General information

Composer is available in two areas. The CATIA® Composer™ is sold directly by Dassault Systèmes® and its partners, the SOLIDWORKS® Composer™ from Solidworks® partners. Both versions are compatible. They differ in the license handling, which is adapted to CATIA® or SOLIDWORKS® depending on supplier.
Depending on the CAD system, there are also some special features in data transfer (BOMs, textures).
All in all, the result files can be easily exchanged between both Composer™ versions. We therefore usually only use the term Composer.

However, the software can also process many other 3D CAD data or neutral formats. Many customers like the ability to quickly update design changes because it is significantly reducing the time and effort required for reworking.

Fields of application

The Composer™ is an authoring tool for creating digital content based on 3D CAD data.
It works three-dimensional and offers the possibility to process a CAD model in simple steps so that technical functions can be easily communicated to others. This also means that it serves the communication of technical contents.
Many customers use Composer for illustrations and exploded views, which can be created very fast and easy with Composer.
Assembly instructions have become very popular. This is where you can see the capabilities of an animation. From this animation the individual steps of illustrations can be derived.

When you think of pictures and illustrations, it’s also important for installation plans. After all, the data in Composer is often 40-100 times smaller than in the CAD system. This fact and the possibilities of simplification mean that large systems can be quickly created in Composer.
Animations are a particularly important topic with a high benefit factor for the company. Products that can be functionally described before they are produced or training or support of technicians, animations can be created in a short time without regard to dependencies in CAD. We know many customers who use these animation videos especially for sales in order to quickly explain a certain function to a customer. And usually the effort in Composer is only a few minutes or hours.

Historical

With the purchase of the software and Seemage in 2007, Dassault Systems® named the software 3DVIA® Composer. 3DVIA® was born as the brand name for a range of products that process 3D data.
Seemage was fully integrated into Dassault Systems®, but some small details in the composer remind you of this, including the .smg file format.

In order to enable customers in CATIA® and SOLIDWORKS® areas a uniform license handling parallel to the CAD licenses, it was decided in 2014 to remove the composer from the 3DVIA® brand. Nowadays two license types of CATIA® Composer™ and SOLIDWORKS® Composer™ are sold.