CADENAS pops the corks: 405 million 3D CAD models downloaded in record year 2019

Bright prospects

Within the last 5 years, the number of CAD downloads made has thus increased by over 168%. Jürgen Heimbach, CEO of CADENAS GmbH, sees the great success mainly in constant innovations.

Mr. Heimbach, in 2019, one download record hunted the next. In addition, the 3D CAD download numbers have also increased rapidly over the last few years. How do you explain this great success?

Major changes are currently taking place in the design area. Digital twins are playing an increasingly important role. We are working continuously with component manufacturers to enrich 3D CAD engineering data with all important information so that it can be used for the virtual commissioning of machines and systems.

In addition, the way engineers, designers, planners and architects obtain suitable components for their product developments and planning has also changed. We at CADENAS have taken this as an opportunity to turn the previous tried-and-tested search for manufacturer components upside down. Conventional search engines usually deliver results that are far too general and not target-oriented, without any technical or architectural reference. With our newly developed visual search engine 3Dfind.it for manufacturer components we have taken a big step into a new dimension in 2019. We see 3Dfind.it as a kind of lighthouse, which combines the multitude of different component manufacturers with their CAD engineering data and finds the most suitable components across all of them.

How do component manufacturers benefit from the increase in 3D CAD downloads?

Component manufacturers can use 3Dfind.it to efficiently market their products worldwide by making their 3D engineering data potentially available to over 24 million engineers and architects. With 3Dfind.it, manufacturers get their products directly into the CAD & BIM designs of engineers and architects as well as into the respective parts lists and then receive orders from the purchasing department. Studies show that around 87% of downloaded CAD components later lead to real products sold.

What are the plans for the coming year?

Thanks to its web-based technology, the disruptive search engine for manufacturer components offers us many possibilities for the future for seamless integration into our proven Strategic Parts Management PARTsolutions or into various PLM and CAD systems. To further develop 3Dfind.it and our software solutions, the CADENAS headquarters will move into new, state-of-the-art offices in the north of the German city of Augsburg in 2020. As an innovation and development center, the new premises are best suited to promote open communication among each other and to exploit the full potential of ideas. This will enable us to surprise our customers and partners with many groundbreaking innovations in 2020.

CADENAS would like to thank all users of the search engine 3Dfind.it and the 3D CAD models download portal PARTcommunity as well as the manufacturers for the good cooperation in the creation of high-quality engineering data and wishes everyone a successful year 2020!