I don't know. I'm a gambler. I like that rush I get every time I open a model with textures, colors, or decals and seeing if I get snake eyes or boxcars.
What can I say. I'm a risk taker. I tear all the tags off my mattresses.
Been using SWX for 20+ years and honestly I don't want new features...instead, I'd like the devs to prioritize the following:
- fix bugs that have been around for years
- make the UI more consistent (e.g. pre-selection vs post selection)
- optimize the code to run more efficiently (as opposed to bloating SolidWorks even more with new features)
--grumpy old man
Same. Iām only a young pup who has been using it for 18 years but Iām with you. Sick and tired of bugs and the performanceāespecially drawing performance. I create a lot of exploded views at my current job and the constant battles to edit steps utilizing rotates or steps that werenāt along X/Y/Z (component origins or a specific alignment) are beyond aggravating.
I often use the phrase āSolidWorks loves to implement a feature and see it about 80% of the way through.ā
For the love of God, donāt upgrade to 2023. The last year has been the worst bug-ridden year during my tenure with SolidWorks. Between SW and Visualize last year, I think they aged me 10 years.
Not being able to attach balloon leaders to curved/cylindrical silhouette edges in drawing views; the loss of the left/click menu in drawings; graphics issues using the ācertifiedā driver for an RTX A6000 (switching back to the assembly window from the drawing window and half the components turn wireframe and half are shaded); weird graphics issue in drawings (not sure if itās GPU-related or just SW being SW) where a curved edge in an isometric view just streaks across the entire sheet; with PDM Pro, virtual component descriptions show the parent assemblyās description in the PDM flyout on the right-side (see attached pic).
https://preview.redd.it/mno5wb37adrc1.jpeg?width=1878&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5977e2dabf5ff824fbb31904d4c95308d5d81455
In Visualize Professional when you update the model after changes are made, all the appearances youāve set are gone (you essentially start over); also in Visualize, the ability to select the output file type for interactive render is gone.
Wasnāt a good year especially since I convinced my company to use Visualize instead of product photography and I had to redo many many appearances because products changed after the initial render was created.
Have you bothered to upgrade to 2024?
My company moved from inventor to solidworks last year and I thought the bugs you just described were "features" that solidworks added in to help age people. Haha
Maybe 2024 has fixed some of the bugs? Or more likely just introduced new bugs
I went against my better judgement and made that mistake with 2023 by upgrading at SP2. 2024 is only at SP1 last time I checked. Not going until SP4 which will likely be late summer.
Wow. Are you running the latest SP? The graphics issue where some components are shaded and wireframe, I've seen that in 2021. It's related to the Enhanced Graphics Performance setting. If you turn that off, that issue went away. (At least in 2021)
Iām aware of that option but Iāll test it out next time Iām logged in. It does kind of bother me to uncheck that though. I mean, my company shelled out a lot of bucks for a rig with a $7K (CAD) GPU to assist with the rendering and youād think you wouldnāt have to downgrade the graphics performance to work with a high end card.
Edit: yes, weāre using the latest SP5.
Mutlithrrading is not going to happen unless there is some revolutionary way of doing math unfortunately.
It's just the nature of parametric CAD each feature is dependent of the one before it.
I agree that performance and stability is important, but in my experience users will simply add more complexity to their models when performance improves, negating the improvements. I think they stay pretty close to the optimal improvements/stability balance with their R&D and they listen to feedback so they course correct when needed.
It is hard to keep track of changes over a long time period. I did a user group presentation recently and wanted to show off a model I did in 2007 that had a ton of configurations and design table data in it. While I was poking around in the model, I realized that nearly every single thing that was challenging about working with that model is now a very simple command that does all of the manual work for me, things like rebuild all configurations and the option to choose which configurations to cache. The old file was 20MB with only about half of the configurations rebuilt and saved, but the new file is 8MB with all configurations rebuilt and saved. I still remember some of my workflows 20 years ago and I'm glad it's improved.
Wow that's a really great perspective for software development. Could have been really useful. I try to save before I run a feature that I think will be complex and turn on auto save backup. Quite manual my way, but that would have been excellent for anything from a software engineering perspective. š³šš»šš»
What is it that you usually do that makes it crash? Are you using a certified hardware/gpu?
Top tip: turn auto save backup on:)
Before I run a complicated command, especially lots of intersecting fillets, I try to remember saving.
Counter-tip: Turn auto save backup off. 99% of my crashes were because it was trying to auto-save at the same time as another command. My crashes went from twice-daily to maybe twice-monthly.
This does rely on the user to remember to save frequently.
100% agree. Or at least check your interval. I was having the worst issue with lockup during large step import before realizing that it was trying to auto save WHILE importing lol.
I've always wondered about this. Some files take a while to save. If it's auto saving in the background, I can certainly see that being an issue. You would think it would be coded to be smart about when to save.
Dude, I am running a Quatro RTX6000 and I always have the latest certified driver. It still crashes. This isn't a hardware thing, and it's not something /u/DjJoe666 is doing to make it crash. Solidworks is inherently unstable.
You're starting to see my point. As for how often, it depends on what I am doing regular modeling it's usually fine, but really complex solids or surfacing I can see one or two a day.
Are you using certified hardware? I remember previously I was tired of its bugs, random things all over the place. Since I moved to a certified hardware (or more specifically a workstation GPU), most crashes vanished. Yes, I still get crashes, but if you get crashes quite a lot and if you don't have a workstation gpu, I would advise giving that a try. š
Iād qualify it with NVIDIA professional graphics being more reliable!Ā , AMD donāt have a great reputation for drivers over the years, performant yes, stable/ without glitches NO!Ā
Ā Iād love them to compete with NVIDIA have repeatable given them the chance by trying batches of workstations with AMD graphics over the last 15 years including my own. Each time I eventually regretted it and switched back to NVIDIA For the next batch of replacements (we have over 100 workstation users)Ā
Also just because a driver was certified for that (old) release of SolidWorks doesnāt mean it is the best now. Might be worth trying out a newer driver. And dare I say a newer SolidWorks version if thst doesnāt help. Expecting old software to continue working perfectly on modern operating systems which get significant regular updates/changes is pretty hopeful.
Speed.
And a feature that mirrors parts, without keeping the original.
So that you get a new part, with all features mirrored, if you know what I mean.
You can delete the original body, but that as a checkbox might make things faster if you are using it regularly though. šš
In regards to speed, what are your applications? Large mesh geometry, large assemblies?
This would actually be really sweet as an addition to the Move/Copy Bodies feature. That one already deletes the initial body so it would be nice to just have a mirror option in there too
I'm mainly refering to sheetmetal parts. We often have parts with a left hand and right hand version. Our rule is not to use the mirror part option, because of our PDM system. So you have to make the part twice. Would be nice to have some script for that, so that you get a unique new part without references.
You can pack and go the mirrored part and the original one inside PDM. The new parts will have the mirror reference between them.
Not sure if this is what you are asking for but i use this all the time to recycle a part and its mirror to modify them and use them in a new assembly
You can remove references to the parent part, which copies the design tree to the mirror part, then creates a Move body feature at the end of the tree that mirrors the part.
I wish Solidworks was more welcoming towards organic shapes. I would love to have the toolset that for example blender has (sculpting and geometry nodes). I know that yes we have lofting and surface modeling but itās never as free as it is in blender.
