Switching CAD systems – the legacy data issue

Switching CAD systems can seem somewhat daunting for one very large elephant in the room;

What happens to years of legacy design data we already have?

Nobody wants to be stuck re-drawing thousands of old parts from scratch or locked out of files the business depends on.

The reality is you won’t be.

SOLIDWORKS can open your legacy files natively, straight away, at no cost — and when you do need to turn an old file into a fully editable SOLIDWORKS part, AI tools built into your subscription can help rebuild it in minutes instead of hours.

The current process

Until very recently, moving CAD data between systems meant picking one of two bad options:

• Bulk translation software — expensive, and it converts everything up front whether you need it or not.
• Manual remodelling — accurate, but it means paying an engineer to redraw every part by hand.

The new process – convert only what you need, when you need it

Because most CAD platforms use similar underlying geometry, SOLIDWORKS can already open native files from Solid Edge, Inventor, Fusion 360, Onshape, Creo, CATIA and NX — no conversion required. You see the shape immediately. The only limitation is that, at this stage, it’s a solid block: no editable history, sketches or dimensions yet.

That’s where LEO AI comes in. It’s a one-click, cloud-based tool that reverse-engineers that ‘dumb’ solid back into a proper, editable SOLIDWORKS feature tree — sketches, dimensions, extrusions and all.

So the workflow is simple:

• Open the file in SOLIDWORKS — works immediately, no cost.
• Ask: does this part actually need editing? No → carry on with direct face editing, free, done.
• Yes → run LEO AI to rebuild the full feature tree, takes minutes.

What does this mean in the real world?

The time saved scales with how complex the part is — and it’s not subtle;

A bracket that would take an engineer 1.5 hours to redraw by hand takes about three minutes with LEO AI.

A complex cast housing that would eat a full day of modelling time comes back in a few minutes.

What will it typically cost?

Access to LEO, Marie, and Aura is included with standard commercial SOLIDWORKS software subscriptions.

Because rebuilding 3D geometric history requires significant cloud computing power, usage is tracked via a utility-based system called Blue Tokens. Token packs are purchased in blocks of 25,000 tokens for £950 (excluding VAT), which calculates to an operational cost of 3.8p per token.

Every new commercial seat receives an introductory, one-time allocation of 2,100 free Blue Tokens, providing a team of four with an initial pool of 8,400 tokens to baseline the software on real legacy data without an upfront financial commitment.

Because you only convert files when a project actually needs them, there’s no big upfront bill — costs track your real usage over time.

Two more tools worth knowing about

• Marie — a natural-language search tool for your PDM vault. Ask it things like “find an un-plated steel flange rated for 15kN” instead of digging through folders. Free to use.
• Aura — automates drawing layout (views, sections, dimensions) once a part is converted, and flags broken sketch constraints with a suggested fix.

Both work alongside LEO AI to cut down the manual admin around a CAD migration, not just the modelling itself.

SOLIDWORKS AI Imports – The key benefits

Moving to SOLIDWORKS no longer means choosing between an expensive upfront migration and years of manual remodelling.

You can now open your legacy data immediately, edit the parts you actually touch for free, and only spend money to use AI when a part needs a full rebuild — with costs that scale with real project work, not a one-off conversion bill.

Want to see it working on your own data?

Get in touch and we’ll run a few of your native legacy parts through the pipeline and show you the resulting feature trees and token cost, so you can see exactly what a move to SOLIDWORKS would look like for your archive.