Best of What’s New in SolidWorks 2013

Let’s start with the enhancements that SolidWorks users appreciated or liked most during the SolidWorks Innovation Day. Out of 200+ enhancements in SolidWorks 2013, presenters at Innovation day tried to cover maximum within the given time slot during event. In this post let’s cover what influenced users most, those features which have an impacts on the day to day working of design engineers. Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp not only makes enhancements in their MCAD program but also add new tools to their data management, simulation software every year.  

 View Selector: Previous versions of SolidWorks already have a quick access to commonly used front, side and isometric views. This feature would add up to make users life much easier. Hitting spacebar the orientation dialog comes up, it has ‘View Selector’ option that switches the model into a wireframe cube from which standard views can be selected with various angles. The View Selector option can be turned ON/OFF by hitting button or using Ctrl+spacebar.

Center of Mass: This new feature has ability to include CG in mass properties calculations. User can see a point on the part, can add reference points. Any change in the part reflects by change in CG location accordingly. It is easy to update it at drawing and assembly level.

Quick Filter: This is a big time saver for users; it quickly filter the type of file required like part, assembly, drawing or combination. It also provides quick access to top-level assemblies.

SolidWorks Costing: This tool now calculates the cost required to manufacture a turned part.

Assembly:

Breaking All External References:  It was very tedious job while working with previous releases. Now there is no need for user to go through each part killing references. The feature allows user to break all external references in an entire assembly hierarchy or subassembly at once.

Any Component as Envelope: Sometimes designers add some part of assembly for the sake of reference. But, it sometimes misleads to error in calculation of center of mass also it might start an argument between client and vendor for not delivering all the items included in drawing. In SW 2013 user can now set any part or assembly in an envelope. This is great way to exclude required components. Components are automatically excluded from BOM in drawing. New options let you adjust envelope visibility and load envelopes as lightweight or read-only.   

Intersect: When working with complex models one can use this command to add and subtract materials at the same time by intersecting solids, surfaces, and/or planes. It performs multiple solid geometry interactions simultaneously.   

 Administration:

SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard: This enhancement is for CAD managers, they can now directly monitor the performance, hardware/machine configuration of SolidWorks users at a glance. It can be accessed from anywhere through the SolidWorks Customer Portal. 

Parts and Features:

Varying Dimension Patterns: This tool allows users to vary dimension and locations while creating pattern. This speedy tool automatically varies spacing, length and width of the part features. Also, allows user to modify individual instances as they wish.

Sketching:

Conic Curves: Most MCAD programs use spline curves from surface modeling to draw irregular shapes. In SolidWorks 2013, it let user draw elliptical, parabolic or hyperbolic curves using Conic sketcher, that are driven by end points and rho value.

Drawings and Detailing:

Section Views:  The new options in SW 2013 allow users to create production drawing faster with more consistent section views, aligned section views, and half section views on a drawing.  Supports ASME, ISO, and other standards.  

Simulation:

Submodeling: This feature allows user to improve the results at critical areas without having to rerun the analysis for the whole model. Refining the mesh for a selected portion of the model and rerunning the analysis for specific areas of large and complex models saves computation time.

Overall 2013 is a solid release. Stay tuned for more on SolidWorks 2013 articles!