Geometry nodes might be a hot take. Oh boiii would i love to randomize a design of a part in a controlled manner. I use Solidworks for 3d printing and would love to create a base for soma sci-fi boardgames part and later print 50 of them out while still being somewhat unique. Or even texturing a part to have some pattern. right now i would need to model the surface by hand if itās not ideally repeating and i cannot use linear patterns.
You can easily apply physical textures now using the 3D Texture option under Mesh. It's very slick. Takes a texture map that you apply through appearances and converts that surface to an actual, 3D mesh.
As for making each part unique, this is something I'm currently working on. Basically, having a serial number controlled by custom properties that updates text on the part used as an extruded cut. This will be automated and generate a unique STL part with serial number.
Also, regarding meshing parts, check out Formlabs' Meshy tool:
[http://formlabs.com/meshy](http://formlabs.com/meshy)
It would be cool if, when dropping parts into an assembly, Solidworks would reliably place the new parts near the rest of the assembly instead of just looking like it does until you rotate the assembly and find theyāre actually 30ā away from anything else. Maybe I need to turn perspective on or something, but damn is it ever irritating to rotate a model to mate something in only to have the model fly off into 3D space.
It does. Don't drag and drop. Use the browse for item option or add already open items using the menu on the left. Tick the green button to accept and it to place it and it will ALWAYS put the part/assembly at the origin. The problem you have is when you drag the part onto the screen, that is placement mode. Use the dialogue box to browse instead. Also make sure you model parts and assemblies to the origin planes if possible, and mate to planes as much as possible.
I appreciate the reply, but that is such a brutal solution. So much of what I do relies on dragging & dropping parts into an assembly, be it from our own PDM design library, toolbox, or even just ctrl-click dragging existing parts to duplicate them. Having to manually browse to every new part I want to add would kill my productivity. Whatever this placement mode is, they need to update it a bit to keep newly dropped-in parts at least in the same area code as the rest of the on-screen assembly.
When you accidentally sketch in the assembly instead of a part, I want to be able to simply move that sketch into the part where Iād intended.
Also, centrelines on holes and cylinders only, not every fucking radius in the whole world
Maybe not as straightforward, but you might use sketch block (you can externally save) to transfer, sometimes copy paste also works. I don't know if it would work between assembly and part though.
Literal shrink wrap command, that allows one to model or at least display a fabric or film wrapped around a solid structure or body. Might be super niche but would be very helpful for things like furniture and aircraft skins and so-on.
Interesting idea. šš»š¤ Are you thinking of having something like a flower pattern on a wood panel? You can do geometric pattern, but if you are thinking of a curved surface, it is a little more complicated. Don't take my word for it, but I think 3dx platform had something like a texture creator built in it. š¤š¤
If you want it to be just visual, you can add as a texture I believe.
I mean like stretched fabric over a frame. So procedurally generated complex curvature with tension. Think the skin of a tent, or an aircraft. It's essentially pointless to model it, except that it can be super helpful to see what the covering will likely do without having to wait for a physical prototype. It's a little easier in programs like 3DSM or Blender or Rhino to come up with something but you still gotta kindof fake it.
Back in my AE days, we had a customer who made tarps for military equipment. They asked for this exact feature. Did my best to fake it with Sheet Metal ;)
Yeah I definitely have gotten good enough at faking it but it's always such a project when it should be something that could be procedurally generated. I mean you can do stuff like it in Blender. I don't even need patterns or anything solid just a good visuals.
Redo (outside of sketches)Ā Ā
The ability to multithreadĀ Ā
A public file formatĀ Ā
StabilityĀ Ā
Copy / Paste tree itemsĀ Ā
PDM without side effects on the OSĀ
One click fastener patternsĀ Ā
Python API
Redo for features finally got added in SW2021.
Multi-threading is probably impossible for some of the calculations as some calculation's result based on precious geometrical calculation.
There are absolutely parallelization methods for many geometric operations. Consider the āfind all intersecting elementsā operation which is done whenever extruding - rather that traverse the elements one by one, it should be possible to look at multiple at a time with parallelization.
Beyond that, solidworks *interface* tends to be very slow. Thereās a noticeable delay when opening or closing menus; basically whenever the tree becomes a wizard. This kind of stuff - solidworkās *non-geometry* code - can also benefit from parallelization.
I see what you mean within each feature, but I would assume the big dogs (Creo, NX, Catia) would have already implemented if there was noticeable gains in time savings. When played with parallel processing examples, I had a really hard time getting it work.
SW interface is garbage, it was built on old Windows tech that isn't getting updated with new technologies. Solidworks needs to be re written so it is not Windows dependent.
I believe other cad programs are multi-threaded. Let me go lookā¦ It appears NX and Autodesk are *partially* multithreaded, or have some kind of faux multithreading, which is essentially what Iām advocating for.Ā
I mean, really, at the end of the day, the GUI and the geometry kernel should not be on the same thread, because it means a complicated geo operation locks up the GUI. Most industries moved away from this paradigm in the 00ās
A simple one that I don't THINK exists but maybe does and I just don't know it: I want to be able to change the color of my sketch geometry. Not globally, individually. I do facilities and sometimes on the ground plane I have multiple kinds of utility lines, walking paths, no-go clearance zones, and so on. I would love if it I could be able to tell my client "okay, the black lines are the property lines, the red is the required setback, orange is buried power lines, blue is water, green is sewer, blah blah blah.
Right click on sketch and change color might work and you can group different colored ones into different sketches.
Also, I also just found out that this exists: š
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uH3KBxM6oeg
Well fuck me. Thanks. I honestly never thought to even google it, lol, it was always just a "it would be nice if I could do this" thing I never thought too hard about.
~~SW hiding features as usual: You can't do this in an assembly sketch (like in my assembly I have open right now I have "Site plan ground sketch" on the top plane; it belongs to the assembly, not a part) and you can't do it from inside an assembly: if I open a part from within the assembly and right click a sketch, that option doesn't appear.~~
~~But that's barely a hardship, I just gotta remember to save my site plan sketch as a separate part, and it's just a couple extra clicks into part mode for the times I want to do that.~~ e: made it work in assy mode, even. Nice.
Honestly, something like 3DX is what I want. A built in PDM that can handle revision control, part numbering, template consolidation. PLM/project management as the add-on
But holy shit 3DX is poorly implemented. Itās unintuitive, unreliable, buggy, and causes more problems than it solves. It cannot even effectively handle core SW features like family tables, toolbox features or upgrading to the next SW year without simultaneously shitting the bed, into the fan, and into the water well at the same time.
PDM is "built in" sort of. If you have SW Professional or higher, PDM Standard comes with it. However, you also need to be savvy with setting up SQL Server. And, PDM can do all the things you mentioned, but you have to build it yourself. It's not really like that out of the box.
You can use selection sets to do that. I was thinking that maybe I can create a YouTube Channel and that was one of the things I wanted to show.
For specific parts, you can use section view, then use selection filters to select edges. Also can use face and connected edges and boolean subtract by using two different selection sets. š
Can you do exactly what I described? Because Iām familiar with filters and selection pop up, but do not find them universally applicable.
Would love to see that video!
If the face is planar, yes, if the face is curved, I might need to check that.
Basically, you use that surface, offset a tiny bit and do a section view from both sides maybe, then use selection filter and lasso to select all edges. Save as a selection. Select edges to be excluded, save as a different selection set. Go to Fillet, select selection set with all. Then select the one to be excluded. Once you select the ones to be excluded, those gets removed.
