Solidworks

What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2022 – Detailing Mode and Drawing Performance

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

Improvements in the drawing environment are always among the most popular enhancements with the SOLIDWORKS® user base, and SOLIDWORKS 2021 is no exception. Drawing Performance of Solidworks When working with large assembly drawings, view manipulation is vital to a good user experience. Over the years, SOLIDWORKS has steadily optimized users ability to manipulate views. The Enhanced Graphics Performance option, implemented in SOLIDWORKS 2020 to take advantage of high-end graphics cards by moving the graphics burden to the card, has been extended to the drawing environment in SOLIDWORKS 2021. For years, the SOLIDWORKS development team has increasingly raised the bar for performance. This is evident in pairing the Enhanced Graphics Performance option with modern OpenGL 4.5 graphics cards in SOLIDWORKS 2021. Check out this side-by-side comparison between the drawing performances of SOLIDWORKS 2020 and 2021. Detailing Mode of Solidworks With Detailing Mode, users can open massive drawings in seconds. But you can go one step further and edit existing annotations such as notes and dimensions with full access to all the annotation editing tools. In addition, Detailing Mode for Drawings has been enhanced to support the creation of Detail, Break, and Crop views. All of the break line styles, as well as the gap between the breaks, are available.   It is common to define Hole information when detailing drawings. Now Detailing Mode supports Hole Callouts. And foreshortened dimensions are applied when necessary. Existing dimensions now have full editing capability. All dimension properties are now available, too, including its Tolerance and Precision. Controls on every tab of the Dimension Property Manager are now available so that you can define the dimension’s arc condition to the center of the hole. VDA balloons are frequently used in the German automotive industry and are a requirement for many European customers. A new leader type is now available for balloons and notes to allow users to tag inspection points per VDA requirements. Position and rotation are easily manipulated, and these VDA balloons can be used directly by SOLIDWORKS Inspection.   When working with sketch geometry on a drawing, it is common to add relations just as you would in the sketch environment. Previously, these relations were in the property manager, but now in SOLIDWORKS 2021, the Sketch Relations pop-up toolbar is available, allowing you to apply sketch relations with minimal mouse travel.  

Solidworks

What’s New In SOLIDWORKS 2022: Working With Parts

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

SOLIDWORKS® 2022 Introduces many enhancements that add to its already robust capabilities when working with parts, including enhancements to sheet metal, 3MF support, and weldments. For a comprehensive list of enhancements, see What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2022.   Sheet Metal – Edge Flange Capabilities Now when working with sheet metal parts in SOLIDWORKS 2022, edge flanges can be created on curved edges originating from non-planar faces such as those in the bend area, as in the image below The preview shows how the edge flange will be created all the way around the part. Familiar flange customization tools are available to help define the length, angle, flange length dimensioning method, and flange position. This edge flange can also be flattened to prepare it for detailing or exporting to DXF for fabrication. The edge flange is great for structural integrity and is also useful for enclosure and guarding, such as in the cover shown in the image below. The edge flange on the far side needs to protect the components of this navigation control unit. With full editing capabilities, we can change the direction of the flange, as well as the angle, to wrap around the internal components to keep them safe. This new edge-flange capability along non-linear edges extends the robust sheet metal capabilities of SOLIDWORKS 2022 for many applications such as adding stiffing ribs and enclosures.   Enhanced 3MF Support Support for the export and import of 3MF files is even better in SOLIDWORKS 2022. Now color, textures, and transparency are supported on export, and this information is stored in the 3MF file to be used for manufacturing or other applications. For example, the LED light assembly in the image below contains various colors, applied textures, and transparency and needs to be 3D printed.   Additive manufacturing continues to rise in capability and popularity, and SOLIDWORKS continues to embrace these technologies. More views are now supported when opening 3MF files in SOLIDWORKS 2022. Per-facet and per-vertex coloring, as well as textures and transparency, can now be visualized when importing 3MF files as graphics bodies.   Weldments – Flush Miter It is common to use various sizes of weldment members when working in the weldment environment. For example, the horizontal tubes depicted in the welded frame below are 2 x 2 square tubes, and the vertical tubes are 3 x 2 rectangular tubes. The weldment Trim/Extend tool is used to trim the tubes to each other, with various options for the corner type. The two end butt trims dictate how one tube trims to the other, and the mitered trim bisects the angle between the two tubes, creating an equal angle miter trim. Since these tubes are of different profiles, the equal angle miter does not produce the desired result. There’s a new option for Miter trims in SOLIDWORKS 2022, the Flush Miter, which does just that. It trims the tubes so they meet flush. The other vertical members are mirrored, so they update as well.    

