Engineering designs should be able to cross software boundaries

Design intelligence should travel with the design

An engineering model contains knowledge about a product: features, parameters, dimensions, constraints, relationships, references, and the decisions that connect them. That intelligence makes the model useful for engineering rather than simply a digital representation of shape.

Our vision is for more of that intelligence to remain understandable when a design crosses CAD boundaries.

An engineer receiving a design shouldn't just be able to see what was created.

They should be able to understand it, work with it, and continue developing it.

Different tools. Shared understanding.

Different engineering organizations choose different CAD systems for good reasons. Those systems represent decades of investment in software, processes, automation, training, libraries, and engineering knowledge. Replacing them with a single universal authoring environment isn't a realistic answer to cross-CAD collaboration.

We believe the better approach is to let engineers continue using the tools appropriate to their organizations while creating greater shared understanding between those environments.

The CAD systems can remain different.

The engineering design connects them.

Collaboration should preserve continuity

Moving a design between systems is only one part of the problem. Engineering is iterative. Designs change. Suppliers contribute. Customers respond. Engineers explore alternatives. Requirements evolve. Multiple participants may modify different aspects of the same product.

Cross-CAD collaboration should therefore support the continuing evolution of a design — not merely its transfer from one system to another. Teams should be better able to understand what changed, retain important relationships and intent, and continue engineering without repeatedly reconstructing knowledge that already existed.

Build on the tools engineers already use

Sembyl isn't pursuing another CAD system that requires every participant to abandon their existing tools. We envision technology that complements established engineering environments and makes collaboration between them more capable.

Manufacturers can continue using their preferred CAD systems. Suppliers can continue using theirs. Engineering partners can continue using theirs.

The opportunity is to make the design intelligence connecting those organizations more portable, understandable, and useful.

Toward intelligent design collaboration

CAD interoperability has made it possible to exchange increasingly sophisticated representations of engineering designs. The next step is deeper.

We envision engineering information that can cross software boundaries while retaining more of the intelligence necessary to understand, modify, and collaboratively evolve a design.

Intelligent design collaboration across CAD systems.

Interested in what we're building?

If cross-CAD collaboration is a real challenge in your organization, we'd like to hear from you.

Get in touch