SOLIDWORKS 2015 - Sneak Peek

As usual I've been participating in the SOLIDWORKS Beta program this year and found lots of great new features and am pleased to find many I remember requesting in the past. In fact 90% of the new functions this year are from customer enhancement requests.

We are running SOLIDWORKS 2015 Launch Events all over the country to show you what’s new in person but if you can’t wait until then below are just some of my personal favourites amongst hundreds of enhancements.

1. Sketching-Spline across Multiple surfaces 

The Spline on surface command has been completely reworked to make it more robust and workconsistently across multiple faces.

2.       Sketching – Line From Midpoint   

Starting a line from a midpoint is great for capturing symmetry and now it needs less clicks

3.       Features - Equal Spacing for Linear Patterns 

Pick a reference and a number of instances or spacing between instances and SOLIDWORKS does the rest. 

4.       Features – Asymmetric (elliptical) Fillets 

We now allow elliptical profile fillets with similar controls to the chamfer tool. These can be simple elliptical profiles or controlled with a conic rho value.

5.       Features- Flatten Surface 

 We can now flatten surfaces bodies with compound curvature In SOLIDWORKS Premium i.e. beyond simple cylinders, cones etc. 

6.       Drawings- Angle dimensions without having to add extra construction lines- 

Simply pick an angled line then a corner point, SOLIDWORKS will present 4 arrows to allow you to pick the direction you require. 

7.       Drawings & Assemblies – Open Part in Position 

We've always been able to open a part from a drawing or assembly by selecting it but now we can open it in the same orientation as it is in our current drawing or assembly view.

8.       Assemblies - Width Limit Mates

Usually width mate will center a component in between two surfaces, now we have the ability to allow it to slide but keep in within the limits of those faces. (you can also specify a fixed percent or distance along)

9.       Assemblies- Profile Centre Mate

Common shapes such as rectangles, cylinders can now be aligned using a single mate, optionally specifying a vertical offset. 

10.       Assemblies - Moving Chains using Chain pattern. 

SOLIDWORKS 2014 added the curve driven pattern in assemblies now extending from this we can do chain patterns with movement either connected or a distance apart. 

SOLIDWORKS 2015 is currently in pre-release form so we’d advise  holding off a little longer until SOLIDWORKS 2015 SP0 is released, currently scheduled for October. Again to see these tools plus many more enhancements in depth please register for one of our Launch Events

Alan Sweetenham

Elite Applications Engineer