Every year at SolidWorks World during the Wednesday General Session, users get a preview of what is coming in the next version of SolidWorks.  Its an event that many look forward to and is a great way to cap off the week.  So…here we go!

As in past years the new features were presented in the form of a skit.  This year’s skit was “Jeremy’s Designer Gift Show” which was a parody of a home shopping channel show.  As usual the skit was hilarious!  Three “make believe” products were “featured” on the show.

The first product up was the “SolidGrill 3000” with its designer Neil Cooke.  While demonstrating that a computer can indeed double as a grill, Neil was able to show off a few new features coming in SolidWorks 2014.

Replace View Model – This new feature allows you to replace the reference for a given view or views inside a Drawing.  Once you bring up the feature inside a Drawing, select the view or select the checkbox for all views and browse to replace the model.  All of the dimensions and annotations are preserved.

Existing View Icons – When you access the View Pallette in Drawings, SolidWorks will display an indicator (icon) as to whether or not the view is already placed in the drawing.

Display Style Context Menu – Context menus for Drawing Views now contain a dropdown menu that will allow you to change the Display Style of that particular view.  (For example, from Hidden Lines Removed to Shaded with Edges)

High Quality Shaded Views – With this setting, a shaded view in the drawing will not show and “bleed through edges” on thin surfaces

Angular Running Dimensions – Ordinate Style dimensions that can be utilized around circular parts.  You can add dimensions at any time.  (Similar functionality to Ordinate Dimensions.)

Split Table by Row Count – In SolidWorks 2014 you will be able to split a Bill of Materials in a Drawing by row count.  When you add components to an assembly, the setting is retained and the BOM will continue to split based on the number of rows you set.

Order Independent Transparency – This appears to be a new method of applying transparency to models so that overlapping faces in the transparency blend properly.  The result is a much better (and more accurate looking) rendering of the transparency.  This wasn’t talked about specifically, so I had to do a little web research to make sense of it.  J

Sunlight and Sunlight Animations – Sunlight is a new lighting option in the Appearances tab.  It allows you to enter your location, date, and time of day to get the accurate sunlight settings.  (Wow…I was surprised it goes to that much detail!)  You can also you PhotoView 360 to animate the changes in sunlight position.

Network Rendering Animations – You can now use Network Rendering (which was introduced in SolidWorks 2013 for still images) in rendering animations.

CircuitWorks Thermal Properties – CircuitWorks now supports Thermal Properties such as Specific Heat & Thermal Conductivity.  The properties can be imported from ECAD files or manually entered.

Link to SolidWorks Flow Simulation –  SolidWorks Flow Simulation can use the above mentioned thermal properties established in CircuitWorks to runs simulations.  This can reduce the amount of data input when setting up thermal studies in Flow Simulation.  You have the ability to choose which CircuitWorks properties to use and which ones to ignore.

The next product up was Justin Burton’s “SolidWorkOut”.  This was a bicycle with a laptop mounted on the front and the rear wheels suspended so that the pedal motion can supply power (to a workstation!)

Slots in Hole Wizard – Slots have been added to the Hole Wizard in SolidWorks 2014!  (I think this was on one of the previous top ten lists.)  You can create regular slots as well and counterbore and countersink slots.  You also have options for position and orientation of the slot.  One really neat thing about this is that if you have hardware already mated in place, the mates will not be broken if you switch from a hole to a slot.  (Very slick!)

Path Length Dimension – The new driving dimension option in sketches allows you to designate a path length dimension for a closed loop combination of entities.  The example given was a sketch of the path of a chain on a bicycle.  It also has the ability to add components tied to this path length dimension by increments, such as links on a chain.  (I’m not quite sure how they are doing this…but it looked pretty cool!)

Fixed Length Spline – Splines now have a fixed length setting that will force the spline to maintain a specified length as you drag the points of the spline around changing the shape.

Style Spline – This is a new type of spline that yields a “higher quality” spline with more control.  The control vertices look different than the existing spline tools.  You can add relations and dimensions to the control vertices as well.  The curvature comb of the Style Spline has less “bumps” and inconsistencies versus the older spline option.  This is one of the tools that I can’t wait to try!  Side note while we are talking about splines.  Rich Allen mentioned in the press conference after the General Session that there are also enhancements to the Surfacing tools coming in SolidWorks 2014.

Replace Sketch Entities – This one really looks like a big enhancement.  You can replace existing sketch entities with newly generated entities and all of the references will be updated.  (This is another one I really want to test.  It will be impressive if they can deliver a consistent solution that updates all the references to the entity being removed.)

