It is true that the Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS product definition team has many tools for asking users’ input throughout the year. But none are as simple, as straightforward and as successful as this event. As we reported in last year’s article, the implementation rate of the ideas voted in Top Ten is close to 70%.

Combing through the hundreds of ideas and filtering out the most useful is a lot of work. At the time of the writing of this article, there were 295 ideas submitted in this year’s competition.

Figure 1. Top 10 List – 2024.

If you have time, you can read all these ideas and decide on which to vote. This Wiki page provides all the details you need to know to find your way in the community. Depending on your field of interest, you can filter ideas based on tags such as:

• Drawing
• Assembly
• Part
• User interface
• Sketch
• PDM
• CAD administration
• Surfacing
• Equations
• 3D Sculptor

For those of you who are too busy using SOLIDWORKS to create our world to read every submission, each year EngineersRule.com combs through all the ideas and highlights the ones we believe are the most impactful for most users.

In this article, we compile two separate shortlists of ideas based on two criteria:

1. Low hanging fruit: Ideas that are simple to implement while providing huge benefits.
2. Fundamental or game-changing: Ideas that could bring major benefits but would require a lot of effort to implement.

To vote for any of the ideas included in this article, simply click the hyperlink and press the like button (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Like = Vote.

A.   Low-Hanging Fruit Ideas Shortlist (Easy to Implement)

1.      Instant Save As Dialog

Benefit: Brings the cut list functionality on par to that of BOM.

Figure 3.

Currently when saving an assembly or a drawing for the first time, or saving with a new name, it takes a significant amount of time before the Save As dialog appears. It is clear that SOLIDWORKS does a lot of processing before it asks the user for the file name, as you can see in this video:

This does not make sense. We should be able to type the file name right away and then go out for a coffee or read an email until SOLIDWORKS completes the save. Having to wait for this dialog to appear is very frustrating and a productivity destroyer.

Our verdict: Very easy to implement; huge reduction in user frustration.

2.      User Interface: Option to "Disable Cut List Update" in Large Assembly

Benefit: Reduces rebuild time in large assemblies containing parts with sheet metal or weldments.

Figure 4.

“Updating Cut List” is one of the most frustrating messages you see on the status bar when large assemblies are rebuilt. Having the option to temporarily disable the update of the various cut list when the assembly rebuilds can save users minutes for each assembly opening/rebuild operation.

Our verdict: Easy to implement; significant impact on productivity.

3.      Add "Rollup and Rolldown to Selected Component" Icons in Assembly Visualization

Benefit: Reduce rebuild time in large assemblies containing parts with sheet metal or weldments.

Figure 5.

Assembly visualization is a critical tool for quickly extracting useful information from assemblies. One of the best features is the ability to isolate components based on a huge number of criteria. There are two "roll-back" bars, one at the top of the tree (should be called Rolldown) and one at the bottom of the tree (should be called Rollup).

After sorting the assembly based on one or more criteria, to isolate a group of components in a given range, the user currently needs to start from the top of the tree, drag the rolldown bar down and then navigate to the bottom of the tree to find the rollup bar and drag it accordingly. On a large tree this operation is extremely difficult, and sometimes even impossible.

Let's implement a more elegant solution from the part feature tree, which allows right-clicking on any feature in the tree to access the icon "rollback to here." For the assembly visualization, we should have two icons:

Figure 6. Two New Icons - Huge Impact.

• Rolldown above the selected item.
• Rollup below the selected item.

This simple enhancement will close the last 5% of the missing functionality from the Assembly Visualization tool.

Our verdict: Very easy to implement; high impact on productivity.

4.      Visual indicator of published envelopes in assemblies

Benefit: Reduce feature tree clutter. This will save time finding components.

Figure 7.

Currently, components published as envelopes can only be identified by opening the envelope publishing tool. It would be very beneficial to indicate envelope publishing in the top-level assembly, like a tree structure:

Published envelopes > Publishing group > Published component@subassembly > destination subassembly.

