SolidWorks 2010 SolidWorks 2012 - Feature Reviews

SolidWorks 2012 - Feature Reviews

This year's is the 20th release of SolidWorks. SolidWorks 2012 brings over 200 enhancements to the table, 90% of which have been chosen by you – the design community.

We've decided to cover the new release by detailing some of the features that we’re most excited about and those that we think will bring the most value to designers. 

Contents

1. Design Costing
2. Feature Freeze
3. User Interface
4. Large Design Review
5. Command Search
6. Ambient Occlusion

 

#1 Design Costing

Ever since its introduction in 1995, SolidWorks has reduced the time required to create drawings. Markets have progressed since then, and increased competition has put pressure on designers to reduce costs. In SolidWorks 2012, it’s been recognised that designers simply don’t have enough time to obtain quotes andinput data into spreadsheets to estimate the costs of parts.

The costing tool in SolidWorks 2012 can estimate costs for sheetmetal and machined components in real-time according to editable templates. It works by looking at each part-feature and assigning them to specific manufacturing operations. For sheetmetal this might be cuts, bends or custom tools and operations. Baselines can be set, enabling you to carry out “what if” scenarios and to carry out multivariate analysis as you make alterations – type of material and thickness, for example. All of this data is captured in a detailed cost report, comparing various concepts to a baseline, allowing you to easily compare costs in a design review.

When you view the entire assembly you can see the total cost of components and the whole design. It also allows you to see which components carry the bulk of the product’s cost, enabling you to take appropriate action to reduce it.

We’re convinced that this new tool will save our customers time and help them to stay within budget – that’s why Design Costing is top of our list.

 

#2 Feature Freeze

In this, the second of our feature reviews, we’ll be looking at Feature Freeze – a brand new tool in SolidWorks 2012 that makes creating complex designs a quicker process.

Feature Freeze allows you to freeze specific features to exclude them from rebuilds of the model as you add to your design. It was introduced to reduce the long rebuild times experienced by users designing complex models and can also be used to safeguard against unintended changes to a model.

Quite simply, this feature promises to dramatically speed up the design of complex models where rebuilding of specific features is not desired. Many of our customers use SolidWorks to design extremely complicated products – that’s why we’re so excited about this particular enhancement.

How it works:
The ‘freeze bar’ controls the point at which a part’s FeatureManager design tree rebuilds. Any features above the freeze bar are frozen – they then cannot be edited and are therefore excluded from any succeeding rebuilds.

 

#3 User Interface

SolidWorks 2012 brings with it an enhanced UI. New ways to view and interact with your design aim to streamline your work process and simplify design functions to make the design process more efficient and enjoyable. In this feature review we’ll cover some of the subtle changes and additions that make SolidWorks even more intuitive in its 20th release.

Frequently accessed files
Users of Chrome, Google’s own web browser, will be aware of the interface presented to them upon opening a new tab – a gallery of the sites you visit most. When you open SolidWorks 2012, a similar window is presented to you of recently accessed documents that can be pinned in place, making access to them later on much easier.

Ctrl+A to select all
A simple, yet highly requested UI enhancement that has made it into SolidWorks 2012 is Ctrl+A. A worldwide hotkey to select all in Microsoft applications, it now does the same in SolidWorks.

Quick access to the unit switcher
In SolidWorks 2012 you will be able to change the units of measurement much easier than you could in previous releases. Before, you would have to navigate to a section of the options menu to choose which units to use – be it millimetres, centimetres, or inches; now, it is accessible from the main window.

A brand new Command Search tool saves you the trouble of navigating to find a command – simply type ‘s’, and your cursor will jump to the new search bar. Type the name of the command and hit enter and you’ll have selected the chosen command. A simple addition that we feel will speed up design processes.

Multiple screen support
SolidWorks now fully supports multiple screens. Two buttons have been added to the window next to the minimise, maximise and close buttons. These move the window to the lefthand screen or the righthand screen. If you are running just one monitor, these buttons will tile the windows à la Windows 7. This will no doubt be a welcome addition for all those running dual monitor setups.

 

#4 Large Design Review

SolidWorks is used by many companies to design massive assemblies. When it comes to review these assemblies, it can take long periods of time to open them without a very high-end workstation. In SolidWorks 2012, a new feature (aptly named Large Design Review) lets you open large designs in just a few seconds.

In Large Design Review you can take a fully interactive view of your design, explore it, analyse it, and then open it fully to make any changes. It’s perfect for fast opening and reviewing with peers – you can create walkthroughs, take snapshots to save specific views and open any assembly component for editing or closer review.

Large Design Review opens automatically when opening any SolidWorks model with more than 5,000 parts.

#5 Command Search

Now, we all know that SolidWorks is easy to learn as well as extremely powerful – that’s why so many education authorities use it ahead of our competition – but in an effort to speed up and streamline workflows, SolidWorks have made it even easier to get started with SolidWorks 2012.

Command Search is a new feature in SolidWorks 2012 that helps you to get a hold of that command that you know the name of, but just can’t remember its location. The search bar already does a good job of giving you access to SolidWorks Help, the Community Forum, the Knowledge Base and Files and Models search. In SolidWorks 2012 you can now search for Commands here too – so for any command that’s just out of reach, select the search bar and start typing.

A bonus for power users
Command Search is also set to prove a fantastic productivity boost for power users too. Type ’s’, then carry on typing the name of your command tool and press enter to select a command. You can make this even quicker with a bit of customisation – add aliases for some of your most frequently used commands and before long you’ll have a selection of hotkeys to call upon.

#6 Ambient Occlusion

A handy little feature has made it into SolidWorks 2012 to make your models look more realistic when using RealView Graphics.

Ambient occlusion is a global lighting method that when enabled, makes models look more realistic by controlling ambient light attenuation by adding occluded areas. In essence, objects look as they would in natural light settings, or on an overcast day.

With it enabled, ambient occlusion allows shadows to appear in and around objects, as they would in the real world. It also adds texture and with metallic objects especially, makes them instantly look realistic without the need to create a render. Check out the results below…