SolidWorks Electrical Harness – This one is interesting.  You can now create harnesses inside SolidWorks Electrical 3D straight off the schematic with the click of a button.  You also have the ability to view schematics within the SolidWorks interface.  (This brings up an interesting question as to how this fits with the current SolidWorks Routing Electrical Product.  This looks to be capability that is added to SolidWorks Electrical and is totally separate from Routing.)

Reuse Existing Harness – You can take an exiting SolidWorks Electrical Harness and “reuse” it to create an new harness that routes to different points.

Clips in Flattened Representation – You can now include clips in Flattened harness views.  (This looked like what exists in Routing today…so I’ll probably have to get some clarification on this.  I’ll update the post if more information is given to me.)

Colored Connector Pins – Connector views will automatically populate the pin locations with a solid hatch that matches the color of the wire.  This will make it easier for workers on the shop floor to identify which color wire goes in each contact position on the connector.

Bolt Mapping – SolidWorks Simulation can detect fasteners within a model and automatically create matching connectors in the Simulation Study!  (This looks like a really neat trick.  I’m curious to see if this still works for companies who DO NOT use Toolbox fasteners.)

Results Symmetry – If you setup only half of a model to run a simulation, you can now use symmetry to view the results of the full model.  (This assumes your model has true symmetry.)

Residual Stress from SolidWorks Plastics – You can now use residual stress information from SolidWorks Plastics in SolidWorks Simulation studies.

Mark Schneider was up next to show the “DesignBelt Premium”.  This was a tool belt with a laptop attachment.  Watching him hammer boards together on top of the laptop was pretty funny (especially when the laptop blue screened).  Here’s what was shown in this part of the skit.

Environment Themes – Ok…I have to describe how this one was introduced.  The first image was a screen that had virtually EVERY toolbar on the screen active, which of course doesn’t leave you much of a graphics area for your model.  (I’ve actually seen people who setup SolidWorks like this over the years…not so much these days though.)  Here’s a picture below:

Ok, now let’s talk about Environment Themes.  You can setup “themes” which load only certain toolbars or tabs on the CommandManager.  You can even add specific buttons to toolbars, hotkeys, or mouse gestures that are only present in that particular theme.  This looks like a nice customization option.

History Folder – The History Folder is located at the top of the FeatureManager and always displays the last five features you’ve accessed.

Flexible Assemblies Context Menu – The title here pretty much describes the new feature.  You can now make a subassembly flexible by using new tools that pop up in the context menu.

Streamlined Save As Copy – In SolidWorks 2014 you can do a Save As on an assembly and choose Save As Copy much like previous version.  But there is a new option that leaves the new copy open.  Within this interface, you can create copies of components all in one shot.  (The UI looks very similar to what you get when you choose use Pack and Go.)  When you use this tool, any upper level assemblies that were open when you performed the Save As Copy command will still reference the original model (not the copied one).

eDrawings with Augmented Reality – This was previewed last year at the SolidWorks 2013 press event.  This tool allows you to superimpose your SolidWorks model into the eDrawings for iPad (or Android soon) by using the device’s camera.  A QR code printed on paper is used to “locate” the model.

Sheet Metal Corner Gussets – You can now add corner gussets to sheet metal parts.  Options for this tool include impending depth, controlling each length, width, and draft.  Gussets are automatically ignored when a sheet metal part is unfolded.

Lofted Bend Transitions – You now have more control lofted bends in sheet metal.  You can specify the number of bends in the loft through new options in the PropertyManager.  The flat pattern of the part gives all of the break lines for the lofted bend.

Smart Mate Delay – Smart Mates no longer immediately snap to any geometry you slide the cursor over.  There is now a customizable pause period that waits for the mouse cursor to stop before attempting to apply the Smart Mate.  You can set this period to whatever interval you desire.

Feature Driven Component Pattern – You can now base new component patterns off of existing component patterns in the assembly.

Rotate Exploded Views – You now have an option to rotate components in Exploded view.  This can be used to rotate screws as you remove them from their secured position or move components angularly to its exploded position.

Quick Mate Context Menu – This looks REALLY interesting.  The context menu in assemblies now has the ability to display Quick Mate icons based upon your selections.  It works very similar to the mate options available in the context menu of the sketcher.  The Quick Mate context menu displays the most common mate types based upon your model entity selections.  With this tool you can quickly mate components together without ever entering into the Mate command.

