Geomagic Design X Reverse Engineering Software

Geomagic Design X comes in three varieties — Go, Plus and Pro — each aimed at a different kind of user, and each available as a subscription or a perpetual licence with optional maintenance. Commercial and educational terms differ, and Artec scanner bundles are priced better than buying scanner and software separately. Because tier, licence term and bundle all move the number, we quote rather than publish: send us your application through the form above and we will return a written quote, usually the same business day.

Go is the entry tier: it imports scan data, repairs mesh, does basic solid and surface modeling and LiveTransfers to CAD. Plus adds scanner plugins and probing, advanced solid and surface modeling, 3D mesh sketch, selective surfacing and the detailed Accuracy Analyzer — plus phone support and one-business-day response. Pro adds the full automation and freeform toolset: native CAD import/export, modeling wizards, Auto-Sketch, CAD Correct, Exact Surfacing, automatic regioning, texturing and batch processing. Most shops doing regular reverse engineering land on Plus; Pro pays for itself when reverse engineering is a production activity or the parts are organic rather than prismatic.

Yes. Design X is scanner-agnostic and works with every Artec scanner — Eva, Leo, Micro II, Point, Ray II and Spider II. The normal workflow is to capture and process in Artec Studio, export a polygonal mesh or point cloud, and open it in Design X. From the Plus tier up, Design X can also drive supported scanners directly and combine scanned surfaces with hard-probed features.

Together they are a complete reverse engineering solution rather than two tools bolted together. The scanner supplies dense, target-free geometry of the real part — including the wear, warp and hand-finishing that a drawing never shows. Design X turns that into a parametric model your engineers can edit. Scan data feeds straight in from Artec Studio with no conversion step, which is why Artec sells and supports the two as a pair, and why the published time and cost savings come from the combined workflow rather than either half alone.

Artec Studio captures, aligns, fuses and cleans scan data, and it can fit basic primitives and export to CAD formats. What it does not do is build a parametric, history-based solid model. Design X extracts the design intent — sketches, extrudes, revolves, fillets — into a rebuildable feature tree that an engineer can edit in SOLIDWORKS or NX afterward. If all you need is a watertight mesh for 3D printing or a quick surface, Artec Studio may already cover it, and we would rather tell you that than sell a second licence.

LiveTransfer sends a Design X model into SOLIDWORKS, Siemens NX, PTC Creo, AutoCAD or Autodesk Inventor as a native parametric model with the design history intact — not a dumb imported solid. The receiving CAD system sees editable features, so downstream design changes are made the normal way. LiveTransfer is included in every tier, including Go.

Geomagic for SOLIDWORKS runs the reverse engineering tools inside the SOLIDWORKS environment, which suits teams that live in SOLIDWORKS and want one window. Design X is the standalone, more capable application: broader mesh and point cloud tooling, more surfacing control, automation, and it feeds several CAD systems rather than one. If SOLIDWORKS is your only CAD system and your parts are straightforward, Geomagic for SOLIDWORKS is often enough. If you handle organic geometry, difficult scan data, or multiple CAD targets, Design X is the right tool.

Yes. Alongside feature-based solid modeling for prismatic parts, Design X fits accurate surfaces to organic scans. Auto Surface handles freeform geometry automatically; selective surfacing (Plus and up) lets you control patch layout; Exact Surfacing (Pro) produces high-fidelity NURBS on shapes that were never parametric — hand-sculpted models, worn tooling, anatomical forms, styling surfaces.

The published minimum is 64-bit Windows 8.1, a 2.0 GHz Intel or AMD processor, 8 GB RAM, 30 GB of free disk space, a 1280 × 960 32-bit true-color display, and an OpenGL 3.0 or newer graphics card with at least 4 GB of memory. For real work with dense Artec scan data we recommend Windows 11 Pro, an i7-class or better CPU, 32 GB RAM or more, an NVMe SSD, and an NVIDIA RTX professional card with 8 GB or more of VRAM.

Design X imports over 60 formats covering polygon meshes, point clouds and CAD. It exports to standard neutral CAD formats such as IGES and STEP, and the Pro tier adds native CAD import and export for CATIA, NX, Creo, Inventor and SOLIDWORKS. Artec scan data arrives as a mesh or point cloud exported from Artec Studio — no conversion utility or bridge software is required.

Yes — evaluation licences are available. Contact us through the form above and we will arrange the trial along with a walkthrough on your own data, which is a far better test than a blank workspace. Sending us a scan and a drawing of a part you actually need to model is the fastest way to know whether the software solves your problem.

Yes. Hexagon maintains separate educational pricing and maintenance programs for Design X, and Artec offers educational packages that bundle scanners with software. We quote educational, multi-seat, lab and consortium configurations regularly — tell us the institution and the seat count and we will put it together.

Yes. Every licence carries Hexagon support at the level of its tier, and 3DMakerWorld provides U.S.-based application support on top of that. We run Artec scanners and reverse engineering work in our own service bureau every day, so you are calling people who use this workflow rather than a switchboard. Offices in Naperville, Illinois and Lenexa, Kansas.

Yes. 3DMakerWorld runs an Artec-based 3D scanning and reverse engineering service bureau. For a one-off legacy part, an obsolete spare or a supplier problem, we can scan the part and deliver a CAD model without you buying any software. It is also the cheapest way to find out whether the workflow is worth bringing in-house.