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Can you believe that SOLIDWORKS 2021 is already here? This year, we tuned into the live streaming event to get all of the insights possible and learn about every change, performance and capabilities coming with the upgrade! We know you're as excited as we are, and we have put together all of the available resources in one place to help you find all the highlights and details.

During the product development lifecycle, an industrial designer will create multiple versions of a product in various finishes, textures and colors. Using the new .3MF file format, we can apply a texture in a CAD program, such as SOLIDWORKS, and save the file in a format that retains that texture and can be used for 3D printing.

While corporations focus on product innovation, they also need to consider their products' environmental impact and the product development process. Sustainability helps to balance modernization, improve our quality of life and protect our planet and environment for our future generations. For businesses to thrive, sustainability can no longer be delegated to an individual or a special team. Sustainability is an integral strategy secured throughout the entire corporate strategy.

According to Murphy's Law, file corruption will occur shortly before a deadline. Nobody wants to redo work they've already done with the clock bearing down on them. Regardless of what caused a file to become corrupt (random network glitches, bad geometry imported from other CAD formats, power fluctuations, improper shutdowns, sunspots, ancient curses) SOLIDWORKS provides some powerful tools to help us find and fix problems. If an assembly won't open the problem is most likely an individual component of that assembly. To fix it, first we must figure out which one it is. Or just let SOLIDWORKS do it for you!

While switching 3D software platforms may seem like a daunting task, sticking with an existing platform for sake of ease can cost a company time, money and important resources. If you’ve recently thought about switching platforms, think it may make sense for your company in the future or are not completely satisfied with your current workflow, join us as we take a look at the top 5 reasons to make the switch to SOLIDWORKS.

There are many behind the scenes tools that make a company become and continue to be successful. Much like the more visible people and obvious products, a software running backstage is extremely important and can have significant impacts on a company’s bottom line at best, and its livelihood at worse. If you’re a manufacturing company or one which provides supply chain services, then you have a system in place to serve as the backbone of your business that connects all the various business units. But instead of separate disconnected systems, today’s best in class companies opt for one system that connects all the separate business units, DELMIAWORKS.

In every major release of SOLIDWORKS, there will be countless enhancements and hundreds of pages of release notes. There will always be some key new features and improvements that take the spotlight, but often it’s the little changes that can make a big difference in your workflow and user experience. So, here are a few of the lesser known “hidden gems” that were introduced in SOLIDWORKS 2020.

SOLIDWORKS understands that engineering is a process of constant improvement. Their software reflects this philosophy and every year more and more features are added to improve the user experience. We always cover the major changes in our roll out presentations, but sometimes there are hidden gems that you might not have heard about.  In today’s article, I go over some of those gems from SOLIDWORKS 2019.

As an experienced SOLIDWORKS user, I know sometimes there are frustrating situations throughout my design process. I have found myself making up excuses or justifications when including explode lines to my explored view; have been unable to mate two sets of holes that are not perfectly concentric and have questioned why my assemblies are slow. If like me, you’ve found yourself in any of these situations, then this blog article is for you. I will share with you some of my favorite features from SOLIDWORKS 2018 onward that have helped increase my productivity. These features will allow you to retire your clever workarounds for workflows you might use daily or during specific phases of your projects.

Every year, there is excitement and anticipation within the engineering and designing community as SOLIDWORKS releases new enhancements and features for the software. At TriMech, we have made it a tradition to put together a list to highlight our top favorite enhancements. With all the excitement it's sometimes easy to forget about previous updates that continue to make our lives easier and allow us to get the job done quicker. I wanted to take a trip down memory lane and refresh the updates from SOLIDWORKS 2017 and later that still impact our design experience as we use SOLIDWORKS. While there are a lot out there, I am going to highlight some of my favorites for you here.

Whenever a holiday comes around, I like to get creative in SOLIDWORKS as you can see from a previous article I created for Halloween a few years ago. For Independence Day, I wanted to raise the flag in SOLIDWORKS! This provided a great opportunity for me to create a rendering and show you the differences between PhotoView360, SOLIDWORKS Visualize Standard and Visualize Professional.

Dark or light? No, we’re not talking coffee here. We’re talking about the SOLIDWORKS UI. For years now, there’s been the option to change the color of the interface as well as the icons. This functionality was introduced to SOLIDWORKS 2016. Before we talk about a light or dark interface let’s first talk about the icons.