This was a pretty good list of features and as always, this isn’t ALL of the enhancements coming in SolidWorks 2014.  Look for SolidWorks 2014 Beta towards the middle of this year.

Thats all for now.  Stay tuned…more to come!

The BIG news of the day on Monday at SolidWorks World 2013 was the announcement of SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual.  Over the last three years speculation has run rampant since the now infamous “Cloud” announcement was made at SolidWorks World 2010.  To begin with, I’m going to give you an overview on what was presented.  I’ll then follow up at the end with a few comments.  Fielder Hiss made the presentation for Mechanical Conceptual on stage.

This is the first product developed on top of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.  (Absolutely no mention of V6.  As best I could tell, this is the name of the new platform.)  The tool is complementary to all the products that SolidWorks users use today.

Conceptual

It is a tool for mechanical designers to do their concept design work.  Its specialty is with mechanisms (moving parts).  Its purpose is to help get ideas or concepts into 3D right away while fostering an iterative design process and maintaining multiple configurations.  According to SolidWorks, 31% of project time is spent working with concepts.  On average, there are 6 conceptual iterations in an individual design.  There are often both internal and external groups that are part of the conceptual process.  Ease of use in collaboration is important in making this process smooth, so that all groups can give input into the design.  This is where the Social aspect comes in, which we will talk about in a few moments.  The detail design process within SolidWorks can often limit creativity in the conceptual process.  This tool is designed to capture concepts digitally, provide capability to manage multiple iterations, and most importantly be easy to use and easy to change.

Social

Social integration is designed into the “foundation” of SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual.  Designs can be shared with both internal and external groups who are “stakeholders” in the project through “private communities”.  The example page shown appeared to be a derivative of a 3DSWYM page that allowed users to post comments on the design.  No other details were given.

Instinctive

SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual is always saving designs and capturing iterations as you work.  Not only does this allow you to easily go back and use a previous design, it also remembers how components were used.  Speaking of components, there is a BIG difference in this area.  SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual introduces a single modeling environment (which of course is quite different from SolidWorks).  This allows the user to NOT have to worry about the file structure, Bill of Materials, or subassembly order while developing the concept.  It was said to be a “more natural” way to do concept design.

Here a couple of key statements made about this software:

• “SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual merges the benefits of history, parametrics, and direct editing into a single interface.  It is the best of all worlds.”
• “It will be easy to make a change (any change) and respect the previous design intent that they had already put into the design.”

The software was said to be “instinctive” and is constantly learning.  Since everything is stored in a database, the software understands how you use components and becomes smarter with every use.

Motion Simulation is fully integrated into SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual.  It uses this simulation to validate the function and to show life-like behavior in the design.  The example shows both motion paths and envelopes.

It also has integrated Structural Simulation.  This will allow the user to verify that the stress is within limits – all while still in the concept stage.

Connected

SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual is always connected online.  It prevents the loss of data due to deletion, application crashes, or accidental over-writes.  It provides a connected interface (without the burden of a PDM interface) to other team members so that screen shots can be shared within the interface and designs can be updated real-time for teams working in separate locations.

As a “complementary” tool to SolidWorks, the models developed in SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual can be brought into SolidWorks when the detail design process is ready to begin.

The information can be accessed anywhere at any time.  Mobile access tools can also be used to access this data.  The example on the screen shows a model being brought up with on an iPad via a 3DEXPERIENCE app.

Ricky’s Comments:

First and foremost.  The only thing I know about this software is what was shown today.  So the statements I’m going to make below are purely my opinion at this point.  To be blunt…I could be totally wrong on some of this…so bear with me.

As far as the modeling/sketching capability goes, the software looked very MUCH like SolidWorks in many ways and also very DIFFERENT than SolidWorks in many ways.  What appeared to be sketch relations shown on the screen looked very much like what we have today in SolidWorks.  Even the way they are applied (with a context menu) looks similar.  The way some of the sketch entities were created looked very different.  Some of the “elements” of the sketch appeared to be REALLY easy to create while automatically receiving a shading of sorts which looked to differentiate it as a separate element from other entities.  This fell right into quickly creating a 2D layout with full motion capabilities.

The direct modeling tools looked really easy to use.  Extrusions and cuts were made with simple push/pull actions.  This probably won’t be much of a surprise to many as many of the modelers out there that rely heavily on direct editing already do this.  You could see a list of features briefly, but no details were given on the specifics of how they worked.

