How to Open Files from the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform
There are many different methods to open files from the 3DEXPERIENCE platform when working with SOLIDWORKS. While the majority of these are unique to 3DEXPERIENCE, let’s start by exploring the open options that you can access from within SOLIDWORKS.
Opening Files in SOLIDWORKS from the 3DEXPERIENCE platform
Once SOLIDWORKS is open your first view will be of the home screen. From here we can see our library of recent documents as well as the handle we worked on in the previous video – Saving files to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
The SOLIDWORKS welcome window
To view a complete list of documents we’ve recently worked on – we can navigate to the next tab along labelled “Recent”, where the entire list of your recent projects are available. This is also possible by clicking on “File” in the toolbar at the top of your screen.
Going to the “File” dropdown menu can also show us a list of recent documents as well as the option to open files from your computer (CTRL+ O). This command can also be pinned to the top tool bar for easier access.
File menu showing recent documents and the open command
How to open files from the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform
In SOLIDWORKS
When working with 3DEXPERIENCE, the open command in SOLIDWORKS gains a few new options to allow us to open from 3DEXPERIENCE.
First, we have the “Home” button showing us our recent files as it did before.
Next is 3DSearch, which allows us to search for files on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform using the search box.
Bookmarks are our third option, allowing us to browse through our bookmark structure, or search for our file name.
“This PC” is the final option and will let you browse files stored locally on your PC.
Open window showing 3DEXPERIENCE options
In the ‘MySession’ task pane on the right hand side of SOLIDWORKS, we can search for our file name similar to the search in the ‘Open’ window.
We can also view the files stored in a chosen Bookmark by selecting the compass icon in the top left of the ‘MySession’ task pane, selecting the ‘Collaborative Industry Innovator’ role, and then the ‘Bookmark Editor’ app. This allows us to browse through our bookmarks like a conventional folder structure in Windows Explorer / File Explorer.
Bookmark editor within MySession
Files saved to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform are also saved locally to your machine. We can view a list of these files by checking the tab second from the bottom on the task pane labelled: ‘3DEXPERIENCE files on this PC’. This shows us a list of locally stored files that are also uploaded to 3DEXPERIENCE, and allows us to open files from here.
This area also allows us to safely delete these files from our hard drive, knowing that if we need them again, we can open from 3DEXPERIENCE.
3DEXPERIENCE files on this PC
In the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform
If we don’t already have our a browser window open displaying our files stored in 3DEXPERIENCE, we can quickly get to this from within SOLIDWORKS. We do this by selecting the compass icon in the top left of the ‘MySession’ task pane, selecting the ‘Collaborative Industry Innovator’ role, and then the ‘3DSpace’ app.
This will open a browser window to view our collaborative spaces. Selecting a collaborative space will show us all the data that has been stored within that Space.
3DSpace view from browser
We can also get to the bookmark editor through a similar method, or by using the ‘My Data’ tab on our Dashboard. When using the ‘My Data’ tab, we can drag files from the Bookmark Editor app, into the 3DPlay app to get a 3D preview of the file.
Viewing files in 3DPlay