Questions people actually ask first.

A parametric CAD system for mechanical engineers, with an industrial solid-geometry kernel underneath it. One workspace covers constraint sketching, feature-based modeling, assemblies, CAM, simulation, reverse engineering, PLM, and an AI copilot.

It is a modeling system, not a viewer. Features stay ordered and editable, sketches can be fully defined, and the geometry is real B-rep rather than a mesh approximation.

No. The full application runs in your tab — the same product surface as the desktop build, not a stripped-down web edition and not a video stream of a machine in a data centre. Model state and tool calls travel over the wire to the engine service. Nothing about the toolchain is reduced to fit a web page.

Linear static stress, modal (free-vibration) frequencies, and steady-state or transient thermal conduction, run against the part in the open document rather than in a separate application. High-cycle fatigue life is derived from the static stress field.

Meshing is automatic, error-driven adaptive refinement is available, and a second, independent mesher can be switched in to check whether a result is a property of the part or of the mesh. What is not there is nonlinear or explicit-dynamics structural analysis on your actual geometry. The simulation page sets out the scope and the caveats.

Chudware is in commercial preview. The product modes are real and used daily; distribution, packaging, and the public rate card are not finished. Shipped changes are listed in the changelog, and the gallery shows captures from the running product rather than concept renders.

Start in the browser if you want zero setup: it requires no installation and gives the full product surface. Choose native if you want the application running on your own workstation; signed builds for Windows, Linux, and macOS are issued to your account from the download page.

The real Chudware application, running in your tab — the same product surface as the desktop build, with your keyboard and pointer driving the same tools directly. It is not a video stream of a machine in a data centre and it is not a viewer: model state and tool calls travel over the wire, so the geometry kernel and the full engineering toolchain stay intact. Your machine only needs a current desktop browser and a usable network connection — no graphics driver work, no installer, no licence dongle.

Identity, authorization, and per-account file isolation are enforced by the gateway in front of the shared engine service. See security for what that means concretely.

• Any modern desktop browser — the zero-install route, on every platform.
• Windows, Linux, and macOS native builds, downloaded from your account. All are 64-bit and need a graphics driver capable of a modern hardware-accelerated 3D context; without one the application does not start.
• On Apple silicon the published macOS build is the Intel build, which runs through Rosetta 2. A native Apple-silicon build is not published yet.
• Phones and tablets are not supported. This site reads fine on a phone; the CAD workspace does not. It is built around a keyboard, a precise pointer, and a large viewport, and there is no touch-first interface for it. Treat Chudware as a desktop product.

No minimum RAM, CPU, or disk figures are published, because none have been measured and ratified. Opening the browser workspace is the honest way to find out whether a given machine is comfortable.

Do not install anything presented as an official Chudware release from a third-party source; the only official source is the download page in your account.

Create an account and verify your email address. Verification activates the account on a 14-day trial and signs you in; no payment card is required to start. Some registrations wait on operator approval before they become active, in which case the account page tells you so and no action is needed from you.

Native builds are then issued from the download page, which lists every platform and package format.

.step+ is the native format. It keeps the feature tree, dimensions, materials, studies, and drawings — the editable design, not a flattened result.

Yes. It opens STEP (.step, .stp), IGES (.iges, .igs), and BREP solids directly, and reads STL, OBJ, PLY, and glTF meshes, sewing them into a solid body on open. DXF is read for 2D profiles — lines, arcs, circles, and polylines; splines, ellipses, text, dimensions, and hatch are skipped rather than half-imported.

Imported geometry arrives as solid bodies you can measure, section, mate, and build new features on. It does not arrive carrying somebody else's feature history, because a neutral format does not store one.

Yes. Export STEP, IGES, BREP, STL, OBJ, PLY, or glTF when another tool needs a handoff. A neutral export loses the feature history by definition, so keep the .step+ document as the source of truth and treat the export as a deliverable.

The native document is not a lock-in either: .step+ is a container that stores a neutral STEP body next to the parametric tree, so any CAD system can open the geometry inside it even if it cannot read the tree.

Through neutral formats, which is the path that actually works. Every one of those tools exports STEP or IGES; Chudware opens it as solid geometry and you continue modeling with new features on top.

What Chudware does not do is read a native .sldprt, .f3d, or Onshape document and reconstruct the original feature tree, and no one should promise you that. There is an experimental Windows-only path that drives an installed, licensed copy of SolidWorks to convert its own files, but it is not something to plan a migration around.

In practice, migration means bringing geometry over and rebuilding the parametric intent where you need it to be editable — which is the same trade you make moving between any two CAD systems.

In a per-account file tree on the server, with a separate per-account upload bucket. Path resolution is clamped to your own roots on every request, including on the engine connection itself, so another signed-in account cannot address your documents by guessing a path.

Storage is quota-checked per account. You can export your files at any time, and you should: Chudware publishes no recovery-time or data-loss objectives, so it should not be the only copy of a design you care about.

Project content enters Chudware systems only through the hosted workspace, synchronization, or managed AI features you use. Chudware does not sell personal information and does not use project content to train a public model. The full statement is in the privacy policy.

It operates the same modeling tools you do. Describe the engineering intent — the part, the critical dimensions, what must not change — and the copilot inspects geometry, creates or edits features, renders views, and measures results in the open document. The output is a normal model: ordinary sketches and features in the same feature tree, which you can inspect, edit, or delete.

Details are in the copilot guide.

Your choice, made during onboarding. Chudware-managed capacity consumes Chudware credits. If you add your own provider key instead, that work is sent through the provider you configured, is governed by that provider's terms and charges, and consumes no Chudware credits.

Provider keys are secrets: paste them only into Chudware's AI setup screen, never into a chat message or a project note.

Review it. AI output can be incomplete or wrong, and neither the copilot nor Chudware certifies a design, analysis, toolpath, or machine setup. Anything that drives physical equipment requires explicit operator review of stock, tool, setup, simulation, and posted code before it runs.

Public rates are not published yet. Chudware is in commercial preview and the pricing page deliberately shows the ways the product can be used instead of invented figures. Rates, storage allowances, credit bundles, and tier boundaries appear once they are ratified.

Yes — 14 consecutive days, with no payment card required. Education pricing may be offered to eligible .edu accounts where it is available; exact terms are shown before any purchase.

No. Credit packs are non-refundable and non-transferable, are not cash or stored value, and may be used only with the purchasing account. See the terms of service.

Email [email protected] with the affected surface, the impact, and reproduction steps, and test only against your own account. There is no bug bounty and no formal response-time commitment; reports reach the team that writes the code. The security page sets out what is enforced and what is not claimed.

Start with troubleshooting, then mail [email protected]. Every other route — sales, privacy, legal — is listed on the contact page.