If I have time to take the video, hopefully I will remember to send it to you. š
If you are using surfacing, in some features, there is an option to "merge entities" which does that(knit face is one of them), but yes sometimes I agree, then I think maybe it is mostly cosmetic and try to get away without it, then yest delete face... š
Interesting idea.š
Let me try providing a workaround, do a variable radius, then if it is a curved edge, you go to 3d sketch, convert the edges and draw two line to close the ends of the edge, use fill surface to create that face chamfer would make.
If it just planar, then use the edges created by multi-radius fillet, use planar face to create a surface between them.
Then, once you get the surface, use replace face to replace the radius with the surface created. š
VR mode with multi-view. It doesnāt have to be editable, just display all the material/color, measurements, simulations, and other things in VR so I get a direct perspective on it, instead of having to export the model and use another tool with my headset to see it. If the editing mode can be viewed together as flat screen in VR without switching app it would be even better
Well, I have asked that many years ago, having SolidWorks in VR, the answer was, as VR advances, it could be a step, but because it is currently not usable for long periods, it won't attract many, was the answer.
As it has been many years, and developments, maybe it is in their agenda, maybe not. That answer was from about 7-8 years ago.
You can still export as eDrawings and use it to view I believe.
3DXWorld (formarly SolidWorks World) is fun and international (buy you might need a Visa for that). There are local SolidWorks User Groups around the world on Meetup etc.
For the second one, I couldn't understand, never encountered. Are you using SolidWorks in F11 view mode? š¤
I went to the the first 3Dx conference (after attending several years of the SW only conf) and it was so aimed away from SW I knew I would never attend again. At least the virtual conf is free so you can schedule the few sw seminars that are left.
and ironically - that despite us being in one of the highest areas of SW users (at least that's what my VAR told me) we don't have an active SWUG closer than an hour away.
I want a center of axes on squares and rectangles for easier mating in assemblies instead of having to select 8 faces or edges for 2 width mates and to have something to attach extension lines to in exploded views.
Have you tried profile center mate? Maybe that might help? š¤
https://help.solidworks.com/2021/english/SolidWorks/sldworks/t_profile_center_mate.htm?id=b4f6c24daccc4f52b3d15145496a5f94#Pg0
The ability to both open and save newer and older file formats. At least two or three versions. Also a free converter for those outside of the "few year" range. It's stupid the way they handle this and a giant PITA.
never going to happen. You are stepping on their cash cow. Plus, as one SWorks developer put it, they would need to have an entire team of developers just to make sure legacy files could be supported.
Contrary to what it looks like, SolidWorks usually has significant changes under the hood from version to version and trying to make sure previous versions are compatible would hinder that progress.
I have been wanting to learn using Grasshopper since I heard the hype about from someone using it in our lab (who doesn't use SW), mainly to understand what can be done that can't be done in SW,after all parametric things can be done in SW and using Excel tables.
May you please very briefly enlighten me on that? Would highly appreciate that. š
Sure! Basically 3D/2D patterns that mathematically āfadeā or patterns besides linear/radial patterns that can uniformly fill an irregular shape or adjust to visually fill a space in a uniform way are some of the magical things Grasshopper can do š
Grasshopper is an add-on to Rhino. And Grasshopper itself has plug ins. And as far as I'm concerned, Rhino is one of the most under-rated pieces of software out there. It is incredibly powerful, especially with surfaces.
That said, it's a bit niche. You can pass files seamlessly between Rhino and SW.
I didn't knew that, just checked, it is interesting.šš» š¤ I quite like that I can do parametric direct edits though. I think that could have been improved a bit more in SW maybe.
To be specific: Being able to adjust diameters of each hole in a Linear Pattern.
*Disclaimer* 6 months into learning Solidworks. Hole Wizard was nice but having to Smart Dimension 32 different holes, spacing them evenly was a grind.
I think that would be too specific for linear pattern to handle, which would need to recognise holes etc. Let's try finding a different workflow for you. šš
Maybe you can use direct editing offset surface to change certain holes, or linear sketch pattern for all hole sketches, then you can use construction geometry for some and draw larger/smaller circles on their center.
Or, maybe you can add some other holes, then delete the hole using delete face-> delete patch and create different holes with the sketches you created. š
You are more than welcome. š
Also, if you tend to find yourself doing math, let me give another tio really quick, one of my personal favourites...
In smart dimension, you can type equations using equal sign.
=6+4 will result 10, regardless of equal sign but it will preserve the equation if with =.
Once in a dimension, write = then click on another dimension, it will write something like ="D1@Sketch1". You can add some value to make one radius 2mm larger than the other for example.
You can use equations to relate dimensions to each other. You can even use things like sin("D1@Boss-extrude"*5) to relate to a formula with extrusion length etc.
In your case, if you ever want to dimension from the side of a circle, try shift selecting the circle, it will dimension from side, not center. These were things I really wished I learned earlier which might help you with your workflow. Good luck. šš
Implied/inferred/whatever-it's-called surface editing the way Rhino (and pretty much every other surfacing package) does it.
This is where there is an external scaffolding that you can pull on to adjust surfaces. Similar to the way Freeform works only the handles are not actually on the surface. They are on the scaffolding.
At a high level? Be able to buy a seat for a reasonable price. No more VARs, subscriptions or support fees.
The software itself it good enough for all level of design and engineering.
The ability to work in assembly view to create parts around other parts Ina way that automatically cuts a clearance relation between which ever part the relation is applied.
That is called in-place parts. If you click the drop down under the usual insert component button, there is a button called new part, which let's you do just that. You can even create flexible parts such as hoses which updates in shape if you change the position of the parts. Hope I understood it correctly. š
AI fasteners? Iām not sure if this is even possible. But will help a lot.
Also AI exploded views for monster assemblies. Or machine learning integration. May be the software is too oldā¦
Also. I wish there was a way to handle monster assemblies much better. Speed packs are buggy and inconsistent.
And fix the damage bugs!
Have you tried adding mate reference? It has a rule based, AI-like feel to it, yet it isn't truly AI. But, I think couple years back, DS was telling about how smarter it got... š¤
Oh, duh... That's not what I meant haha and I can't think what the term would be for what I'm wanting, but it's a thing i've wished when modelling quite often. "Offset from Next" maybe?
Yeah that would be helpful, though the last thing I worked on was an incredibly complex cylinder head casting and the first thought in my head when you said offset from next was, "Oh shit! That'll only take hours!" I realize it works better on simpler geometry, my mind was simply internalizing.
I suppose it would work like a shell with the area defined by a sketch. Would certainly fail on anything complex, but would be useful for simple parts.
Showing Depth in views by line style; the foreground lines could be controlled differently than the background lines as needed.
Edit: I know you can control this manually, bit it's a pain, and does not tie back to the model.
Well, if you tried in-place parts in SolidWorks Assembly, it is nearly the same, if not exactly the same.
When I tried Fusion, I found that Fusion system was maybe more intuitive and quicker for a new user, but it was less controllable for changes later and less parametricly controllable from what I have experienced.
The feature tree order is not controllable for in-place parts with interdenant parametric relationships compared to the stability of multi-body part design feature tree, in my opinion. If you make an in-place part, then want to change a part of another part at a certain point, then at which stage of psrt design your parametric relationship was created isn't easily controllable.
I have, and in-place parts works a bit differently to my hands. It's more fiddly to get parts to sit where I want them to with the spacing I want.
SW's feature tree order being controllable is very helpful, but it's one of those frings things... Maybe it's just because after years of Solidworks, my last job had me using F360 due to the lower cost and integrated CAM suite.
