Is Extended Reality (XR) technology compatible with Engineering Software?

There are a number of Engineering focused software tools that have started to support Extended Reality (XR).  Some of these tools are fully immersive (VR) while others allow for blended (AR) experiences.  All of the software will have some hardware requirement before the user can experience XR.

Software Title Compatible Hardware
Siemens NX HTC Vive, WinMR
Siemens STAR-CCM VR HTC Vive
Autodesk VRED Many
Autodesk 3ds max Interactive Many
SolidWorks eDrawings HTC Vive
PTC Creo (via Thingmark) (AR) Vuforia View (iOS/Android)
Unreal Engine (via DataSmith) Many

While many of these software titles can display their native file formats in XR, nearly all can import other popular 3D formats. Although Unreal Engine is a game development platform, it offers the DataSmith import tool capable of reading a variety of CAD file formats. There's no need to worry if your models were created in another tool but sometimes imported data might need some cleaning up.