TopSolid & Tech Soft 3D

The Challenge

TopSolid is a French company that provides a comprehensive CAD/CAM/PDM solution that covers everything from geometry creation, modification, and retrieval to machine control and data publication/organization. With subsidiaries in Italy, China, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, the U.S., and the Czech Republic and over 80 resellers, TopSolid is a market leader in providing its customers with a complete 3D design to manufacturing solutions.

TopSolid serves a diverse range of industrial markets including mechanical, steel, and wood production, tooling, and machining applications. As Senior Product Manager Romain Bastien phrased it, “Everywhere there is a machine to remove some material, we deliver solutions to our customers.”

“The challenge we solve is to pass from designer idea all the way to the real part on the floor,” Romain explained. “This covers many aspects, from pure designing, assemblies, sketching, and visualization to challenges on the manufacturing side.”

This commitment to the entire design cycle is part of what lets TopSolid stand out in their market. As Romain explained, “Unlike many editors who focus on niche areas, we provide a comprehensive, integrated solution that meets a wide range of needs.”

As a long-term player in their industry, TopSolid is constantly evolving and improving the features it offers its customers to meet their ever-changing needs and expectations. One example is the shift to providing realistic rendering capabilities as a standard feature of their product, where it used to be a paid extension. “Things that were nice to have eventually become the standard,” Romain explains, “It’s like air conditioning in a car. If you don’t have it, you don’t buy the car.”

 To provide these advanced rendering capabilities, TopSolid leverages HOOPS Luminate.

Leveraging HOOPS Luminate for Advanced Real-time Rendering

HOOPS Luminate empowers companies to provide photorealistic rendering for their CAD models so they can better demonstrate their products. As Romain explained, “In 2024, making a CAD demonstration with good, realistic rendering is a service you must be able to deliver to prospects and customers.”

As part of their goal to provide a complete 3D CAD/CAM/ERP solution, TopSolid knew creating every single element of their tool from scratch was not feasible or efficient. “We could not create every aspect of the product, so this is why the decision was made to license an external component for 3D visualization,” Romain explained.