The social aspect of the software looked very easy to use.  You could see many design cues taken from popular social apps out there today and since it is built into the software, generating these messages to other design team members looked easy.

There was a History Browser shown that appeared to let the user roll back to previous designs.  Again…looked pretty straight forward to use.

I was REALLY surprised to see both Motion Simulation and Structural Simulation built into this tool.  This is much more than I would expect to see in the first release of a concept modeler.  I’m very glad to see it there though.  Time will tell as far as it’s usability and capability.

The connected portion DID appear to rely heavily to an online connection.  There was absolutely no mention of the “C” word, but what I saw lead me to believe that online hosting was going to at least be one of the options offered with this package.  Nothing was said to indicate that a “database” couldn’t be installed locally as well, so we are just going to have to wait on see on this.  I don’t think we can speculate one way or the other as to whether this a “cloud” only offering at this point.  (There was more discussion at the press conference…which I was unable to attend.  I have the audio from that but having listened to it yet.)

Export to SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual models to SolidWorks:  The immediate question that popped into my mind was “Do the parts have features?”.  That was of course not shown, so we will have to find out those details later.

All in all, SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual looks like a very interesting package, but I can’t say how good/bad it is until I get some seat time with it.

Limited Beta testing with select companies will begin in May and an October/November full release date is the target.  No pricing details were given.

Stay tuned….more to come!

SolidWorks World 2013 officially kicked off this morning with the Monday General Session. SolidWorks CEO Bertrand Sicot greeted over 4,500 attendees to the conference. There are 280 Technical Sessions here and over 100 solution partners in the Partner Pavilion.

SolidWorks crossed the 2 million user mark in December 2012. They have 25,000 schools all over the world who have SolidWorks and 2.5 million students a day are using SolidWorks. SolidWorks now has over ½ million fans on Facebook. There was a quick review of the products released in 2012, which included SolidWorks Plastics, SolidWorks Electrical, and E-Drawings for iPad. Bertrand mentioned that an E-Drawings app for Android will be released soon.

As I mentioned yesterday, My.SolidWorks.com was “officially announced”. One new tidbit offered up today that I didn’t hear yesterday was that the site was built using both Exalead and Netvibes. (Both recently acquired by Dassault Systemes.)

Bernard Charles came to the stage next to discuss the direction of Dassault Systemes and its products. Much more emphasis was put on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform (which was announced last year). This year it is referred to as a genuine platform which will soon have products (more on that later).

The BIG news of the day was the reveal of a new SolidWorks Product. SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual is the first product developed across the entire Dassault Systemes platform. I’ll have more on that in a separate article. There is much to talk about there.

Wrapping up the session was an interview with some members of the Red Bull Stratos design team. They talked about how the project was started and the design cycle (5 years) from start to finish. The capsule that took Felix Baumgartner up to 120,000 feet for the drop was designed in SolidWorks. The story of the space suit Felix wore was interesting. It was designed by the David Clark Company, who has designed many different space suits for NASA and the Air Force. They designed a suit worn by an SR-71 pilot who ejected at Mach 2+ (and survived). It was interesting in that no matter how many times it has been played, the video showing Felix jumping off the capsule still to this day causes many people to gasp.  This was truly a great achievement by the Red Bull team.  Congratulations to them on a successful mission.

That is all for now.  I’ll update later with more from Monday night’s events.  Stay tuned…more to come!

And so it begins.  Sunday at SolidWorks World is always a busy day.  The highlights of the day included the CAD Managers Boot Camp, Certification Testing, and numerous Roundtable Sessions.  (To name all the sessions would take quite a few lines.)

During the CAD Managers Boot Camp, SolidWorks announced My.SolidWorks.com.  This is a website that will allow you to combine feeds from the SolidWorks Forum, Blogs, YouTube, & Twitter.  You can take these feeds from all of these sources and customize your view of the items on this site.  That is the extent of my knowledge on the subject at this point….but I’ll report more as I get some time to play with it.

The Partner Pavilion opens at 5:30pm.  I’ll post pictures later tonight to my Flickr Stream

Make sure you watch the #sww13 hashtag tonight as the SolidWorks Tweetup will start around 7:30pm (EST).

Stay tuned…more to come!

It’s hard to believe that that time is upon us again, but SolidWorks World 2013 is set to begin in just two days!  SolidWorks users from across the world will gather in Orlando, Florida at the Swan and Dolphin Hotel and Convention Center.  This will be 15th year of the event.  Ten years ago, I attended my FIRST SolidWorks World at SolidWorks World 2003 in strangely enough…Orlando.    At that time, the event was held at the Coronado Springs Resort.  (SolidWorks World seemed to outgrow that venue soon after.)