Lean Mean Production Machine

Make Your Team a Lean Mean Production Machine

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

Lean Mean Production Machine Today’s engineering and manufacturing companies want to maintain consistent and high-level business operations despite unforeseen disruptions. Key challenges are typically related to safety, skill gaps in the workforce, lack of automation, and disconnected company communication. Technology itself is not the entire answer. While technology is an enabling tool for development and production teams, which are the lifeblood of sustainable operations, finding other creative and flexible ways to collaborate and solve problems is critical to success. Regular conference calls do not adequately provide the formal structure required for productive discussion and problem-solving. Plus, they don’t help reinforce behaviors related to Lean principles and improvement. And, most employees are dealing with overwhelming amounts of data and complexity, which can kill productivity. How can teams perform at their very best when members are physically and psychologically disconnected? Built-in Lean Thinking Delmia’s Lean Team Player on the 3DEXPERIENCE® platform empowers your team to find new ways to innovate by bringing people together in a structure that guides discovery, analysis, and problem-solving. Teams need to engage, regardless of location, in interactive ways where technology guides and captures the discussion instead of merely enabling it. It is important to make information accessible to key stakeholders (who may not be engineers or designers) so everyone can visualize what is happening to solve problems and find new ways to innovate. Lean Team Player makes Lean principles a natural outcome of team engagement so improvement becomes second nature instead of a forced or stilted part of the process.   Impromptu Meetings Let’s face it: Many meetings happen spontaneously in the lunchroom, hallway, or other nontraditional spaces, regardless of the shift. Team members address current issues, such as What is going on right now? What problems surfaced during the previous shift? What about production status? in these “pop-up” meetings. These are often (and literally) stand-up meetings. Team members are quick and to the point, tackling issues that need to be solved immediately. Lean Team Player enables the same spontaneity to quickly build a meeting agenda, highlight issues and challenges, and capture actions and assignments so nothing falls through the cracks. Lean Team Player provides the simplest of meeting tools: a digital whiteboard, marker, and sticky notes. The objective is to provide an environment to facilitate natural interactions and allow everyone to engage productively. Work-availability metrics, real-time, shop-floor views, and more enable accurate decision-making. When everyone can see what’s going on in the moment, the team has more interpersonal interactions from a more accurate and shared understanding. Long-range project plans and milestones are not lost: Lean Team Player makes adhering to or beating milestones easier. Everything you share in a Lean Team Player meeting, whether it is a video, 3D model, Excel file, or other content, can be marked up and added to task lists.   Keep Things Moving Forward Effective problem solving is a learned behavior. Lean Team Player provides the structure and guidance to provide that learning opportunity to every team interaction. In fact, there isn’t any aspect of business that won’t benefit from teams engaging more effectively with Lean principles. Quickly diagnose problems every time you encounter challenges. Using Lean Team Player, your team can interactively brainstorm possible symptoms and issues to narrow down potential root causes. Then, Lean Team Player enables team members to seamlessly jump into rich 3D content to visualize the situation and more rapidly come to a conclusion and resolve the issue quickly. According to surveys, 85 percent of team members feel more engaged in meetings, and 92 percent of team members find that Lean Team Player has a positive impact on their daily tasks. And Lean Team Player can be leveraged in virtually any industry.  