Our verdict: Easy to implement; useful for top-down design users.

5.       Select Multiple Edges using Y/N Shortcut Keys

Benefit: Quick selection of chains of edges. This is ideal for surface modeling and mold design.

Figure 8.

Manually selecting multiple edges that are linked end-to-end is a laborious task that could take multiple minutes. SOLIDWORKS has already implemented an efficient workflow for doing that, but it works only when defining some mold features, as shown below:

Figure 9.

In a nutshell, once an edge is selected, an arrow points towards the next potential edge. The user presses "Y" to add it to the selection or "N" to change direction. This functionality would make a multi-minute boring and frustrating process into one that can be completed in seconds.

Our verdict: Easy to implement; high impact for surface modelers.

6.      Add Ability to Edit Cut List Tables in Drawings

Benefit: Brings the cut list functionality on par to that of BOM.

Figure 10.

Double-clicking on a cell in a BOM allows the user to edit the linked property and it feeds back to the part file.  Cut list tables should have the same functionality.

Our verdict: Easy to implement; useful for drafters.

7.       Exclude Specific Drawing Views from Standard Rebuild

Benefit: Could reduce drawing update time by a factor of 10 or more.

Figure 11.

Currently we can exclude specific drawing views from automatic updates. That is useful but not easy to manage. Many times, users simply press the Rebuild button (CTRL+B) which will update all drawing views, including the ones marked to “not update.”

Give us the opportunity to exclude views from rebuilding with CTRL+B. They will be updated in three scenarios:

1. One by one, manually by the user.
2. When using Force Rebuild (CTRL+Q).
3. When the drawing is saved.

The benefits are huge. Performance Evaluation could easily filter which drawing views are slow and give the user the option to exclude them from Standard Rebuild (maybe add checkboxes inside Performance Evaluation, also). When the user works, only what is essential gets rebuilt repeatedly. Everything else will be rebuilt at the end of the session, thus saving hours per day.

Our verdict: Extremely easy to implement; huge impact on productivity.

8.      Enhanced Diagnostics for Factors Affecting Drawing Performance

Benefit: Save hours in troubleshooting slow drawings.

Figure 12.

SOLIDWORKS is able to import more and more CAD formats. Some of them create models that dramatically impact drawing performance. We need a simple tool to point out which components are responsible for the slowdowns. For more information, please watch this short video:

Our verdict: Extremely easy to implement; huge impact on productivity.

9.      Tree Display: Show Flat Tree View for sheet metal

Benefit: Increase User Interface consistency.

Figure 13.

The Flat Tree view has been implemented as an option for more than a decade. The only exception is for sheet metal features. Having the opportunity to access sketches as main items in the tree can unlock the productivity of sheet metal designers.

Our verdict: Easy to implement; increases consistency.

10. Allow the Offset of Disconnected Sketch Entities or Edges

Benefit: Unlock Turbo Speed when Sketching.

Figure 14.

The Offset Sketch Entities command should get the same functionality that the Offset Surface command has. That would increase the UX (user experience) and save us a lot of time. It would also allow us to have one "offset dimension" for multiple sketch entities. Currently you cannot offset disconnected entities in a sketch.

Figure 15.

Our verdict: Easy to implement; increases speed.

B.    High Impact Ideas Shortlist (Harder to Implement)

1.       ESCAPE Should Terminate Any Process and Return the Model/Drawing to its Previous State.

Benefit: Eliminate the biggest cause for user-triggered crashes of SOLIDWORKS.

Figure 16.

Before any task is completed, the current state of the model should be saved in a buffer. Thus, any process could be stopped by pressing Escape.

Currently, if a task takes a long time to complete, users have no idea if it will take seconds or hours and many times, they will crash SOLIDWORKS.

Examples:

• You start Import Diagnostics on a multibody part. You can look at the blue circle spinning for minutes or hours.
• MateXpert in a complex assembly could take hours.
• Updating drawing views should be stoppable using Escape.
• Rebuilding a part is supposed to be stoppable. Escape does not always work.