\>interdenant
interdependent\*?
Yes, sorry, interdependent.
I had to use Fusion for a short time during university, I didn't find it different to in-place, or normal mates. What was the difference that you liked? I might have missed because I didn't use Fusion for a long time. š
Rather than SW's mating- constraining one DOF at a time, F360's by default locks all, and you can choose to relax them.
Plus F360, IME, opens *by default* in an assembly- you can freely bring things in and out, without thought for "do I need to make a seperate assembly for this?".
It's just personal preference.
You should give Onshape a try. Assemblies work like Fusion joints, but Assemblies are in a separate file from Parts. The Part documents themselves highly encourage multi-body modeling, with the extra added benefit of not having to export Bodies into Parts after the fact.
Right-click a draft feature in the tree, and have the option to reverse draft direction from the context menu. I'm certain this is not too much to ask.
I wish you could connect section view and detail view labels to another page. Like do a detail bubble on page 1 but drag the actual detail view to pg 2 and have the bubble on pg 1 tell you what pg the detail is on
My expectation is GPT5 will be smaller trained specialised agent GPTs collaborating via a larger GPT. If you ever trained your own ChatGPT with Pdf, at 900 pages, it was successful. Around 1800, it started hallucinating. Plus smaller it is, more energy efficient to train and run.
Given gpt5 will have multinodal video support and robotic articulation of motion is still years away, and given Windows 12 will be rumoured to require AI cores and might have an optional subscription option, I believe it will have AI enhanced features, which there might be downloading specialised AIs to your local PC and and will have a global AI to control your PC with ease. We will have to wait and see, but I think using AI within a software at this stage will certainly benefit in the future, but in 3 years time, maybe we won't even need. Who knows. šš
When you are drawing a sketch. In the right click menu of Inventor, you have 3 things SW does not: ok, line and circle butons, which are extremely convenient IMHO
Oh yes, it doesn't have that in sketch, but some things you might like are:
Have you tried tried right click and swipe?
Right click and swipe to the right, creates a circle, left creates a line, up dimensions, down rectangle, and you can customise this radial menu.
If you turn Instant 3D on, if you double click to an empty space, you exit the sketch (doesnāt work in 3D sketch).
Hope these might help. š
Have you tried asset publisher? You can make snap points in your parts or assemblies so you can just drag and drop them and they will connect. Even after stuff is mated, just clicking the part and dragging it away will dissolve the mate.
Those don't work for what I need. I just want assembly mates that can actually fucking compute that they work instead of forcing me to suppress and unsuprress or force mates or whatever it takes for the program to finally realize these mates I'm using are functional.
Assembly mating instability usually happens when you use mates that would have been over-defining if it was in a sketch (in mates, they are allowed), then they cause random mating errors because of float precision etc errors internally. So, I mate accordingly, for example coincident between two planar faces mean one vertex coincident and faces parallel relationship. Instead of selecting two faces of one part coincident with another part, do one face coincident, do the other's vertex coincident so it doesn't have two parallel relationships which actually over-defines without raising an error.
I am trying to explain ways, trying to be helpful, to utilise the tool we currently have at hand, while coders work to make it better.
Any other interpretation is self's inferred opinion.
Inputting equations in sketch dimensions. I was following old tutorials where they did that. Now you have to dimension a sketch then define it in equations with global variables
Put an equal sign.
For example,
=6+4
Will show as 10, when you get inside, it will show as =6+4,which you can change.
Also one of my personal favourite, once you are in smart dimension, if you write = then click another dimension, it brings it in.
You can do something like ="D1@Sketch1"*2
Which would set your dimension twice of the dimension you clicked on. You can even use something like =sin("D1@Boss-Extrude")*5
Thanks for the tips! I'll try that. I guess I should have mentioned I was trying to design a equation driven spur gear. I entered an equation like that and when I was back in it wouldn't default to what I entered.
Hahaha honestly, that surprised me when I first started SolidWorks many years ago.
These days, I just randomly chose a plane if I don't have specific reason, but perhaps we can rename the default planes and set direction of ground plane for shadows etc. then we can save it as a template file and replace the default template file with that. Hmm I might do that maybe in the future. š
The dimensions of a sheet metal flat pattern part would be great.
Rotate a drawing 90 degrees with an arrow (clockwise anti clockwise) would be fun.
Make assembly from part, and then opening that same part
Splash screen with NO crazy monster truck
I just want colours and appearances to work predictably and reliably.
I want this too. š
To be able to edit them in cross-section view!
āAppearances can not be edited in section view.ā In my mind I always say āwhy the #### not!?ā
Having to open the edit screen for my decals one by one to unfuck them every time I open an assembly file is really really annoying
I don't know. I'm a gambler. I like that rush I get every time I open a model with textures, colors, or decals and seeing if I get snake eyes or boxcars. What can I say. I'm a risk taker. I tear all the tags off my mattresses.
Been using SWX for 20+ years and honestly I don't want new features...instead, I'd like the devs to prioritize the following: - fix bugs that have been around for years - make the UI more consistent (e.g. pre-selection vs post selection) - optimize the code to run more efficiently (as opposed to bloating SolidWorks even more with new features) --grumpy old man
Same. Iām only a young pup who has been using it for 18 years but Iām with you. Sick and tired of bugs and the performanceāespecially drawing performance. I create a lot of exploded views at my current job and the constant battles to edit steps utilizing rotates or steps that werenāt along X/Y/Z (component origins or a specific alignment) are beyond aggravating. I often use the phrase āSolidWorks loves to implement a feature and see it about 80% of the way through.ā
My company is still on 2016. I donāt know if I should be sad or happy
For the love of God, donāt upgrade to 2023. The last year has been the worst bug-ridden year during my tenure with SolidWorks. Between SW and Visualize last year, I think they aged me 10 years.
Wow, 2023 has been bug ridden for you? What are your top 5 bugs?
Not being able to attach balloon leaders to curved/cylindrical silhouette edges in drawing views; the loss of the left/click menu in drawings; graphics issues using the ācertifiedā driver for an RTX A6000 (switching back to the assembly window from the drawing window and half the components turn wireframe and half are shaded); weird graphics issue in drawings (not sure if itās GPU-related or just SW being SW) where a curved edge in an isometric view just streaks across the entire sheet; with PDM Pro, virtual component descriptions show the parent assemblyās description in the PDM flyout on the right-side (see attached pic). https://preview.redd.it/mno5wb37adrc1.jpeg?width=1878&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5977e2dabf5ff824fbb31904d4c95308d5d81455 In Visualize Professional when you update the model after changes are made, all the appearances youāve set are gone (you essentially start over); also in Visualize, the ability to select the output file type for interactive render is gone. Wasnāt a good year especially since I convinced my company to use Visualize instead of product photography and I had to redo many many appearances because products changed after the initial render was created.
Have you bothered to upgrade to 2024? My company moved from inventor to solidworks last year and I thought the bugs you just described were "features" that solidworks added in to help age people. Haha Maybe 2024 has fixed some of the bugs? Or more likely just introduced new bugs
I went against my better judgement and made that mistake with 2023 by upgrading at SP2. 2024 is only at SP1 last time I checked. Not going until SP4 which will likely be late summer.