Solidworks 2022

New Assembly Productivity Tools in SOLIDWORKS 2022

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

New Assembly Productivity Tools: Solidworks 2022 New productivity tools for assemblies in SOLIDWORKS® 2022 give you better control over your assembly designs. You will find more streamlined tools to help you assemble, pattern, and analyze your assemblies. This blog will highlight just a few of the assembly enhancements in this new release. For a complete list, see “What’s New in 2022.”   Find Your Mates When using Mates in SOLIDWORKS 2022, you can use a new streamlined Property Manager. Instead of expanding sections for each group type, now there are tabs (Standard, Advanced, Analysis, Mechanical) for each group, which make it easier to find the correct mate Also, when creating mates to Slots in SOLIDWORKS 2022, you can now choose the default type of position. This saves time by eliminating the need to regularly change the location type when adding new slot mates to your designs, which also saves you from accidentally choosing the wrong constraint.   Synchronize All Components SOLIDWORKS has always offered the flexibility to change the configuration of each component instance within a pattern. However, sometimes you may want all the components to reference the original instance. Configuring each component can be time-consuming. SOLIDWORKS 2022 contains a new option to synchronize the configurations of all component instances created by a pattern. This new option also helps you avoid inadvertently changing the configuration of any components from the quick menu drop-down and by locking this option within the Component Properties dialog. This ensures that as you make any configuration changes to a pattern’s seed components, those changes will be propagated appropriately.   Interference Review Interference Detection is a powerful tool to help you quickly find issues within your design. SOLIDWORKS 2022 now offers the option to save interferences in a spreadsheet. You can even capture a screenshot of each interference so they can be shared and reviewed by others on your team. This offers a new collaborative way to review interferences in a design and determine if they are intentional (due to fit conditions), or if you need to collaborate with others to solve the interferences.   Productivity Matters SOLIDWORKS 2022 offers these and other new tools to help you design more efficiently by streamlining and adding value to your common workflows. See the entire Assembly Productivity Tools video at https://www.solidworks.com/media/solidworks-2021-assembly-productivity-tools

Solidworks Workflow

New Seamless SOLIDWORKS Workflow with Proven Advanced Simulation (Abaqus) and Faster Collaboration

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

When I was a teenager in the late 80s, I was interested in photography (these days referred to as old-school photography). I bought my first camera, a second-hand Minolta SRT, all manual, without electronics and automation. It was a high-quality product. Taking a good photo was an art, as it took time and skill to master manually focusing the subject, the lighting, and the shutter speed. There was also a direct cost for each photo, as I had to buy film and pay to have the photos developed (and for several copies, if I wanted to share them). Today most people have a smartphone. They take photos just by touching a screen with the tip of a finger and see the amazing results instantaneously, and with just another touch, share them with friends and family. In the 80s, photography using a manual camera was an art. For some mechanical engineers, performing real simulation techniques for simulating structure behavior, such as finite element analysis (FEA), is also an art. It takes time and skill to obtain meaningful results, which are traditionally written up in a long report and shared via email or a shared drive.   Solidworks Workflow: Solidworks Simulation for All However, times have changed, and as part of its simulation democratization journey, SOLIDWORKS® now offers easy-to-access, easy-to-use, and easy-to-share advanced simulation solutions so anyone can solve every problem with the market leader SIMULIA technology (for structural simulation, this is the proven Abaqus technology). In addition, the 3DEXPERIENCE WORKS simulation portfolio offers not only Structure, but also Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Plastic Injection, and Simulation Review.   Simulation sub-domains in the 3DEXPERIENCE WORKSFLOW portfolio Now that you understand the power of the simulation you can access, you may wonder just how easy it is. The idea is simple. From your favorite CAD SOLIDWORKS, in one click you can access the SIMULIA technology, solve (locally or on the cloud), and get results, and with another click, share the results with colleagues.   How does it work? Let’s take, for example, the industrial spreader assembly drop test. A new SOLIDWORKS Workflow accesses 3DEXPERIENCE® advanced simulation and collaborative apps 1. In SOLIDWORKS, open your CAD model from a traditional file (if you are not yet on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform) and save it in 3DEXPERIENCE using the task pane. 2. In SOLIDWORKS Workflow, open your CAD model from a traditional file (if you are not yet on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform) and save it in 3DEXPERIENCE using the task pane. 3. Your model opens automatically in the desired simulation app. 4. Set up your simulation: Create a drop test scenario, mesh the geometry, and apply the material, boundary conditions, and loads. 5. If you have only a CAD model, an interactive assistant guides you through the steps of setting up your simulation. All the functionalities you need for a given simulation are available, depending on which role you selected. If you have SOLIDWORKS CAD with simulation studies, simulation set-up automatically transfers, which will save you set-up time in 3DEXPERIENCE. Run the simulation locally or in the cloud. Review the results and access all the post-processing tools you need to analyze the results in depth. 6. In SOLIDWORKS, make a design change (e.g., change a fillet dimension to reduce the possibility of failure) and save the model. You can create a new revision, or overwrite the existing model. 7. Update the simulation in one click, re-run the simulation, and compare the results between the two designs. Easily share the simulation with your boss using a 3D dashboard so he/she can review the same results in a lightweight app.   Everything You Need at Your Fingertips These days everybody is a photographer, and everybody shares high-quality pictures every day. All designers and engineers deserve easy access to advanced simulation and collaboration to boost innovation, accelerate product development, improve product quality, and reduce product validation costs. If you are not using simulation, chances are your competitor is, and guess what: you might realize it too late. Think about it. You can access all the simulation technology you need today from your favorite CAD: SOLIDWORKS Workflow.    