There are a number of topics and questions going into this year’s event.  I’ve listed a few of mine below:

• Will SolidWorks continue the momentum of the 2013 Release, which has been rated by many as the best release in the last five years?
• Will we see ANYTHING about the next generation (V6) line of products?  A Concept Modeler was mentioned at the Press Event last year and was scheduled (at that time) for a release of May 2013.
• Who will the guest speakers be?
• Will the attendance record be broken again?
• Which Partner Product will be the “buzz” of the Partner Pavilion?

Stay tuned…..more to come!

Now this little wonder certainly captivated everyone in the room in fact…there were so many eyes on it, the demos stopped…and we talked about nothing else but the Tablet for about the next 15 minutes.  SolidWorks 2013 is on track to be certified for Windows 8 at the SP0 release.  So if you can get your hands on a tablet that can run Windows 8, then you can potentially run SolidWorks!

This particular tablet was running in Software OpenGL mode, but I was quite impressed with how snappy the graphics were.  According to the folks at SolidWorks, the recently announced Microsoft Surface Pro that includes an Ivy Bridge processor will have an integrated video card that will be capable of enabling RealView in SolidWorks.

How capable it will be in running SolidWorks remains to be seen.  Given the fact that it has a lightning fast processor, capable video, and a keyboard and mouse that have already been announced, it looks like all the tools are there to potentially make this a legitimate SolidWorks setup.

This is a very intriguing concept….Stay tuned on this….as more details become available…I’ll post them.

In this post, I’m just going to hit the high points of some of the enhancements that are my favorites.  So lets get started!

Vary Patterns – Not only can you vary the spacing of feature patterns, you can also vary the dimensions of each instance!

Design Table Data Validation – Design Tables in Assemblies will now poll available configurations within components and allow you to select them from a pull down list in Excel.

Multiple Thin Extrusions – Pretty self explanatory…You can create multiple thin extrude bodies/features in a single Extrude feature.

Conic Sketches – SolidWorks 2013 now adds a Conic Sketch Feature…more on this later.

Section View Assistant – A new easier way to create various types of section views.

CAD Admin Dashboard – This is a DREAM for CAD Administrators.  This is a GREAT tool to help manage a large (or small) number of CAD users/licenses.

View Selector/New View Orientation box – MANY new options for creating saved views both within a document and in your SolidWorks System Options.

Tools->Options are now SEARCHABLE – How many times have you thought….now where was that setting again?  This new feature will help!

Show Flat Tree View – You can now show Sketches un-nested from their features.

Center of Mass – Another long overdue feature…it looks like it was worth the wait though.

PhotoView 360 – Image Modification Options in Final Render View & Network Rendering

Previous Release Interoperability – You can bring SolidWorks 2013 models into SolidWorks 2012 SP5.  You can use SolidWorks 2013 components in SolidWorks 2012 assemblies (with mates).

Intersect Tool – What used to take MANY features can now be combined into one feature.  You can use Solids and Surfaces.

Multiple Exploded Views in a Single Configuration

This is just the highlights.  There is much more.  Stay tuned for more detailed reviews of SolidWorks 2013 Features!

Wednesday night we gathered at the DS Headquarters building for a clambake and building tour. It was very nice to see many of the folks that I only get to see at these events. The building was quite impressing. There are plenty of open spaces, collaborative spaces, and room for expansion.  Many steps were taken to make it as “green” as possible. Everything from water efficient toilets, to automated lighting systems that turn themselves off when not in use. There are no soft drink machines in the building either. There are several soft drink serving machines much like what you would find at at fast food restaurant. (This eliminates thousands of pounds of aluminum per year by not using cans.) In essence, DS is not just talking the Sustainability talk…they are walking the walk as well.  Pretty much everyone that was in a DS office in the Boston area has now been relocated to the new office. This will allow further collaboration across all the DS brands.

Thursday morning was the kickoff of the press event. All of us were together for the first two hours. After that, the Bloggers went to a deep dive demo of SolidWorks 2013 while the rest went into more general overview sessions. Bertrand Sicot kicked things off by welcoming everyone and providing some information on the state of the company.

I took notice of one of his first couple of slides. It listed the “CEO priorities”. At the top of the list was “Stay focused on the customer”.  As a user and customer, it is always good to see that. In fact Bertrand just recently got back from several user group visits with Richard Doyle, so he is certainly getting out in front of customers.

