Are SW2004 Files Compatible with SW2001 ?

Hello,

we have SW2004 and a student that opens files in SW2004 created in SW2001,
and then saves them, finds that they cannot be then opened with SW2001. Is it
possible to save in SW2004 such that SW2001 can then open the file ?

Thank you,

Declan Hughes

(please remove abc if replying by email)

 

no, you can't open SW files in previous versions.
some third-party software developers are working on this.

 

It IS possible, however the "translation" comes with the expense of
losing the feature history of the native SolidWorks parts.

In order to read the files with backward compatibility, SW2004 should
write copies to be saved as Parasolids format. An option to be set
during the translation is for the version of Parasolids. If the
default version 14 is used, then SW2001 will NOT read the file. It's
safe to use version 11, for example.

IGES, STEP and ACIS are among other formats which can accomplish the
same backwards translation, but Parasolids is the most efficient in my
view.

Per O. Hoel
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