A Quick Look At SOLIDWORKS 2019

A couple of weeks ago Dassault Systèmes launched SOLIDWORKS 2019, and just before the launch I spoke with Manish Kumar, an R&D vice president at Dassault Systèmes, for a briefing on the 2019 product line. On the call, Manish provided me an overview of the new features and updates in SOLIDWORKS 2019, including enhanced performance, added depth to functionality, and opportunities to incorporate new technology and workflows into the design-to-manufacture process. With all of the ew features and enhancements, Manish said the pricing for SOLIDWORKS 2019 would remain the same from 2018.

This time around, SOLIDWORKS says its design-to-manufacturing process provides the tools needed to implement a comprehensive design-through-manufacturing strategy, all inside the SOLIDWORKS environment. These tools let you work without having to export and import data from one system to another. With IP embedded in a 3D design model, and at the center of the model-based definition (MBD) process, and thanks to associativity, changes from design or manufacturing are automatically reflected in all related CAD models, CAM programs, drawings, and documentation.

Among its new features, SOLIDWORKS 2019 provides greater design flexibility for interrogating or making changes to a model with an enhanced Large Design Review capability. It also dramatically improves high performance view manipulation to scale with higher-end graphics hardware. In addition, SOLIDWORKS 2019 allows teams to communicate outside of the design group by adding markups to parts and assemblies directly using a touch device, storing them with the model, and exporting them as a 3D PDF.

Another key feature of SOLIDWORKS 2019 is SOLIDWORKS Extended Reality (XR), a new application for publishing CAD scene data created in SOLIDWORKS – including lights, cameras, materials, decals, and motion study animations – and experiencing it in VR, AR and web viewers. As increasingly affordable immersive devices contribute to the growing ecosystem of technology and interactive experiences, designers and engineers can use SOLIDWORKS XR to improve collaborative internal and external design reviews, sell designs more effectively, train users how to assemble and interact with their products, and boost confidence in designs throughout the product development process.

“This latest SOLIDWORKS release is packed with enhancements and innovations built based on insights and feedback from the SOLIDWORKS community. We continue to drive our products forward in terms of usability, quality, and productivity, and SOLIDWORKS 2019 delivers a complete design ecosystem,” said Gian Paolo Bassi, CEO, SOLIDWORKS, Dassault Systèmes. “Designers and engineers who prioritize design performance, attention to detail and innovation, as well as seek the powerful storytelling capabilities of VR and AR, can experience the prototyping shop of the future—one where digital design data makes it easier to visualize parts in 3D and improve how designs are translated from virtual to real.”

Keep in mind, that below I’ll just be touching on what I consider to be the highlights in SOLIDWORKS 2019 this time around. In the coming weeks and months I’ll be going into much more detail on the new version’s features and capabilities.

So, here are some of the highlights of SOLIDWORKS 2019 (core product and some add-ins):

3D CAD

3D texturize body is a cool new feature! You can create a texture on an existing solid body using an appearance. Just drag and drop your selected appearance, then choose the size and orientation of your liking. After that, you can select the 3D Texturize Body by right-clicking the solid body in solid bodies’ folder and turn the appearance to mesh geometry. You will be able to control the size, color and invert the texture to get your desired result.

When there is an interference in your assembly and you want to add a fillet or chamfer, you can use the partial chamfer/fillet tool to eliminate the interference and remove the right amount of material. There are control for distance and percentage of reference offset in the PropertyManager or you can use the handle to easily adjust it.

There are new ways to interact with SOLIDWORKS, including support for Microsoft Surface dial from the Surface Studio. Sketch gesture recognition enhancements include splines and slots, and improved Touch mode gestures including copy, select and drag, and 3D rotate lock.

DimXpert is now known as MBD Dimension and is available for assemblies in SOLIDWORK Standard and above. You can carry over annotations from source to derived and mirrored parts. There is now MBD support for sheet metal bend notes, tables, and lines.

For eDrawings measure, mark-up and explode features are now available in eDrawings Viewer. There is new file viewing support—JT, Parasolid, NX, ACIS. eDrawings Professional can now save as 3D HTML for browser-based sharing plus AR/VR.

ECAD

Enhanced Dynamic connector insertion supports graphical segmentation and mated connector pairs provides a streamlined and simplified insertion of segmented and mated connectors.

Auto-generation is available for proper and organized flattened route drawings and related tables. All information displayed in the tables like BOM, circuit summary and connector tables is presented in flattened route drawings per the schematic data. This provides a streamlined and simplified way to create tables and documentation for flattened documents based on schematic data.

Splice in SOLIDWORKS Electrical 3D uses splices from SOLIDWORKS Electrical schematics, utilizing a passing circuit symbol to represent a circuit with the same equipotential on both sides of the splice and bring that into 3D and route using the various auto-route options with flatten-route capability.

In SOLIDWORKS PCB, with mechanically-driven PCB placement barriers, any required placement restrictions of electronic components on a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) can be defined in SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD and passed through SOLIDWORKS PCB Connector to SOLIDWORKS PCB. These placement restrictions can be applied to the surface of a PCB or offset to facilitate height restrictions. Any placement restrictions from 3D CAD will appear as placement barriers in SOLIDWORKS PCB.

Design-To-Manufacturing Workflow

With SOLIDWORKS CAM/Machinist, user control and automation have been enhanced for operations and machining strategies. Enhancements include:

• Corner slow down and arc feed rate allow slowdown when approaching sharp corners and arcs
• Ability to create machine-specific machining strategies
• Tooling improved with support for tapered shanks and more parameters

Increased productivity and flexibility when creating quality control documentation with SOLIDWORKS Inspection:

• Improved Bill of Characteristics with new grid layout and group/ungroup
• Additional extraction options to include hole tables for use on complex parts
• Integration with SOLIDWORKS PDM to manage and organize inspection projects and deliverables

With a click you can add designs to the new SOLIDWORKS Sell cloud-based configurator to share concepts and product configurations. You can also use SOLIDWORKS Sell with AR to show products in their actual environments.

Visualization and rendering are faster and more realistic with the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Denoiser that uses AI to decipher and eliminate noise from renders. An integrated physics engine and vehicle driving simulator provide faster scene setup and real-time design review.

Simulation

In SOLIDWORKS 2019 Simulation, the new topology optimization studies include:

• Stress constraints
• Factor of safety constraint
• Frequency constraint

After your goals are achieved and completed with suitable results, you can export the smooth topology mesh to a new configuration and use the new mesh slicing feature. This feature allows you to create multiple intersection sketches on any imported mesh in a single command. You can move the planes and create another sketch to create additional reference or geometry. In the feature manager, the sketches and plane are grouped together in a single folder. Using these sketches, you will be able to use a boundary feature, cutouts and fillets to get your desired result.

Distributed Data Management

The new Linked Records functionality provides greater flexibility for customers who want to have separate but connected items to represent the products they build. This allows companies to have file data stored in SOLIDWORKS PDM or other objects that is controlled by one group and available to other groups that do not have rights to modify the document data.

SOLIDWORKS Inspection now integrates more tightly with SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional. The integration covers both the SOLIDWORKS Inspection add-in to SOLIDWORKS and the SOLIDWORKS Inspection standalone application. This integration organizes inspection data for better control and traceability.

As I said at the outset, this is just a brief overview of some of what’s new in SOLIDWORKS 2019. Stay tuned for a deeper dive in the near future.

Tags: SOLIDWORKS 2019

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