Dassault Systèmes launches SOLIDWORKS 2016

By Niraj M Wanikar, Chief Editor, CNCTimes.com, 2015-10-05 14:08:23

Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE Company, world leader in 3D design software, 3D Digital Mock Up and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, announced SOLIDWORKS 2016, the latest release of the company’s successful portfolio of 3D design and engineering applications.  SOLIDWORKS 2016 delivers new and enhanced capabilities that will help 2.7 million users quickly and easily innovate, design, validate, collaborate and build, from initial concept to final product.

Powered by Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform, SOLIDWORKS 2016’s integrated 3D design environment covers all aspects of product development.  New user-requested enhancements include the ability to flatten any surface, visualize and help validate design performance, more efficiently communicate with manufacturing, quickly create marketing-quality images, and more easily access commands. With these and hundreds of other new capabilities, including an improved user interface, designers and engineers can focus on their designs, solve complex problems, streamline parallel design processes and fast-track designs through manufacturing.

“Our design teams work on complex models and we really appreciate many of the new features and enhancements in SOLIDWORKS 2016 but, in particular, the ease to select with ‘Selection Breadcrumbs’ and the ‘purge’ feature will help our designers be more efficient,” said Mr David Herlin, Senior CAD Data Manager, Gaztransport & Technigaz.

“The SOLIDWORKS community creates remarkable products that range from small consumer electronics to industrial equipment with hundreds of thousands of parts, and integrate the latest technical trends, enhancing product form, function, and innovation,” said Mr Gian Paolo Bassi, CEO, SOLIDWORKS, Dassault Systèmes. 

“More than 90 percent of SOLIDWORKS 2016 enhancements directly resulted from our community’s valued feedback, including their need to work faster and easier.  As the next generation of products emerges, SOLIDWORKS advanced capabilities help millions of design professionals, educators, students and ‘makers’ efficiently innovate in product design, simulation, technical communication and data management.”

The following are some of the top user-requested features, new products, and enhancements included in the SOLIDWORKS 2016 portfolio:

• Focus on design, not software

• Accelerate the design process, reduce time and effort to achieve desired geometry, increase modeling flexibility and easily access commands with the following features:

• Curvature Continuous Edge Fillets—create super smooth blends or “curvature continuous” fillets faster than ever before for all fillet types, including asymmetric and variable sizes.

• Sweep Command— create complex swept shapes faster than before with better, more reliable and predictable results, and automatically create swept circular profiles in sections, with bi-directional sweeps in either or both directions.

• Thread Wizard—accurately model standard and custom-defined threads with one quick and easy-to-use command.

• Breadcrumbs—quickly and easily access any model without viewing the Feature Tree and reduce mouse travel with the breadcrumb in the cursor.

Solve complex problems quickly

Make analysis more efficient to help solve complex problems, visualize and verify functionality, and find potential errors before they occur:

• Innovative Design Simulation Tools—greater control and insight over operation sequencing, loads, part movements, forces needed and mesh quality result in reliable performance data.

• Flatten Everything—quickly and easily flatten the most complex geometry for manufacturing, easily identify strains induced when forming shapes back onto 3D surfaces, and introduce relief cuts for the flat pattern to alleviate excessive stretch/compression.

Streamline the parallel design process

Communicate, collaborate, and work concurrently across teams, disciplines, customers, and vendors with mechatronic design, concurrent design, and streamlined electrical/mechanical design:

• Mate Controller—similar to a game controller, easily and intuitively create and animate complicated assembly motion with calculation, control, and visualization features.

• eDrawings—improve collaboration and communication of designs throughout product development by consistently measuring designs, navigating between documents and more accurately visualizing models.

Fast-track designs through manufacturing

Create more detailed outputs for manufacturing and shorten product development to manufacture while saving time and reducing errors:

• SOLIDWORKS Model Based Definition Enhancements—quickly define, organize and publish manufacturing specifications directly in 3D to avoid 2D drawing ambiguity and downstream discrepancies.

• SOLIDWORKS Visualize (formerly Bunkspeed)— generate high-quality graphics that take designs from concept to consumer to help users make better design decisions, with the “camera” for SOLIDWORKS and other CAD data.

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