3DEXPERIENCE World

3DEXPERIENCE World 2022 SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List: Now Open for Submissions

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

It’s that time of year again! The drive for ideas in the annual 3DEXPERIENCE World 2022 SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List is happening right now! Every year SOLIDWORKS users have the ability to participate in sharing their best enhancement ideas for SOLIDWORKS. At the end of the idea submission phase, the SOLIDWORKS user base can then vote for their favorite ideas. The timing of the Top Ten list coincides with the 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 conference. This year the conference will be a virtual event taking place from February 8-12, 2021. It doesn’t matter if you’ve only been using SOLIDWORKS products for a year or twenty years. Your ideas will be read by other SOLIDWORKS users and the Product Definition team at SOLIDWORKS!  When it comes time.  Also, there’s a great track record for the implementation of Top Ten ideas!   A platform for SOLIDWORKS Top Ten As with last year, the platform upon which the Top Ten List resides is 3DSwym. So, if you are new or you didn’t submit an idea last year, please see the main SOLIDWORKS Forum article and video. There’s information on how to access the Top Ten. Once you have access to the Top Ten forum, check out the video at the top called “Starting Here: Informational Video!” Important Dates Idea Submission Open: November 10th, 2020 through January 4th, 2021 Voting Open: January 4th through February 1st, 2021 3DEXPERIENCE WORLD: February 8-12, 2021 Do you have no ideas? Your input is still important! This isn’t just for people who want to submit an idea. This is for all current SOLIDWORKS users to see what’s on everyone else’s minds. Maybe you don’t have an idea yourself, but you find that someone else’s idea might disrupt your own workflows. Your thoughts about proposed changes to the software are very important!  Likewise, perhaps you see a great idea that needs a bit more polishing to better suit your own needs. Your input about that is also very important! There are already some great ideas to check out: Make Face Curves Editable BOM to Filter Visible Components Left-Hand Cosmetic Threads In a “Multiple Page Drawing” scenario, Add a Property Tab to Change Draw Format Have fun reading everyone else’s ideas and hopefully submitting your own as well! If you have any more questions in regards to how you can participate, watch this informative video on exactly what to do. Click on the banner below to register for free for the event.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize

What’s New in SOLIDWORKS Visualize 2022

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

SOLIDWORKS Visualize 2022 SOLIDWORKS Visualize continues to release enhancements that elevate its useability, performance, and output quality—and Visualize 2022 is no exception. Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the top enhancements. Be sure to check out the complete list of Visualize enhancements: What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2022. SOLIDWORKS CAD Configuration Support Visualize 2022 provides tighter integration with SOLIDWORKS CAD by offering full support for part and assembly configurations. If you are eager to test this out, make sure to enable the Add Display Data Mark option to make configurations available after the import process. Managing what configurations are loaded into the Visualize project through this option is a nice way to keep performance optimal during import. The Add Display Data Mark option allows you to move between configurations after the model has been imported into Visualize, which opens up tons of possibilities and streamlines workflows. Previously, this was managed with multiple projects, or you had to import the part/assembly multiple times into the same project. One thing to keep in mind: You now have two sets of configurations when the model is imported. The Visualize configurations still manage the appearances, scenes, and so forth, while the Model configurations give access to the different geometry brought in from the import. How do they work together? Let’s look at an example. Figure 1 shows the CAD model’s Default configuration with a regal red appearance applied at the REGAL RED Base Configuration. Figure 2 shows that once the model is switched to the Bracket and Housing configuration, the regal red no longer appears since it is tied only to the Default assembly configuration.   Figure 1 – REGAL RED Configuration Figure 2 – Bracket and Housing Configuration Part and Appearance Selection Visualize 2022 now offers a faster, more direct method to move from part to appearance selection modes. While active in PART selection mode—which for most of us using Visualize 2022 will be our go-to selection mode—a single click will select the part, and a double click will grab the part’s appearance (See Figure 3). This subtle but powerful enhancement is sure to speed up your workflows when setting up static image and animation rendering projects. Figure 3 – Select and Grab Part Appearance Capped Cutting Planes Capped cutting planes (or section views) are a great way to show internal designs and complexity in your part and assembly renderings. With Visualize 2022, section cut planes have a few enhancements that make them even more powerful than before by introducing capped sections and color options. These are found within the options after the capped section has been created (See Figure 4). Figure 4 – Capped Cutting Planes Pro Tip: If you run into surfaces that appear to be bleeding through each other, try applying a small amount of scale to the parts that share coincident faces. This is a quick fix to let Visualize know which surface is on top/bottom of each other and appropriately rendered. Toon Filter Effect Rendering is synonymous with photorealism but is not always needed for product communication, especially early in the design process. Visualize 2022 offers a new Toon camera filter available in Visualize professional. With an existing camera selected or a new camera created, the Enable Toon Option is available on the Filters tab. There are a few preset options to play around with, but the Toon Filter offers full customization of the line colors and shading styles. This MIGHT be one of the COOLEST enhancements for 2022. Figure 5 – Toon Filter Option PRO TIPS: Use the Toon Shaded “shaded” style and Toon Detail options for some great conceptual renderings! Another tip is to create duplicates of cameras and enable this option. When queueing all cameras, a standard renders along with a toon render will be added to the Visualize queue. Displacement Maps Previous versions of SOLIDWORKS Visualize allowed you to apply displacement maps, which give 3D textures to CAD models. These surfaces are often skipped in the modeling process because they can add unnecessary complexity such as tread plated steel, knurling operations, and 3D printed textures, to name a few. Displacement maps are based on greyscale images to tell the software how much to push/pull the surface and where; it’s similar to how a topology map (Figure 6) illustrates elevation contours on a 2D map. New in Visualize 2021 is the ability to control the density of how these displacement maps (Figure 7) are calculated, essentially giving the user the ability to change the density of the topology lines in our map analogy. Figure 6 – Topology Map Figure 7 – Displacement Map Want to learn more about What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2022? Make sure to check out the complete video playlist on the SOLIDWORKS YouTube channel, and don’t forget to comment on the Visualize What’s New Video. We’d love to hear about YOUR favorite enhancement in this year’s release.  

SOLIDWORKS Simulation

SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2022: Enhanced Contact for Faster, More Stable and Accurate Results