And so much more...

Our verdict: Extremely hard to implement; huge impact on productivity.

2.       Multibody Feature

Benefit: Easy management of multiple bodies and/or features.

Figure 17.

In the plastics industry (injection molding or 3D printing), it is common practice to design multi-material parts. In SOLIDWORKS, this translates into multi-body parts to which different materials are assigned. Currently, using weldment features is the only way to activate a multi-body environment but the name would be misleading for plastic parts. The idea is to provide a multi-body feature similar to the Weldment feature (but with a different name) in order to:

• Activate the multibody environment by clearing the Merge result check box in the PropertyManagers of features that add material.
• Create a Body List as a FeatureManager tree object.
• Act as a placeholder for common custom properties that are inherited by all body list items.

An option in document properties would, in addition, automatically display customizable text at component material level (e.g. "composite" or "multi-material") when materials are assigned to bodies.

Our verdict: Hard to implement; huge impact on productivity.

3.       Background Processing of Inactive Drawing Sheets (Optimal use of CPU Cores)

Benefit: Same time by optimal use of the hardware.

Figure 18.

When opening a drawing or when switching between the model and the drawing, start by updating the current sheet and give the user access to the mouse so she/he can start working. Use the other cores to update the rest of the sheets in the background.

Currently only high-quality views allow background processing using the sldbgproc.exe, but this can be further optimized. By updating the other sheets using the other CPU cores, the user would not experience lag when navigating to other areas of the model.

Our verdict: Hard to implement; huge impact on productivity when using drawings.

4.       Add GPU Support for Simulations

Benefit: Optimal use of hardware.

Figure 19.

Simulations studies are currently calculated with CPU. It would be much faster to have GPU support calculations (CUDA/ROCm).

Our verdict: Very hard to implement; huge impact on productivity.

5.       Optimize xShape for Tablet and Pen Users

Benefit: This will make xShape available to non-PC users.

Figure 20.

xShape is a great program but it was programmed by PC users for PC users. It is interesting that Dassault Systèmes promotes xShape as ideal for tablet users—and that makes sense, but not for the current version of the app. That is true for all xApps.

Currently the only pen/finder inputs are mimicking the use of the mouse. See the image of the current toolbar (attached). There is a tool called offset mouse that is clearly a workaround, great for a BETA version of the app but not for serious users.

Simply look at any other Windows, Android and iPadOS CAD application and you will see how powerful the use of a touch device like the Apple Pen could be:

• The pen selects, drags and manipulates geometry. Fingers cannot interact with the model.
• The fingers manipulate the viewport:
  • 2-finger pinch for zooming.
  • 1-finger drag for panning.
  • 2-finger rotate for rotating the viewport.

This idea is simple and proven to be the ultimate way for professional use of such sculpting applications. xShape and xDesign should be optimized for tablet usage as Dassault Systèmes positions them at every webinar, seminar or 3DEXPERIENCE World presentation.

Our verdict: Hard to implement; game changer for many users.

6.       Enhanced Offset Entities Command by adding a "Machining Mode"

Benefit: Huge time saver for sketchers.

Figure 21.

The offset entities command could be significantly improved to reduce frustration by adding a second option in its Property Manager: milling mode. Imagine a cutter with a radius equal to the offset traveling along the chain of selected entities. The offset entities could be approximated from the "virtual milling" result of such a cutter.

No offset would ever fail to complete, regardless of how complex the selected geometry is. Most of the time, a good approximation is all we need. For 100% precision, preserve the current algorithm as an option (check box or radio button).

This video shows what we need:

Our verdict: Very hard to implement; huge impact on productivity.

7.       Bring Back the QuickView Mode

Benefit: Optimal use of hardware.

Figure 22.

The QuickView mode for drawings was removed in SOLIDWORKS 2022 because the Product Definition considered that the new Detailing mode made the QuickView mode obsolete.

Detailing mode is very powerful for the drawings that have the Detailing Mode Data saved in the drawing file. That being said, many users disable the functionality for saving this data for two reasons:

1. The file size can increase by a factor of 10.
2. The saving time for files containing draft quality views can take hours.

