are changed.

Sketched bends can be shown in a dynamic preview that is updated when settings are changed.

Sketch bend handles are now shown in the folded state on the selected bend to allow easier modification of sketch bend shapes. When placing the cursor over a bend shape handle on the sketch, the bend shape geometry is highlighted for easier identification.

2D If You Must

While IronCAD’s 3D capabilities may be the more captivating features, the suite still includes plenty of tools for working in 2D. Two unique 2D drawing environments — ICD and IronCAD Draft (CAXA Draft) — are available, and both directly link into the 3D scene to update 2D data. The ICD environment provides a more intuitive user interface, but the CAXA Draft environment is more suited to traditional detailed drafting and allows users to work natively with DXF/DWG files. IronCAD 2022 includes new features for bulk view creation (BVC), with the dialog box in the 3D Scene remembering previous settings when using the BVC tool.

A handful of other tools have been added for working with 2D drawings, particularly for dimensioning. For example, the Auto Dimension tool can be set on a per-view basis in templates used for BVC to automatically create dimensions when creating drawings.

The Auto Dimension tool can be set on a per-view basis for creating dimensions.

The Auto Dimension tool can be set on a per-view basis for creating dimensions.

A new feature has also been added to associate properties to the sheet name, enabling sheet names to be automatically based on the content in the drawing. New options for rotating text boxes are also included.

For bill of materials (BOM) generation, a structured BOM type has been added, providing users the ability to expand and collapse rows in a BOM. This enables selectively hiding and displaying the children of an assembly. Improvements have also been made to the automatic updating and display of BOM tables. Item bubbles support new display types, such as split rectangular shapes, to provide enhanced drawing user interface finishes.

A structured BOM type provides users the ability to expand and collapse rows in a BOM.

A structured BOM type provides users the ability to expand and collapse rows in a BOM.

Crossing Platform Boundaries

Throughout most of its history, IronCAD has been able to handle many different file types, primarily because it is a dual-kernel CAD program, supporting both Parasolid and ACIS technology. This provides versatile data exchange across different CAD platforms and transferable geometric calculations, such as determining blends and shells.

In IronCAD 2022, the native translator has been updated to support additional formats, such as Rhino 7.0. Support has also been updated for SOLIDWORKS, Inventor, Pro/E and Creo, UG NX  and CATIA. For DWG/DXF exporting, users can now select certain views when using the Export to DWG/DXF command.

Enhancements have also been made to multiphysics for IronCAD (MPIC), an integrated finite element analysis (FEA) simulation tool that works directly in the IronCAD interface. The tool includes stress, thermal, and electrostatic analysis. The latest version of MPIC includes new piezo-electrical material as well as other improvements.

IronCAD 2022 includes a new screen recorder to enable recording videos for communication with customers as well as with the IronCAD network. Touch interactions have been included to support communication with IronCAD products on tablets and other touch screen devices.

The entire IronCAD suite includes four primary components: IronCAD for 2D and 3D design, IronCAD Inovate for 3D design and collaboration, IronCAD Draft for 2D detailing, and IronCAD Compose for 2D/3D viewing and configuration. Compose enables teams to view and comment on designs and engineering data generated from various CAD systems.

For new users, IronCAD provides access to numerous training videos via its IronCAD Academy and feedback is available via a community forum. Traditional documentation and technical support may not rival that of larger CAD vendors, but user testimonies indicate the software’s intuitive feel offsets that drawback.

About the Author

Andrew G. Roe is a registered professional engineer and technical writer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  He has over 30 years of experience in engineering and technical writing, and has written extensively about design software and related applications.