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2022 is the biggest release we have seen in many years! We remain focused on making Simulation easier and faster for SOLIDWORKS users to apply to their designs. With the enhanced 2022 Simulation features, you can design better products faster than ever before. Better Performance: Faster Contact Simulation SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2022 calculates contact interactions significantly faster than previous versions. Solution time is improved by using parallel multicore computing, better CPU usage, faster stiffness calculation, and robust data communication for contact pairs. Designers will notice considerable benefits in models with numerous contact interactions. Benchmark data performed by our developers and by reseller Computer Aided Technology (CATI) show performance improvements ranging from 25% to 67%. Fig 1. A simulation model with numerous contact elements Easier Simulation: Contact Stabilization Many CAD models have less than perfect geometries, such as non-touching surfaces or clearance between bodies. These design elements make it more difficult for the solver to get started, which in turn prolongs solving time. SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2022 Contact Stabilization enhancement resolves this issue. Contact Stabilization works by adding a small numerical stiffness value to qualified areas before they come into contact. With contact stabilization, the solver can resolve instability issues encountered at the start of the solution before contact is initiated, and designers can more easily obtain Simulation results. You may be wondering: How do I take advantage of this enhancement? That is the best part of this story! The software automatically applies contact stabilization when your geometries have an initial clearance. This new feature is part of our Robust Default initiative, which uses Default Settings where the software fills out most settings, and the users only need to change custom fields. Fig 2. Contact model with initial clearance Improved Accuracy: Better convergence and more realistic contact representation between curved surfaces When meshing components, it is difficult to capture the exact gap distance between curved surfaces, especially when a coarse mesh and/or draft elements are being used. With SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2022, the software automatically calculates the geometry correction terms, which improve the representation of curved surfaces of cylindrical, spherical, and conical geometries. These terms are then used to improve the accuracy of the simulation results for curved surfaces. This capability has been implemented through collaboration with our sister brand SIMULIA which specializes in simulation. Fig 3. Contact interaction between curves surfaces New Feature: Improve Mesh Quality with a New Set of Mesh Diagnostic Tools A high-quality mesh is a key to a good simulation for result accuracy, convergence, and calculation speed. SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2022 introduces a brand-new set of diagnostic tools that enable you to examine the quality of a mesh by identifying and isolating poor quality elements and then prompting you to fix them. The Mesh Quality Diagnostics Tool can be used to display Aspect Ratio, Jacobian Ratio, etc. You can then use the Mesh Helper to get assistance refining the mesh in key areas and resolve mesh quality before proceeding to solve your analysis. Fig 4. Poor quality elements identified by the new Mesh Diagnostics Tools New Mesh Default: No Enforced Common Nodes In 2022, we made No Enforced Common Nodesthe default to make it easier and faster to mesh large and complex assemblies. In SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2022, we continue to make improvements in this area by increasing the accuracy of results in Simulation scenarios where gaps or small interferences exist due to the meshing process. A typical example is when using shell elements, the gap is due to the shell thickness. Fig 5. No Enforced Common Nodes solid mesh SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2022 enhancements demonstrate real-world user benefits, making it easier and faster than ever for SOLIDWORKS users to get accurate simulation results. We continue to build as much automation into the software as possible, so it does more of the simulation work for you. In turn, you can minimize design time and maximize speed to market. To get more information or schedule a demo of SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2022  