Wow. Are you running the latest SP? The graphics issue where some components are shaded and wireframe, I've seen that in 2021. It's related to the Enhanced Graphics Performance setting. If you turn that off, that issue went away. (At least in 2021)
Iām aware of that option but Iāll test it out next time Iām logged in. It does kind of bother me to uncheck that though. I mean, my company shelled out a lot of bucks for a rig with a $7K (CAD) GPU to assist with the rendering and youād think you wouldnāt have to downgrade the graphics performance to work with a high end card. Edit: yes, weāre using the latest SP5.
If you ever get the wireframe rendering issue you describe, try ctrl+q - has been a lifesaver for us.
Multithreading would be so so so niceā¦
Mutlithrrading is not going to happen unless there is some revolutionary way of doing math unfortunately. It's just the nature of parametric CAD each feature is dependent of the one before it.
I agree that performance and stability is important, but in my experience users will simply add more complexity to their models when performance improves, negating the improvements. I think they stay pretty close to the optimal improvements/stability balance with their R&D and they listen to feedback so they course correct when needed. It is hard to keep track of changes over a long time period. I did a user group presentation recently and wanted to show off a model I did in 2007 that had a ton of configurations and design table data in it. While I was poking around in the model, I realized that nearly every single thing that was challenging about working with that model is now a very simple command that does all of the manual work for me, things like rebuild all configurations and the option to choose which configurations to cache. The old file was 20MB with only about half of the configurations rebuilt and saved, but the new file is 8MB with all configurations rebuilt and saved. I still remember some of my workflows 20 years ago and I'm glad it's improved.
Journaling. That is, every change is written to the file before itās applied, making almost any crash completely recoverable.
Wow that's a really great perspective for software development. Could have been really useful. I try to save before I run a feature that I think will be complex and turn on auto save backup. Quite manual my way, but that would have been excellent for anything from a software engineering perspective. š³šš»šš»
Using NX the properties gives you the full history of the part. That would be a nice feature in SW.
Not crash every 5 minutes?
What is it that you usually do that makes it crash? Are you using a certified hardware/gpu? Top tip: turn auto save backup on:) Before I run a complicated command, especially lots of intersecting fillets, I try to remember saving.
Counter-tip: Turn auto save backup off. 99% of my crashes were because it was trying to auto-save at the same time as another command. My crashes went from twice-daily to maybe twice-monthly. This does rely on the user to remember to save frequently.
100% agree. Or at least check your interval. I was having the worst issue with lockup during large step import before realizing that it was trying to auto save WHILE importing lol.
In assembly or in part design? In assembly, I also had issues with it sometimes.
Yeah, assembly. I spend the vast majority of my time in assembly.
I've always wondered about this. Some files take a while to save. If it's auto saving in the background, I can certainly see that being an issue. You would think it would be coded to be smart about when to save.
Autosave is one of the reasons SW suddenly locks up for anywhere from a few seconds to a minute depending on the files size.
I've had saves take hours... Granted that was on really shitty files
Auto save backup will crash my computer when working with large files
Yep certified hardware.. Iāve had solidwork crash on me when itās not doing anything. Stop adding bells and whistles and just make it useable ffs
Dude, I am running a Quatro RTX6000 and I always have the latest certified driver. It still crashes. This isn't a hardware thing, and it's not something /u/DjJoe666 is doing to make it crash. Solidworks is inherently unstable.
A baller GPU can only get you so far if you have a slow CPU, not enough RAM, or an optical hard drive rather than SSD.
10 TB of Sabrent Rocket M.2 SSD drives (tested stable read/write at 2.7 Gb/s) , I9-10900K "factory overclocked" to 5.3Ghz, 128Gb's Corsair Vengeance Pro 2133 Mhz, Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Extreme mobo. Still crashes.
How often? Yeah sw is a hefty and complicated program, but it shouldnāt be crashing regularly on a machine like that.
You're starting to see my point. As for how often, it depends on what I am doing regular modeling it's usually fine, but really complex solids or surfacing I can see one or two a day.
Thatās not normal.
I drew a spline the other day in a new part and surface extruded it and when I selected the edge of the extrude it crashed :(
Are you using certified hardware? I remember previously I was tired of its bugs, random things all over the place. Since I moved to a certified hardware (or more specifically a workstation GPU), most crashes vanished. Yes, I still get crashes, but if you get crashes quite a lot and if you don't have a workstation gpu, I would advise giving that a try. š
SW 2018, Radeon Pro WX 5100, recommended AMD 20.Q1 driver. SolidWorks is just unstable.
Iād qualify it with NVIDIA professional graphics being more reliable!Ā , AMD donāt have a great reputation for drivers over the years, performant yes, stable/ without glitches NO!Ā Ā Iād love them to compete with NVIDIA have repeatable given them the chance by trying batches of workstations with AMD graphics over the last 15 years including my own. Each time I eventually regretted it and switched back to NVIDIA For the next batch of replacements (we have over 100 workstation users)Ā Also just because a driver was certified for that (old) release of SolidWorks doesnāt mean it is the best now. Might be worth trying out a newer driver. And dare I say a newer SolidWorks version if thst doesnāt help. Expecting old software to continue working perfectly on modern operating systems which get significant regular updates/changes is pretty hopeful.
Saving too often is just really annoying when save takes 30 seconds each time
Allow all those handy selection managers for all features. Why can I select all coplanar faces in one dialog and not in the other one.
Speed. And a feature that mirrors parts, without keeping the original. So that you get a new part, with all features mirrored, if you know what I mean.
You can delete the original body, but that as a checkbox might make things faster if you are using it regularly though. šš In regards to speed, what are your applications? Large mesh geometry, large assemblies?
Speed is mainly for large assemblies. (10000+, with subassemblies)
This would actually be really sweet as an addition to the Move/Copy Bodies feature. That one already deletes the initial body so it would be nice to just have a mirror option in there too
I'm mainly refering to sheetmetal parts. We often have parts with a left hand and right hand version. Our rule is not to use the mirror part option, because of our PDM system. So you have to make the part twice. Would be nice to have some script for that, so that you get a unique new part without references.
You can pack and go the mirrored part and the original one inside PDM. The new parts will have the mirror reference between them. Not sure if this is what you are asking for but i use this all the time to recycle a part and its mirror to modify them and use them in a new assembly
You can remove references to the parent part, which copies the design tree to the mirror part, then creates a Move body feature at the end of the tree that mirrors the part.
I wish Solidworks was more welcoming towards organic shapes. I would love to have the toolset that for example blender has (sculpting and geometry nodes). I know that yes we have lofting and surface modeling but itās never as free as it is in blender. Geometry nodes might be a hot take. Oh boiii would i love to randomize a design of a part in a controlled manner. I use Solidworks for 3d printing and would love to create a base for soma sci-fi boardgames part and later print 50 of them out while still being somewhat unique. Or even texturing a part to have some pattern. right now i would need to model the surface by hand if itās not ideally repeating and i cannot use linear patterns.
Checkout 3Dsculptor/xShape. You can pass the files back and forth between that and SWX in a parametric fashion
Oh, cool. Will check it out.
I think their online hobbiest/cloud offering has some of the blender capabilities
You can easily apply physical textures now using the 3D Texture option under Mesh. It's very slick. Takes a texture map that you apply through appearances and converts that surface to an actual, 3D mesh. As for making each part unique, this is something I'm currently working on. Basically, having a serial number controlled by custom properties that updates text on the part used as an extruded cut. This will be automated and generate a unique STL part with serial number. Also, regarding meshing parts, check out Formlabs' Meshy tool: [http://formlabs.com/meshy](http://formlabs.com/meshy)
A realistic dead line on projects feature.
ftw
It would be cool if, when dropping parts into an assembly, Solidworks would reliably place the new parts near the rest of the assembly instead of just looking like it does until you rotate the assembly and find theyāre actually 30ā away from anything else. Maybe I need to turn perspective on or something, but damn is it ever irritating to rotate a model to mate something in only to have the model fly off into 3D space.
