TriMech Blog

It's time to reveal our sixth favorite feature in SOLIDWORKS 2019: the structure system tool. Weldments are a key feature of many designs and SOLIDWORKS has long been an innovator in providing tools to create weldments. The structure system tool is a brand-new way to create weldments. To see it in action be sure to check out the video below where it’s used to create a large support structure for a massive telescope.

SOLIDWORKS xDesign is a new way of looking at CAD design. It is one of the cloud-based CAD applications that are part of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Just by being part of the platform allows this software to do some pretty interesting things that you can’t do with traditional SOLIDWORKS alone.

We’ve looked at reasons to use the cloud, reasons to avoid the cloud, now let's take a look at the benefits from the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and see how they outweigh the reasons not to make the move to the cloud. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is geared and poised to make engineering in the cloud not only seamless but provides substantial benefits to the entire design process. Here are the five main reasons I think design in the cloud on this platform is the future:

Included in the SOLIDWORKS 2019 launch is the measure anywhere feature. This means you no longer have to exit a command before you can take measurements. Such seemingly small improvement is a big favorite among TriMech Application Engineers and considered a top reason to upgrade to SOLIDWORKS 2019.

You may have been seeing a compass icon in SOLIDWORKS videos, web pages and even in some of your design applications and wondering what it is or what it’s there for. Well, that compass represents the central navigation of the 3DEXPERIENCE “business experience” platform. In this blog, we are going to explore what that means and how SOLIDWORKS users can benefit from knowing how to use it.

SOLIDWORKS 2019 offers some incredible features. Today we'll go over one of the most important tools for avoiding potential manufacturing defects and mishaps: the interference detection tool. Until now, this tool was only available for Assemblies. This is great for most modeling workflows because it helped show potential collisions or interference in complicated assemblies, but it was also an important tool for multi-body parts and thanks to the 2019 upgrade we can now handle this.

I recently created an article on the “Top 5 Reasons to Use the Cloud for 3D CAD.”  And in true engineer fashion, I made a list of pros and cons and wanted to follow it up with the top five reasons to avoid the cloud when working with CAD. The cloud is great for design and there are substantial benefits, however, there are some drawbacks and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention them as well.

When I saw an article request come across for the top five reasons to use the cloud for 3D CAD, I snagged it before it could be distributed. This is something that has always fascinated me and I’m often wondering why the design world, the world in which I live, has been so slow to adopt it. I use Netsuite, Office 365, Gmail, Amazon, Netflix, Pokémon Go and Fortnite almost daily but anytime I want to design, I’m sitting behind my laptop working locally. Here are my personal top five, of many, reasons to move the design to the cloud.

Our third top new feature in SOLIDWORKS 2019 is the ability to add a partial fillet and chamfer. This was the enhancement that got the most cheer from a packed auditorium when it was previewed at SOLIDWORKS World 2018 in Los Angeles, and it’s easy to see why.

This time of year is known for award shows, so we thought we’d jump into the mix and award the best TriMech Video Tech Tips for 2018. We had 52 amazing nominees, consisting of every Video Tech Tip we sent out in 2018. It’s a competitive field since these are published every week and each one was surely honored to be selected, produced and distributed for everyone to learn from. Voting was done by our TriMech Application Engineers with the criteria focused around which videos had the biggest impact on users. After we tallied all the votes we had our final top five Video Tech Tips!

SOLIDWORKS 2019 offers some incredible advancements in the graphics performance. Everyday tasks like manipulating models and geometry, zoom and rotate are greatly improved in SOLIDWORKS 2019. These changes are very noticeable, especially when working with large assemblies.

One of the most exciting new features of SOLIDWORKS 2019 is the addition of 3D textures. This new feature allows you to add complex and intricate geometry to your 3D CAD models in a few simple steps. 3D textures can add repeating geometric features to models in one simple step, such as dimples, knurls or textured patterns.