Hi AW,

> I know a lot of the rendering and animation packages use a Y-up
> system

Yeah, a lot of times these packages also have z going forward into the screen, making what is called "left handed" coordinate system.


> and apparently now so does SolidWorks?

It seems that they do, but with Z in the opposite direction from some of those animation/rendering programs, so it is still a "right handed" system, but rotated 90 degrees.

It seems like many SolidWorks users wonder why it is set up like that, here are some discussions:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36775
https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/18310
https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/12775

But certain kinds of industries can put the labels in different orientations.

In MoI v2 you can adjust the labels to match whatever you want for inputting coordinates, under Options / View / Axis labels.


> I wouldn't have though they would do that to a CAD solution
> or is SolidWorks really considered a CAD solution (excuse my
> ignorance if it's not).

Well, "CAD" is a fairly generic term, there are a lot of different varieties of CAD programs and ones that are for a particular industry can be set up very differently from other ones.

SolidWorks is usually referred to as a "Mechanical CAD" program.

- Michael