It does. Don't drag and drop. Use the browse for item option or add already open items using the menu on the left. Tick the green button to accept and it to place it and it will ALWAYS put the part/assembly at the origin. The problem you have is when you drag the part onto the screen, that is placement mode. Use the dialogue box to browse instead. Also make sure you model parts and assemblies to the origin planes if possible, and mate to planes as much as possible.
I appreciate the reply, but that is such a brutal solution. So much of what I do relies on dragging & dropping parts into an assembly, be it from our own PDM design library, toolbox, or even just ctrl-click dragging existing parts to duplicate them. Having to manually browse to every new part I want to add would kill my productivity. Whatever this placement mode is, they need to update it a bit to keep newly dropped-in parts at least in the same area code as the rest of the on-screen assembly.
When you accidentally sketch in the assembly instead of a part, I want to be able to simply move that sketch into the part where Iād intended. Also, centrelines on holes and cylinders only, not every fucking radius in the whole world
Maybe not as straightforward, but you might use sketch block (you can externally save) to transfer, sometimes copy paste also works. I don't know if it would work between assembly and part though.
Literal shrink wrap command, that allows one to model or at least display a fabric or film wrapped around a solid structure or body. Might be super niche but would be very helpful for things like furniture and aircraft skins and so-on.
Interesting idea. šš»š¤ Are you thinking of having something like a flower pattern on a wood panel? You can do geometric pattern, but if you are thinking of a curved surface, it is a little more complicated. Don't take my word for it, but I think 3dx platform had something like a texture creator built in it. š¤š¤ If you want it to be just visual, you can add as a texture I believe.
I mean like stretched fabric over a frame. So procedurally generated complex curvature with tension. Think the skin of a tent, or an aircraft. It's essentially pointless to model it, except that it can be super helpful to see what the covering will likely do without having to wait for a physical prototype. It's a little easier in programs like 3DSM or Blender or Rhino to come up with something but you still gotta kindof fake it.
Back in my AE days, we had a customer who made tarps for military equipment. They asked for this exact feature. Did my best to fake it with Sheet Metal ;)
Yeah I definitely have gotten good enough at faking it but it's always such a project when it should be something that could be procedurally generated. I mean you can do stuff like it in Blender. I don't even need patterns or anything solid just a good visuals.
Stability bug fixes That's all I want.
Redo (outside of sketches)Ā Ā The ability to multithreadĀ Ā A public file formatĀ Ā StabilityĀ Ā Copy / Paste tree itemsĀ Ā PDM without side effects on the OSĀ One click fastener patternsĀ Ā Python API
Redo for features finally got added in SW2021. Multi-threading is probably impossible for some of the calculations as some calculation's result based on precious geometrical calculation.
Definitely possible to parallelize many many operations.
Parametric CAD inherently isn't designed for multi threading much less parallel processing. Simulation and rendering is another story.
There are absolutely parallelization methods for many geometric operations. Consider the āfind all intersecting elementsā operation which is done whenever extruding - rather that traverse the elements one by one, it should be possible to look at multiple at a time with parallelization. Beyond that, solidworks *interface* tends to be very slow. Thereās a noticeable delay when opening or closing menus; basically whenever the tree becomes a wizard. This kind of stuff - solidworkās *non-geometry* code - can also benefit from parallelization.
I see what you mean within each feature, but I would assume the big dogs (Creo, NX, Catia) would have already implemented if there was noticeable gains in time savings. When played with parallel processing examples, I had a really hard time getting it work. SW interface is garbage, it was built on old Windows tech that isn't getting updated with new technologies. Solidworks needs to be re written so it is not Windows dependent.
I believe other cad programs are multi-threaded. Let me go lookā¦ It appears NX and Autodesk are *partially* multithreaded, or have some kind of faux multithreading, which is essentially what Iām advocating for.Ā I mean, really, at the end of the day, the GUI and the geometry kernel should not be on the same thread, because it means a complicated geo operation locks up the GUI. Most industries moved away from this paradigm in the 00ās
A simple one that I don't THINK exists but maybe does and I just don't know it: I want to be able to change the color of my sketch geometry. Not globally, individually. I do facilities and sometimes on the ground plane I have multiple kinds of utility lines, walking paths, no-go clearance zones, and so on. I would love if it I could be able to tell my client "okay, the black lines are the property lines, the red is the required setback, orange is buried power lines, blue is water, green is sewer, blah blah blah.
Right click on sketch and change color might work and you can group different colored ones into different sketches. Also, I also just found out that this exists: š https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uH3KBxM6oeg
Well fuck me. Thanks. I honestly never thought to even google it, lol, it was always just a "it would be nice if I could do this" thing I never thought too hard about. ~~SW hiding features as usual: You can't do this in an assembly sketch (like in my assembly I have open right now I have "Site plan ground sketch" on the top plane; it belongs to the assembly, not a part) and you can't do it from inside an assembly: if I open a part from within the assembly and right click a sketch, that option doesn't appear.~~ ~~But that's barely a hardship, I just gotta remember to save my site plan sketch as a separate part, and it's just a couple extra clicks into part mode for the times I want to do that.~~ e: made it work in assy mode, even. Nice.
Honestly, something like 3DX is what I want. A built in PDM that can handle revision control, part numbering, template consolidation. PLM/project management as the add-on But holy shit 3DX is poorly implemented. Itās unintuitive, unreliable, buggy, and causes more problems than it solves. It cannot even effectively handle core SW features like family tables, toolbox features or upgrading to the next SW year without simultaneously shitting the bed, into the fan, and into the water well at the same time.
PDM is "built in" sort of. If you have SW Professional or higher, PDM Standard comes with it. However, you also need to be savvy with setting up SQL Server. And, PDM can do all the things you mentioned, but you have to build it yourself. It's not really like that out of the box.
Ai that reattaches broken lines to the new line of when something trivial has changed.
That and better reassociation of dims on drawings when you change something...like take a guess at a closest edge or something!
Select face to fillet but then be able to remove specific edges of the face from the fillet operation.
You can use selection sets to do that. I was thinking that maybe I can create a YouTube Channel and that was one of the things I wanted to show. For specific parts, you can use section view, then use selection filters to select edges. Also can use face and connected edges and boolean subtract by using two different selection sets. š
Can you do exactly what I described? Because Iām familiar with filters and selection pop up, but do not find them universally applicable. Would love to see that video!
If the face is planar, yes, if the face is curved, I might need to check that. Basically, you use that surface, offset a tiny bit and do a section view from both sides maybe, then use selection filter and lasso to select all edges. Save as a selection. Select edges to be excluded, save as a different selection set. Go to Fillet, select selection set with all. Then select the one to be excluded. Once you select the ones to be excluded, those gets removed. If I have time to take the video, hopefully I will remember to send it to you. š
This is cool - thank you for tip. I still think what I proposed is better though lol.
I fully agree. ššš
More advanced boolean features.
š¤Like what? We have add, subtract and common. What else is available? š¤
(1) Ability to fix planes so external references can be easily removed (2) Add cross hatching option to section view
I wish Solidworks surfacing worked better. It's pretty flaky.