Design Platform

Building the Design Platform of the Future

Business, SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

Building the Design Platform As most of you are probably aware, we have introduced a new cloud-based, design-to-manufacturing portfolio called 3DEXPERIENCE WORKS. We know this makes some of you a little uneasy, as you see it as a replacement for your beloved SOLIDWORKS. I am here to tell you that is simply not true. By connecting SOLIDWORKS to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, our users will have the ability to embrace tools that were beyond their reach before. First, however, let’s discuss the reasons behind the move to the cloud. Is Moore’s Law dead? The CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, famously declared the death of Moore’s Law at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Moore’s Law is the long-held notion that the processing power of computers increases exponentially every couple of years. However, it might have reached its limit. I’m not here to fuel the debate on this issue, but one thing is undoubtedly true: computer speed is not increasing at the rate it once did, while the need for more computational power to process AI-based algorithms or more complex simulation is increasing faster than ever. The April 1965 Electronics Magazine in which Moore’s article appeared. Photo credit: Wikimedia At the same time, we can expect that bandwidth and connectivity will only increase and improve in the future. As millions of people across the world are now learning and working from home due to the coronavirus, internet networks have been put to the test. They have, for the most part, persevered as have the legions of workers suddenly now working remotely. In order to keep pace with delivering the advanced engineering capabilities our users will need to compete in today’s challenging markets as well as those of the future, our R&D team realized we needed to make the transition to a cloud-based product development environment. We have done just this with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, and the solutions tailored specifically to our SOLIDWORKS users with the 3DEXPERIENCE WORKS portfolio. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages of a platform-based approach to product development. Get better insights from your data Every product development company’s most important asset is its data. A platform approach to product development enables that data to be safely shared and collaborated on in real-time with key stakeholders, both inside and outside of your company. With intuitive access to real-time data, you can manage its complexity and make better-informed decisions faster which leads to greater profitability. 3DEXPERIENCE WORKS offers roles specialized in market and business intelligence that are key to operational excellence and optimal business performance. Improved collaboration Most of us know that better collaboration leads to higher levels of innovation, however, working together without the proper tools in place has always been a challenge. With 3DEXPERIENCE WORKS, collaboration tools are intuitive and everyone is working in the same system, facilitating the exchange of ideas, improving coordination, assuring traceability and accountability, and fostering more innovation. One single source of truth A single, online, always available “source of truth” makes companies more agile, more flexible, and resilient to disruptions like we are seeing today. By having one single source of truth, you can quickly get to the root cause of problems and more rapidly resolve them, increasing quality and ultimately, customer satisfaction. Digital continuity Product development using the 3DEXPERIENCE WORKS solutions assures digital continuity, meaning companies can automate updates of both software and data so everyone is on the same release and on the same page as far as product status because everyone is always working on real-time data. Time-consuming updates are now a thing of the past. Get connected By connecting SOLIDWORKS to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, you can create seamless product development workflows and easily extend them with new tools as your business needs evolve. This connected design-to-manufacturing ecosystem in the cloud enables teams to collaborate on real-time data anywhere and at any time on any Internet-enabled device. Less IT cost and burden Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of working in a cloud-based product development environment, such as the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, is that the cost of your IT infrastructure is significantly lowered. No longer do you need powerful, expensive workstations and servers. You also have the ability to scale up—or down—as needed and add new tools, such as advanced simulation, that you never dreamt possible. Do more with your IP By moving your SOLIDWORKS data to the cloud, you can still use the SOLIDWORKS you know and love but also reap the benefits of built-in data management that enable you to do more with your data. Design your way Only you know what’s best for your company so SOLIDWORKS provides design and development tools on the desktop; pure cloud-based tools, such as 3D Creator; or a hybrid approach that enables you to use SOLIDWORKS on the desktop and then connect it to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform so you can collaborate with any of your key stakeholders anywhere and on any device.