Such users have no other options for quickly opening drawings.

Figure 23.

The QuickView mode was extremely powerful for professionally trained users. They could:

1. Open the drawing instantaneously.
2. Navigate to any sheet in the drawing.
3. Zoom in/out and pan.
4. Load one or more sheets without loading the rest. This unlocks the productivity of multi-sheet drawing users.

Please vote to get this amazing functionality back.

Our verdict: Possibly hard to implement; huge impact on drawings productivity.

8.       Add Measure, Hide and Show in Snake Cam

Benefit: Great for saving time when navigating an assembly.

Figure 24.

Short video describing the idea:

In a nutshell, the Snake Cam (walkthrough) is a fantastic tool for large assembly users. You can get in tight places without the need to create and update a ton of section views, or needing to hide/show or isolate.

Imagine how much better this tool would be if you could select, measure, hide and show components as you explore your assembly.

Our verdict: Hard to implement; huge impact on conceptual design, revisions and review meetings.

9.       Add Selection Filters (F5) for Features and Part Components

Benefit: Huge time saver when working with imported geometry.

Figure 25.

The F5 selection filter is amazing, and a true time saver.

Figure 26.

Have you noticed the two most important types of entities missing in the options above? There is no filter for Features or for Components.

Why is this a huge problem for users? Here are two examples:

• A complex multibody part resulting from importing a STEP file. You want to select in the graphics area for the imported features to keep, then invert the selection and delete the rest.
• You cannot do that without using complicated workarounds. When you select in the graphics area, you think you selected features (you see them selected in the Feature Manager Tree) but you actually selected faces. If you invert the selection, you see this:

Figure 27.

Figure 28.

If only there was a filter that would allow selections of features in the graphics area.

The same limitation exists in assemblies. There is no selection filter for selecting part or subassembly components.

Our verdict: Possibly hard to implement; huge impact on productivity.

10.  Filter Modified Components in Resolved and LightWeight Modes

Benefit: Reduce error, save time during revisions.

Figure 29.

There is no better tool than "Filter Modified Components" to see what has changed in your assembly. Unfortunately, this tool exists only when an assembly is opened in Large Design Review mode. We need it in all modes to save time and reduce the possibility of errors.

For more details, please watch this video:

Our verdict: Possibly hard to implement; huge impact on error reduction.

Call for Action

The goal of this article is to make it very easy for any user to vote on a curated list of ideas. If you like any of them, voting is as simple as Click and Like.

That being said, we are sure that once you see how easy is to read the rest of the ideas, you will spend more time in the Top Ten List Community and find even more ideas worth voting for.

Let’s help SOLDIWORKS improve by taking a few minutes to make our preferences known.

If you want to see which of the ideas made the Top Ten, you can attend The Top Ten List Session at 12:30 pm CT on Wednesday, February 14, 2024 at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2024.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for TriMech Solutions, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver. He has presented 43 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, twice at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community. In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded Alin the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title.

In the previous article, we described how the voting process works and shared our favorite top 20 ideas with the EngineersRule readers. Since then, the voting has been completed and the results announced at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2023 in Nashville.

Before sharing the results to a packed room, John Sweeney, Senior Director and Bruce Holway, Director of Product Development reviewed the history of the Top Ten List.

They made it clear that while the list may be just one of the many tools in the product development toolbox for gathering enhancement suggestions from the users, it is the most spectacular one.

Figure 1. Snippet from John Sweeney's presentation (used with permission).

Top Ten Ideas Throughout the Years

The Top Ten List debuted in 2001 at SOLIDWORKS World in Orlando. Let’s time-travel to 2001 and take a look at the winning ideas in that year:

Figure 2. The Top Ten List for 2001.

Three of these ideas (3, 6 and 8) were implemented the following year, and the rest have since been fully or partially implemented. This high level of visibility for the ideas on the list encouraged users to engage more over the next several years, and so the Top Ten List became a permanent event at the SOLIDWORKS World conferences.