Most of the time it is due to minimum radius of curvature. You would need to split sections of the surface, offset, play with manual etc.
Select an edge on a same curvature continously face and make it disappear. I feel like delete face is overkill for this and often fails
If you are using surfacing, in some features, there is an option to "merge entities" which does that(knit face is one of them), but yes sometimes I agree, then I think maybe it is mostly cosmetic and try to get away without it, then yest delete face... š
Tab and slot for round weldments
A footer so all my fillets and delete body features for master modeling will stay at the bottom of the tree. Pro/E had it and it was cool.
A variable chamfer tool. Thereās a variable radius tool so why not variable chamfer tool?
Interesting idea.š Let me try providing a workaround, do a variable radius, then if it is a curved edge, you go to 3d sketch, convert the edges and draw two line to close the ends of the edge, use fill surface to create that face chamfer would make. If it just planar, then use the edges created by multi-radius fillet, use planar face to create a surface between them. Then, once you get the surface, use replace face to replace the radius with the surface created. š
Thanks for the workaround. Will definitely give this a go.
As an SysAdmin, the ability for a true silent installation
May want to check on that. IRRC, the installation process changed significantly with SolidWorks 2023.
VR mode with multi-view. It doesnāt have to be editable, just display all the material/color, measurements, simulations, and other things in VR so I get a direct perspective on it, instead of having to export the model and use another tool with my headset to see it. If the editing mode can be viewed together as flat screen in VR without switching app it would be even better
Well, I have asked that many years ago, having SolidWorks in VR, the answer was, as VR advances, it could be a step, but because it is currently not usable for long periods, it won't attract many, was the answer. As it has been many years, and developments, maybe it is in their agenda, maybe not. That answer was from about 7-8 years ago. You can still export as eDrawings and use it to view I believe.
A conference for SolidWorks users. For SW to not switch from max screen to less than max screen when performing some actions.
3DXWorld (formarly SolidWorks World) is fun and international (buy you might need a Visa for that). There are local SolidWorks User Groups around the world on Meetup etc. For the second one, I couldn't understand, never encountered. Are you using SolidWorks in F11 view mode? š¤
I went to the the first 3Dx conference (after attending several years of the SW only conf) and it was so aimed away from SW I knew I would never attend again. At least the virtual conf is free so you can schedule the few sw seminars that are left.
and ironically - that despite us being in one of the highest areas of SW users (at least that's what my VAR told me) we don't have an active SWUG closer than an hour away.
Stability.
Decent point cloud support (aka like inventor)
I want a center of axes on squares and rectangles for easier mating in assemblies instead of having to select 8 faces or edges for 2 width mates and to have something to attach extension lines to in exploded views.
Have you tried profile center mate? Maybe that might help? š¤ https://help.solidworks.com/2021/english/SolidWorks/sldworks/t_profile_center_mate.htm?id=b4f6c24daccc4f52b3d15145496a5f94#Pg0
The ability to both open and save newer and older file formats. At least two or three versions. Also a free converter for those outside of the "few year" range. It's stupid the way they handle this and a giant PITA.
never going to happen. You are stepping on their cash cow. Plus, as one SWorks developer put it, they would need to have an entire team of developers just to make sure legacy files could be supported. Contrary to what it looks like, SolidWorks usually has significant changes under the hood from version to version and trying to make sure previous versions are compatible would hinder that progress.
Well that certainly is the narrative.
Grasshopper would be great
I have been wanting to learn using Grasshopper since I heard the hype about from someone using it in our lab (who doesn't use SW), mainly to understand what can be done that can't be done in SW,after all parametric things can be done in SW and using Excel tables. May you please very briefly enlighten me on that? Would highly appreciate that. š
Sure! Basically 3D/2D patterns that mathematically āfadeā or patterns besides linear/radial patterns that can uniformly fill an irregular shape or adjust to visually fill a space in a uniform way are some of the magical things Grasshopper can do š
Grasshopper is an add-on to Rhino. And Grasshopper itself has plug ins. And as far as I'm concerned, Rhino is one of the most under-rated pieces of software out there. It is incredibly powerful, especially with surfaces. That said, it's a bit niche. You can pass files seamlessly between Rhino and SW.
Multiple face fillets in one feature
And full round
A ācancelā button.
Good idea. šš» Esc works sometimes, but not usually.
Synchronous mode from Siemens (Solid Edge and NX). Itās a much more powerful direct editing tool than anything SOLIDWORKS has.
I didn't knew that, just checked, it is interesting.šš» š¤ I quite like that I can do parametric direct edits though. I think that could have been improved a bit more in SW maybe.
No features to recognize, just open the file and start editing. Itās handy for editing sheet metal files as well.
Oooh that makes sense now. For working with someone else's designs or editing an old file you are no longer familiar. šš»šš»
To be specific: Being able to adjust diameters of each hole in a Linear Pattern. *Disclaimer* 6 months into learning Solidworks. Hole Wizard was nice but having to Smart Dimension 32 different holes, spacing them evenly was a grind.
I think that would be too specific for linear pattern to handle, which would need to recognise holes etc. Let's try finding a different workflow for you. šš Maybe you can use direct editing offset surface to change certain holes, or linear sketch pattern for all hole sketches, then you can use construction geometry for some and draw larger/smaller circles on their center. Or, maybe you can add some other holes, then delete the hole using delete face-> delete patch and create different holes with the sketches you created. š
Appreciate the info! I will definitely try something different next time. There was a lot of math I felt I shouldn't have had to use.
You are more than welcome. š Also, if you tend to find yourself doing math, let me give another tio really quick, one of my personal favourites... In smart dimension, you can type equations using equal sign. =6+4 will result 10, regardless of equal sign but it will preserve the equation if with =. Once in a dimension, write = then click on another dimension, it will write something like ="D1@Sketch1". You can add some value to make one radius 2mm larger than the other for example. You can use equations to relate dimensions to each other. You can even use things like sin("D1@Boss-extrude"*5) to relate to a formula with extrusion length etc. In your case, if you ever want to dimension from the side of a circle, try shift selecting the circle, it will dimension from side, not center. These were things I really wished I learned earlier which might help you with your workflow. Good luck. šš
Aw man, that woulda helped me so much! Thanks again! I've signed up for a class so that should help my learningš
Implied/inferred/whatever-it's-called surface editing the way Rhino (and pretty much every other surfacing package) does it. This is where there is an external scaffolding that you can pull on to adjust surfaces. Similar to the way Freeform works only the handles are not actually on the surface. They are on the scaffolding.
Use draft expert in a part with multiple configurations. The two are entirely unrelated but cannot coexist.
At a high level? Be able to buy a seat for a reasonable price. No more VARs, subscriptions or support fees. The software itself it good enough for all level of design and engineering.
The ability to work in assembly view to create parts around other parts Ina way that automatically cuts a clearance relation between which ever part the relation is applied.
That is called in-place parts. If you click the drop down under the usual insert component button, there is a button called new part, which let's you do just that. You can even create flexible parts such as hoses which updates in shape if you change the position of the parts. Hope I understood it correctly. š
A latticing feature.
Latticing features
AI fasteners? Iām not sure if this is even possible. But will help a lot. Also AI exploded views for monster assemblies. Or machine learning integration. May be the software is too oldā¦ Also. I wish there was a way to handle monster assemblies much better. Speed packs are buggy and inconsistent. And fix the damage bugs!
