May 04
SolidWorks has learned a pretty neat new trick from the Composer: balloons can now be attached to Magnetic Lines in SolidWorks 2012, giving designers more control over the alignment and spacing of balloons in drawings.
May 01
You may have seen this before, create a detail or section view and it is automatically named View A, great. Except oops that wasn’t the view I wanted so I delete View A and start again … except now the new view is automatically named View B. It’s not the end of the world, I can manually change the view name back to A, but from this point on each new detail or section view I create will automatically generate with the wrong letter. A new option in SolidWorks 2012 can now allow you to change this behavior.
Apr 14
When teaching the SolidWorks Essentials course one habit that I try to instill in any new (or not so new) SolidWorks users is to always, always, rotate the view normal to the sketch plane when creating a new sketch or when editing an existing one. This helps them to get a clearer picture of their 2D sketch in the 3D world of their SolidWorks part.
Now, a new option added in SolidWorks 2012 allows users to automate, at least, part of that practice.
Mar 28
One of my favorite enhancements to the SolidWorks interface is a new addition to the Status Bar, the Unit System quick access button.
Dec 17
Do worries about non-sequential drawing balloons keep you up at night? No? Well you still might like a new enhancement that was introduced in SolidWorks 2012 that allows you order the item numbers in drawing balloons sequentially.
Apr 20
In the 2010 release of SolidWorks, Mouse Gestures were introduced. In SolidWorks 2012 this functionality has been further enhanced with some NEW commands. Now you can assign the Ok, Cancel, and Escape commands mouse gestures as well as keyboard shortcut keys.
Apr 03
A new feature added in SolidWorks 2012 is the SolidWorks Part Reviewer Add-In. This new tool can be used to review, step-by-step, the features used to create the geometry of a part.
Many SolidWorks users are aware that an effective way to learn how to create advanced geometry is to dissect and analyze models created by others. Previously this could be done by use of the Rollback Bar, however the new Part Reviewer Add-In automates the process.
Mar 27
New in SolidWorks 2012 is the feature Span Displays. This new feature allows SolidWorks to intelligently span across dual monitors.
Clicking the “Span Displays” button on the SolidWorks Title Bar, or going to Window > Span Displays, will automatically position and resize the SolidWorks window to take best advantage of your screen’s real estate.
Jan 24
When updating SolidWorks that has been installed using a floating, network license the latest version, many users will forget the very last step, re-activating the SolidNetwork License Manager.
This needs to be done so that the SolidNetWork License Manager can communicate with the SolidWorks Activation Center and be allowed to provide the new, updated licenses to the SolidWorks users who are connected using the network licensing system.
Jul 25
The SolidWorks 2012 Beta program has begun. If you have an active SolidWorks support subscription you can join the program and download the Beta here: https://www.solidworks.com/beta/
Why join the SolidWorks 2012 Beta testing program? Here are three great reasons:
