About CAD Booster

CAD Booster is a software company from The Netherlands. We develop user-friendly software (and other tools) for the 3D design software SOLIDWORKS.

My name is Peter Brinkhuis and I started CAD Booster in 2017 because I thought SOLIDWORKS could use some more automation. My plan was to build a "Drawing Assistant", which eventually became Drew.

So I wrote a business plan, quit my job and started CAD Booster. I still had to learn how to professionally develop software, though.

I am a mechanical engineer by trade and I worked at engineering firms for five years, where we designed, built and tested complex, one-off machines with a small team.

CAD Booster develops intuitive add-ins for SOLIDWORKS. We started with Drew, then added our Fastener Models library because consistent toolbox components were impossible to find.

The first lockdown of 2020 gave us Lightning, the second one gave us plenty of time to write our ebook about performance.

We pride ourselves on building really great software. That means software that is useful, stable, helpful and discoverable. If a product ticks all those boxes, we call it intuitive. That is our ultimate goal.

Let's keep in touch

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Products with an opinion

We love building really great products. These are our most important ones.

Drew

Never ask the same question twice

When you have to create hundreds of drawings at the end of a project, SOLIDWORKS will ask you the same questions for each drawing. Which template, which sheet format, which views? That's a waste of time.

Drew stores many of your drawing preferences in its blueprints. After that, you start a new drawing with one click. Add a view and move all other views? One click. Add a sheet per unique body? One click.

Lightning

Make working with fasteners fun

If you don't model your fasteners, you will forget to order them or they don't fit. If you do model them, it takes precious time and effort.

Lightning makes your fastener library searchable. Select a type, size and material, then drag the bolt into your assembly. We'll even add a washer and a pattern for you.

Changing the length is as simple as selecting a bolt, then clicking Make longer.

Fastener Models

3D models that actually follow the standards

Every engineering company eventually realizes they need a proper fastener library. The Toolbox doesn't follow any standards and random 3D models from the web are inconsistent at best.

So we bought the DIN and ISO standards, extracted all data and built software to create fastener models. Our files are native, extremely consistent models with useful custom properties and mate references.