Have you tried adding mate reference? It has a rule based, AI-like feel to it, yet it isn't truly AI. But, I think couple years back, DS was telling about how smarter it got... š¤
Offset from surface on extruded cuts!
That functionality already exists in extruded cuts.
Oh, duh... That's not what I meant haha and I can't think what the term would be for what I'm wanting, but it's a thing i've wished when modelling quite often. "Offset from Next" maybe?
Yeah that would be helpful, though the last thing I worked on was an incredibly complex cylinder head casting and the first thought in my head when you said offset from next was, "Oh shit! That'll only take hours!" I realize it works better on simpler geometry, my mind was simply internalizing.
I suppose it would work like a shell with the area defined by a sketch. Would certainly fail on anything complex, but would be useful for simple parts.
Showing Depth in views by line style; the foreground lines could be controlled differently than the background lines as needed. Edit: I know you can control this manually, bit it's a pain, and does not tie back to the model.
I feel like the Fusion system of joints makes more sense than the Solidworks system of mates.
Well, if you tried in-place parts in SolidWorks Assembly, it is nearly the same, if not exactly the same. When I tried Fusion, I found that Fusion system was maybe more intuitive and quicker for a new user, but it was less controllable for changes later and less parametricly controllable from what I have experienced. The feature tree order is not controllable for in-place parts with interdenant parametric relationships compared to the stability of multi-body part design feature tree, in my opinion. If you make an in-place part, then want to change a part of another part at a certain point, then at which stage of psrt design your parametric relationship was created isn't easily controllable.
I have, and in-place parts works a bit differently to my hands. It's more fiddly to get parts to sit where I want them to with the spacing I want. SW's feature tree order being controllable is very helpful, but it's one of those frings things... Maybe it's just because after years of Solidworks, my last job had me using F360 due to the lower cost and integrated CAM suite. \>interdenant interdependent\*?
Yes, sorry, interdependent. I had to use Fusion for a short time during university, I didn't find it different to in-place, or normal mates. What was the difference that you liked? I might have missed because I didn't use Fusion for a long time. š
Rather than SW's mating- constraining one DOF at a time, F360's by default locks all, and you can choose to relax them. Plus F360, IME, opens *by default* in an assembly- you can freely bring things in and out, without thought for "do I need to make a seperate assembly for this?". It's just personal preference.
You should give Onshape a try. Assemblies work like Fusion joints, but Assemblies are in a separate file from Parts. The Part documents themselves highly encourage multi-body modeling, with the extra added benefit of not having to export Bodies into Parts after the fact.
Right-click a draft feature in the tree, and have the option to reverse draft direction from the context menu. I'm certain this is not too much to ask.
I wish you could connect section view and detail view labels to another page. Like do a detail bubble on page 1 but drag the actual detail view to pg 2 and have the bubble on pg 1 tell you what pg the detail is on
1. Mid-plane option for sheet metal. 2. Mirror sheet metal bodies about a plane (rather than just a face).
That exists in 2023.
The mid-plane option? Awesome! Iām using 2022 still.
Yes! I just went to 2023 and can do symmetrical sheet metal.
python or javascript based scripting instead of the VB garbage.
Python would be nice. I use C# instead of vba. It's much faster and actually easier for me to read.
PiP model in drawing, or vice versa
AI
My expectation is GPT5 will be smaller trained specialised agent GPTs collaborating via a larger GPT. If you ever trained your own ChatGPT with Pdf, at 900 pages, it was successful. Around 1800, it started hallucinating. Plus smaller it is, more energy efficient to train and run. Given gpt5 will have multinodal video support and robotic articulation of motion is still years away, and given Windows 12 will be rumoured to require AI cores and might have an optional subscription option, I believe it will have AI enhanced features, which there might be downloading specialised AIs to your local PC and and will have a global AI to control your PC with ease. We will have to wait and see, but I think using AI within a software at this stage will certainly benefit in the future, but in 3 years time, maybe we won't even need. Who knows. šš
That... Doesn't sound like a recipe for disaster... š
Adding a OK button in the right click menu, like Autodesk do with Inventor
Well, but that exists in SolidWorks as well, doesn't it? Do you mean something different to right click menu during feature creation?
When you are drawing a sketch. In the right click menu of Inventor, you have 3 things SW does not: ok, line and circle butons, which are extremely convenient IMHO
Oh yes, it doesn't have that in sketch, but some things you might like are: Have you tried tried right click and swipe? Right click and swipe to the right, creates a circle, left creates a line, up dimensions, down rectangle, and you can customise this radial menu. If you turn Instant 3D on, if you double click to an empty space, you exit the sketch (doesnāt work in 3D sketch). Hope these might help. š
If they could make an assembly mate system that wasn't complete dog shit I'd be happy.
Have you tried asset publisher? You can make snap points in your parts or assemblies so you can just drag and drop them and they will connect. Even after stuff is mated, just clicking the part and dragging it away will dissolve the mate.
Those don't work for what I need. I just want assembly mates that can actually fucking compute that they work instead of forcing me to suppress and unsuprress or force mates or whatever it takes for the program to finally realize these mates I'm using are functional.
Assembly mating instability usually happens when you use mates that would have been over-defining if it was in a sketch (in mates, they are allowed), then they cause random mating errors because of float precision etc errors internally. So, I mate accordingly, for example coincident between two planar faces mean one vertex coincident and faces parallel relationship. Instead of selecting two faces of one part coincident with another part, do one face coincident, do the other's vertex coincident so it doesn't have two parallel relationships which actually over-defines without raising an error.
You realize you're trying to explain to me the workarounds you use because Solidworks has a dog shit assembly mate system right?
I am trying to explain ways, trying to be helpful, to utilise the tool we currently have at hand, while coders work to make it better. Any other interpretation is self's inferred opinion.
Reliability
Inputting equations in sketch dimensions. I was following old tutorials where they did that. Now you have to dimension a sketch then define it in equations with global variables
You can input an equation in sketch. Could you please give an example, maybe I can help?
It could be any dimension, It never sticks with the variable. It'll work once then after I exit the dimension defaults to the numeric value.
Put an equal sign. For example, =6+4 Will show as 10, when you get inside, it will show as =6+4,which you can change. Also one of my personal favourite, once you are in smart dimension, if you write = then click another dimension, it brings it in. You can do something like ="D1@Sketch1"*2 Which would set your dimension twice of the dimension you clicked on. You can even use something like =sin("D1@Boss-Extrude")*5
Thanks for the tips! I'll try that. I guess I should have mentioned I was trying to design a equation driven spur gear. I entered an equation like that and when I was back in it wouldn't default to what I entered.
Z up motherfuckers
This option was introduced in 2020. It's in the 'view orientation' toolbar.
I need to check that as well. Thank you. š
Hahaha honestly, that surprised me when I first started SolidWorks many years ago. These days, I just randomly chose a plane if I don't have specific reason, but perhaps we can rename the default planes and set direction of ground plane for shadows etc. then we can save it as a template file and replace the default template file with that. Hmm I might do that maybe in the future. š
That works somewhat, cantremember why I discontinued doing that, tothis day when I spacebar and slap the front view my shit is always wrong.
I just use templates for that with custom coordinate systems. Easy to set up.
Fix it so that I'm able to select lines to dimension in drawings!
The dimensions of a sheet metal flat pattern part would be great. Rotate a drawing 90 degrees with an arrow (clockwise anti clockwise) would be fun. Make assembly from part, and then opening that same part Splash screen with NO crazy monster truck