SOLIDWORKS User Group Network

April 5, 2020 by Brian Reel

SOLIDWORKS User Group Network: Virtual Meetings With all that is changing in our world like social distancing and most employees working from home or remote locations, SOLIDWORKS Community User Advocacy Group is hosting several virtual meetings for customers. These range from topics on certification tips to advanced topics on Simulation and Flow analysis. Some of the sessions repeat so you can hopefully attend the virtual sessions that fits your schedule. The next event is on April 7th and they’ll run […]

Introducing innovate3D

March 27, 2020 by Blake Boe

We’re sure many of you were excited to attend AMUG, Rapid, and various other industry trade shows this spring, and so were we. That is why starting on March 31st we’re presenting a web series called innovate3D: bring your ideas to life. We will be making all of our trade show presentations and demos, as well as some of our more popular 3DEXPERIENCE World presentations, available to you for free through this virtual series. You won’t even have to […]

What’s (hopefully) New in SOLIDWORKS 2021 & Top 10 Enhancements Voting Results

March 4, 2020 by Randy Simmons

Anyone who has attended SOLIDWORKS World in the past knows that one of the most exciting times for a SOLIDWORKS user is when they preview what will be coming in the next release of the software as well as announcing the results of the Top 10 Enhancements voting. This year at 3DExperience World 2020 in Nashville, TN they shared what’s new in 2021 a little differently. Rather than a main stage presentation, they did it in small “pop ups” where they […]

SOLIDWORKS 2020 What’s New – Best New Features

November 7, 2019 by Kris Dubuque

The new release of SOLIDWORKS 2020 is now available and the Computer Aided Technology Tech Team is excited for this release and all its new features. At the beginning of September, we started documenting the best new features of SOLIDWORKS 2020 from Part, Assembly, and Drawing tools to the new features in the SOLIDWORKS family of tools like Simulation, EPDM, SOLIDWORKS Electrical, and SOLIDWORKS CAM. We have been sharing them with you and the SOLIDWORKS community thru the CATI Blog. We have since published over 80 different […]

SOLIDWORKS 2020 What’s New – Specifying the Thicken Direction

November 6, 2019 by Randy Simmons

This new enhancement in SOLIDWORKS 2020 is super straightforward. Thicken (for a surface) and Thicken-Cut features can now be thickened in a direction other than normal to face. All of the following can be used to specify the direction: Sketched Line Pair of vertices Sketched Points Cylindrical Faces Reference Planes Conical Faces Reference Axis Points in Reference Geometry Linear Model Edges Planar Faces I hope this part of the What’s New series gives you a better understanding of the new […]

SOLIDWORKS 2020 What’s New – Specifying the Thicken Direction

November 6, 2019 by Randy Simmons

This new enhancement in SOLIDWORKS 2020 is super straightforward. Thicken (for a surface) and Thicken-Cut features can now be thickened in a direction other than normal to face. All of the following can be used to specify the direction: Sketched Line Pair of vertices Sketched Points Cylindrical Faces Reference Planes Conical Faces Reference Axis Points in Reference Geometry Linear Model Edges Planar Faces I hope this part of the What’s New series gives you a better understanding of the new […]

SOLIDWORKS 2020 What’s New – Electrical Leader Lines

November 6, 2019 by Corey Kubichka

Text and balloons with leader lines are a common method to convey design notes. SOLIDWORKS Schematic 2020 introduces leader lines for text and balloons. Creating a balloon layout or annotating a layout to better call out information has been something users have been looking for quite some time! Now you can create leader lines with blocks and notes in 2D panel layouts and harness drawings. Users can add in these annotations with dedicated commands and a leader style manager. You […]

SOLIDWORKS 2020 What’s New – Creating Curved Beams and Merging Tangent Members in Weldments

November 4, 2019 by Judy Marlo

In SOLIDWORKS Weldments, users have the ability to support curved members. Now, in SOLIDWORKS 2020, users can create curved beams from primary and secondary members in a structure system. Curved members behave the same way as linear members where you can add secondary members between them. If you select a 3D curve or spline as a reference, the member can only pierce through the center of the profile. Also, in some scenarios, you cannot sweep members with 2d or 3D […]

SOLIDWORKS 2020 What’s New – Importing 2D DXF or DWG Files as Reference Sketches

November 4, 2019 by Brandon Nelms

Sketch Blocks are great for reference sketches. Especially when you’re importing a dxf or dwg file. That file doesn’t have dimensions or design intent and you really don’t want to change them anyway. So, a lot of users use blocks to lock down all those under-defined sketch entities and not worry about accidentally changing them with a quick draw double click on a sketch. But you know how painful it is to make sketch blocks? You have to edit the […]

SOLIDWORKS 2020 What’s New – Reimport Electrical Data for Wires, Cables, and Harnesses

November 2, 2019 by Brandon Brooks

Previously, in SOLIDWORKS Electrical / SOLIDWORKS Electrical 3D, if you wanted to remove a wire from a route you would need to clear the unwanted wire, cable, or harness from your Schematic and delete the route to be able to successfully remove the wire from the 3D model. Now in 2020 we have the capability to remove a wire or core from electrical routes, cables or harnesses in SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic, then re-import that model, and the software removes the […]