SOLIDWORKS

Top Ten SOLIDWORKS Design-to-Manufacturing Enhancements

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

Dassault Systèmes has launched SOLIDWORKS® 2022,the latest release of its portfolio of 3D design and manufacturing applications. SOLIDWORKS 2022 includes performance enhancements and expanded functionalities that improve workflows for design, documentation, data management, validation, and manufacturing. Users can also expand their capabilities by connecting to the 3DEXPERIENCE® WORKS portfolio to tackle more challenges, from design to manufacturing, and enable cloud-based computing and collaboration. Let’s take a quick look at some of the enhancements you’ll see in SOLIDWORKS 2022. And please remember, these are just a few of the hundreds of new enhancements in SOLIDWORKS 2022. Drawing Detailing Mode Improvements Introduced in SOLIDWORKS 2020, Detailing Mode for Drawings has been enhanced to support for the creation of Detail, Break, and Crop views. In addition, hole callouts are now supported in Detailing Mode. Content and characteristics for existing notes can now be modified, and existing dimensions can be fully edited, including tolerance values and arrow type. Assembly Modeling Enhancements Access and work on your assemblies more efficiently with SOLIDWORKS 2022. Now you can dynamically load Lightweight Components and receive warnings about Circular References. Combine these time-saving enhancements with new graphics improvements that take better advantage of your GPU, and you will be spending more time designing and less time waiting. Also, there’s great new functionality that lets do more with defeatured models.   When you use the Silhouette method for defeaturing, you can create a configuration from the defeatured model. This allows you to quickly toggle between your fully detailed and defeatured designs at any time. User Experience Improvements SOLIDWORKS has long been known for its intuitive and customizable user interface. Once again, we listened to what you had to say about improvements you’d like to see, and SOLIDWORKS 2022 comes packed with enhancements that improve your design experience. An improved color picker can reference external applications, such as a web browser, to allow you to select a color for appearances. Simply click the eye dropper on the desired color and you’re done. When it comes to customization of you design environment, a command search capability within the Customize dialog makes it much easier to customize toolbars by helping locate the command you are looking for faster. You can now use a system option to show translated features names in the FeatureManager design tree such as cut, boss and fillet.  A new collapsible Command Manager gives you more space to work, as well as semi-transparent dimensions that make it easy to select entities on dimension creation. And, you can use Redo for more than 60 features and commands in parts. Previously, Redo was only available in sketches. Improved Electrical Design Enjoy greater flexibility for electrical design. You can use splines and arcs to define the routing path in 3D. If you use splines in the sketch to define the routing path, it is modeled by splines. There are now more options to manage wires in the project. You can draw lines without wires; remove the wire when you disconnect it from a symbol; and merge the wires when you delete a connected symbol. Plus, you can now use multiple wires or cables to pass through and arrange through clips. Also, Terminal Types Manager can now handle terminals and interconnections and bring information on end terminations from SOLIDWORKS Electrical schematics into 3D for complete documentation. Improved Plastics Simulation SOLIDWORKS Plastics 2022 enables you to define domain-based material definitions. You can also use the new Sketch-based baffle and bubblers. Fully define your plastic injection studies without the need to create a mesh, significantly reducing the amount of time to create, modify, and share the information. It is easier to streamline the plastics simulation workflow with the redesigned Plastics Manager tree. Additionally, you can set up over-molding injection studies and leverage hundreds of newly added materials. SOLIDWORKS Inspection SOLIDWORKS Inspection enables you to leverage existing 3D CAD files to create industry-standard inspection reports. SOLIDWORKS Inspection add-in enhancements include specifying a file location for project templates and report templates. This ensures that, in multiuser environments, users have the correct templates, which are critical for quality control. You can also rotate VDA balloons while keeping the ballooning number vertical. Plus, you can adjust the font size for VDA balloons. For SOLIDWORKS Standalone enhancements, you can now open SOLIDWORKS parts with 3D annotations to create inspection documents. You can also view SOLIDWORKS parts with 3D annotations; use 3D CAD data to create First Article Inspection (FAI) reports quickly; and read and extract 3D annotations to build reports using Smart Extract. SOLIDWORKS Inspection is a separately purchased product that you can use with SOLIDWORKS Standard, Professional, or Premium, or as a completely standalone application. Enhanced 3D Annotation Tools We are increasing productivity through model-based definition (MBD) improvements. SOLIDWORKS MBD 2022 extends the ability to organize product and manufacturing data (PMI) by adding the ability to add datum target symbols to your DimXpert dimension scheme. You can apply DimXpert location dimensions to datum target points and edit the dimensions to control the location of the datum targets. Also, sheet metal bend tables are now publishable as 3D PDFs, which have improved display quality. SOLIDWORKS MBD is a separately purchased product that you can use with SOLIDWORKS Standard, Professional, and Premium. More Options for SOLIDWORKS CAM SOLIDWORKS CAM 2022 provides more automation with expanded stock options, enhanced drill operations, and control over where you are managing posts. Changes are now controlled through the rebuild manager, ensuring all necessary information stays current with design changes. Cylindrical stock now has support for milling operations, and drill peck amounts are now specified based on the diameter of drill used. Streamlined Data Management SOLIDWORKS PDM 2022 lets you explore and document references with the (highly requested) Treehouse View for Contains and Where Used. Workflow Icons build-in visual recognition that increases awareness of your processes across the entire team. Bill of Materials accounts for more CAD workflows, and everyday PDM operations are faster. We think you will appreciate the more consistent Windows Explorer integration and better thumbnail support. PDM now has greater flexibility in controlling custom column sets. Support for BOM settings reduces the risk of mistakes and improves efficiency when working with BOMs. And icon…