What is the fastest way to publish your SOLIDWORKS designs on the Web?
At the time of writing this article, we are unsure whether a world record has been set for the fastest time to publish SOLIDWORKS assemblies on the Web…? In case you know of or can find a quicker way to perform the process of taking a SOLIDWORKS assembly and creating an instance of it for the Web with part and assembly information, we challenge you to report it back to us!
With the CT PUBLISHER and SOLIDWORKS Composer approach, the process does not take long, and the most time-consuming tasks, such as linking hotspots to metadata and creating the links, are automated. The goal of our approach is to have minimal active work for the user.
Without further ado, let’s get started with the process!
Task #1: Create or choose a specific SOLIDWORKS assembly of a product you wish to publish on the Web

Subassemblies and parts are created as children of their parent assemblies as navigational entities in the CT Publisher web interface later when you import them with our publishing tools. The assemblies can be modified afterward in SOLIDWORKS Composer, too – so you should be able to use your existing SOLIDWORKS CAD files as-is.
Time spent on task 1: |
close to zero (in case you are re-using your existing SOLIDWORKS CAD data!) |
Task #2: Open SOLIDWORKS Composer with ATR Soft’s CT PUBLISHER add-in for Composer

First, import the SOLIDWORKS Assembly from task 1 into Composer. (File – Open…)

Then, create Composer views for the desired parts using CT PUBLISHER add-in. Simply, select CT Publisher tab and click Create Views.

Select desired assembly items in view select window. By selecting “Link children to root,” the subassemblies are under on root item in the resulting web content.

Next, create SVG views with clickable hotspots:
- Select tab Workshops
- Click Technical Illustrations
- On the right panel choose tab “Multiple
- Tick views and use %viewname% filename template
- Select “Save As” and save the file it suggests to the folder in which you have all the assembly files in. (Usually, there’s no need to change anything: click “Save As” -> Click “Save” in the popup window)

Finally, save the Composer project in .smgXML file format in the same folder as the SVGs, and close SOLIDWORKS Composer for now.
Time spent on task 2: | 2 minutes of manual tasks with approx 10+ mouse clicks. |
5+ minutes spent on automatic processing (the automatic processing time depends on the size of your SOLIDWORKS Assembly) |
Task #3: Open CT PUBLISHER to import the Assembly to the Web
Open the CT PUBLISHER Editor, and select tab Web Store Management. Click on Add Product:

On import select Solidworks Composer data source and use select “Use Autolink functionality.”

Open the folder containing the SOLIDWORKS Composer files and select next. Then, select which properties you want to bind to Description and Price values (These are special values that are bound directly to the resulting database entity for the assembly parts).

The Autolink functionality works automatically to creates correct relationships based on assemblies, their sub-assemblies, and parts. After the import has processed, click on Finish to save. Browse CT Publisher Website to view the resulting Assembly on the Web!
Time spent on task 3: | 3 minutes of manual tasks with approx 15 mouse clicks. |
5+ minutes spent on automatic processing (the automatic processing time depends on the size of your SOLIDWORKS Assembly) |
Conclusion
Overall, this takes you about 15 minutes (most of it automatic processing work) and less than 30 mouse clicks to get your existing SOLIDWORKS Assemblies modeled as SVG on the Web! There is a lot of tweaking you can do by creating specific exploded views in Composer, or linking relevant custom properties to your Assembly, for example.
By the way, you can see the result of the exercise described in this article here: https://demo.ctpublisher.com/Item/Index/9394

Pekka Ranta
Developer, CT PUBLISHER
support(@) ctpublisher.com
Want to see your own SOLIDWORKS data on the web?
We are happy to help you get started with CT PUBLISHER!
Contact us to request a private demonstration, with your own SOLIDWORKS data, by reserving a suitable time slot on the calendar, CLICK BELOW!
CONTACT DETAILS

Olli Murto
Sales, Licensing
olli (@) ctpublisher.com
+358 407 784 386