New Sunglass API connects to popular CAD tools, cloud storage sites

To demonstrate the capabilities of the API, Sunglass programmers have released connectors for several popular products including SolidWorks, SketchUp, and Rhino.

Today cloud-based CAD collaboration site Sunglass releases an application programming interface (API) for direct integration with existing CAD products. To introduce the capabilities of the new API, Sunglass is releasing connectors based on the API for commercial CAD tools SolidWorks, SketchUp, Rhino and open source CAD environment Processing, as well as for cloud-based file storage sites Dropbox and Box.

Programmers who wish to use the Sunglass API to create links to other applications can create an authorization key on the Sunglass site, which opens the door for any users of their software to have access to Sunglass.

Sunglass_API_1 — The new Sunglass connection with SketchUp. (Source: Sunglass)

A semi-public roadmap

Sunglass would like us to believe this API is a happy accident, the product of responding to user request. It is true users have been requesting links between their CAD tools and the Sunglass collaboration site, it is also true the API was well under development long before Sunglass opened for business.

Founders Nitin Rao and Kaustuv DeBiswas have assembled a team of programmers and rounded up $1.7 million in venture capital funding, and have an ambitious technology roadmap for Sunglass. The next update to Sunglass will include the ability to partition space in a Sunglass environment for use with different sets of collaborators; the introduction of timelines, and versioning.

Also coming along soon will be the introduction of third-party applications currently under development. DeViswas describes the third-party applications now in the works as being from “independent app developers bringing a fresh perspective, very much off the mainstream with new, interesting ideas.” Those new apps will include surface dimension, CFD analysis, and 3D rendering. The apps will run from a cloud server, giving mobile and browser-based users access to computational horsepower not available on desktop computers.

Adds Rao, “Our goal is to become channel agnostic; Sunglass is an approach to collaboration from any channel, the browser is just one.”

Previous GraphicSpeak coverage of Sunglass: GrabCAD, Sunglass, and TinkerCAD are leading a CAD industry pivot.