Ever since SolidWorks World 2010, folks have been jockeying for information on the “New SolidWorks Platform”, “SolidWorks V6”, “SolidWorks in the Cloud”, or whatever you wish to call it. The following was revealed during Bertrand’s presentation.

A New Product is coming. It will be Complimentary to SolidWorks. It will launch in May 2013. It is targeted to conceptual mechanical design needs.

Bertrand stressed that it is NOT a replacement of SolidWorks.  Below is a screenshot of the slide.

OK…now that we have that out of the way…lets get back to SolidWorks 2013.

Dave Stott and Fielder Hiss have some updates on the financial side and product side of things (respectively). I’ll hit a few key financial and product highlights below:

• 5 percentage point increase in customer satisfaction since 2007
• Seats of SolidWorks grew by 13% in the last year.
• 20% of license revenue are now derived from “non-CAD products”.
• Three new products recently released: SolidWorks Plastics, SolidWorks Electrical, & eDrawings for iPad. (Four if you count eDrawings for iPad Pro separately)
• SolidWorks Electrical: 2D and 3D tools offered
• SolidWorks Plastics: Tools for Plastics Designers AND Mold Designers.
• eDrawings for iPad: More for supporting customers and NOT a profit engine

Rick Chin demonstrated a really cool Augmented Reality application that uses an eDrawing model on an iPad to display the model through the camera on a table. I’ve seen applications similar to this in my kid’s Nintendo 3DS handhelds. This one of course was way cooler and had more options. The resolution was GREAT and the model could even be sectioned! No mention of a release date, but I have a feeling we’ll see it out sooner rather than later.  Below is a picture of Rick using demonstrating the app.  UPDATED 9-10-12:  I’ve also posted a video (below the image) showing a portion of Rick’s Demo.

Gian Paolo Bassi was up next to introduce the highlights of SolidWorks 2013. He mainly hit the highlights but offered some interesting insights to the extent in which the developers have been going to improve the user experience in SolidWorks 2013. Details of the actual release will be forthcoming. (Especially when the NDA is lifted on September 10th).  Below is an image showing some of the features coming in SolidWorks 2013.

Overall, it was a GREAT event. The excitement level amongst attendees was the best I’ve seen it in quite a few years. Everyone at the event was in agreement that SolidWorks 2013 has more enhancements than the last several releases. (My personal opinion is that it is the best release in the last 5.)

Stay tuned….much more to come!

Below you’ll find some screenshots

The complete list of features are shown below

* New intuitive and easy-to-use user interface

* Significant performance improvements for opening, viewing, and interacting with all types of models

* Open 3D (EASM, EPRT, SLDASM, SLDPRT), 2D (EDRW, SLDDRW, DWG, DXF), and associated files from any source: email attachments, cloud storage services (Dropbox™, Google Drive™, SkyDrive®, YouSendIt®, and others), email, web and FTP sites, networks, and iTunes® File Sharing

* Zoom, pan, and rotate your 3D and 2D CAD data using multi-touch

* Browse your assembly components tree, model configurations and drawing sheets

* Hide, show, or make components transparent

* Select View mode: standard orthogonal views, shaded with edges, perspective view

* Play animated 3D standard views as well as 2D drawing views

* View your designs in full screen and double tap to fit it on screen

* Double tap zooms to drawing views

* Markup your designs and send to others, and read others’ markups

* Measure your design data

* View cross sections of your 3D designs

Stay tuned…more to come!

UPDATED:  11:22AM 8-31-2012:  The trail period for the $4.99 cost will last for 30 days instead of the 90 days originally posted.  The above text has been corrected.

The folks at SolidWorks are doing something a little different this year in that they are releasing a few details of SolidWorks 2013 EARLY.  You can find all the details over at the SolidWorks Blog.

The first “preview” is the center of mass tool.  I put this one in the category of one of those “FINALLY” tools as I think it will be a welcomed addition for many users.  You can add a Center of Mass point in Parts and Assemblies.  It of course will update as parts are modified or as components are added or subtracted to an assembly.  You’ll be able to reference this point in a few ways in both parts and assemblies.  (Gotta error on the side of caution when it comes to NDAs.)  You can show the Center of Mass in a Drawing and dimension to it.  Check out the YouTube video posted by SolidWorks which is embedded below.  Make sure you check out the original post at the SolidWorks Blog by clicking HERE.

Stay tuned…more to come!