As of 2022, 68 percent of the ideas that made the Top 10 list have been reported by John as implemented (Figure 4).

Figure 3.

Notice that John was very conservative in assessing whether an idea was fully implemented or not. Based on our research, many of the white spaces in Figure 3 have been addressed in part. For example, by comparing figures 3 and 4, you will notice that John did not consider four ideas from TTL 2001 to be implemented, but let’s take a closer look.

#1: More flexible BOMs. The BOM flexibility has been significantly enhanced since 2001. You only need to look at the filtering functionality introduced in SOLIDWORKS 2023 to see how much more flexible BOMs are now.

#7: Better surfacing tools. This has been addressed with Boundary Surface, the queen of surfacing tools, which was implemented in 2008.

#9: Interrupt rebuild. For parts, at least, this has been implemented. Just press Escape to interrupt the rebuilding process.

Figure 4.

#10. Improve assembly performance. Assemblies that took 30 minutes to open in 2001 now take under two minutes. Even the upgrade from 2022 to 2023 offers significant reductions in open time and lag in operation, increased frame per second on dynamic viewport manipulation and more.

So, we must not take John’s chart at face value. It is more likely that 80 to 85 percent of the ideas voted in the Top Ten List have been implemented—at least partially.

Declaring “victory” may be premature, but when the user requests “improved assembly performance,” what exactly defines that?

But even the conservatively stated 68 percent is impressive.

What About the Other Hundreds of Ideas?

The good news is that the ideas that do not make the top 10 are not disappearing in a black hole. The Product Definition Team is evaluating all of them and implements the most relevant to the user community.

Many ideas are critical to certain areas of the software, so they might not get as many votes as a general request to “improve assembly performance.”

John and Bruce provided examples of such ideas implemented in SOLIDWORKS 2023. As you can see in Figures 5 to 10, none of these ideas were voted into the top 10 list, but they were still implemented in the latest version of the software.

Figure 5. PDM Enhancements.

Figure 6.

Figure 7.

Figure 8.

Figure 9.

Figure 10.

Top Ten List 2023

The Top Ten List for 2023 contains 12 ideas, not 10. As you will see, some of them received the same number of votes.

#10 – Make All Features Available in Parts Also Available in Assemblies

Figure 11.

This will be a tall order, considering how many features are relevant only at the part level. We see the benefits of being able to define curves at the assembly level, but are not so sure about other types of features that create geometry (additive). Also, we hope that any implementation of this idea will be done very carefully, to ensure it will not affect assembly performance.

We predict that this idea will be implemented partially. Curves – for sure!

#7 to 9 – Three-Way Tie Between Ideas

Figure 12.

Figure 13.

Figure 14.

Dave’s idea (Figure 12) will enrich the information contained in the FeatureManager Design Tree for Assemblies. We predict a quick implementation.

Ian’s idea (Figure 13) is extremely valuable for PDM users. Marrying the power of the SQL database in PDM with the graphic display of the Treehouse will create one of the most powerful tools available to SOLIDWORKS users for quickly understanding and modifying file structures.

Grant’s idea (Figure 14) is a prod to the MBD developers to finish what they started. MBD as implemented in SOLIDWORKS is a great product, but it requires more work.

#6 Enhance Markups

Figure 15.

Markups have already been significantly enhanced in SOLIDWORKS 2023, as we will demonstrate in an upcoming article. Offering users the ability to anchor them to the relevant entity from the model or drawing will streamline the editing process.

#5 Tell Us Which File Is at Fault

Figure 16.

We already have excellent troubleshooting tools in SOLIDWORKS. John’s idea will take the diagnostic tools to a new level.

#4 Ability to Create MBD Reference Dimensions Between a Cylinder and a Plane

Figure 17.

It is great to see so much interest in improving the MBD functionality this year. Jane’s request is related to a fundamental tool that is missing from the software.

#3 Ability to Reattach Dangling DimXpert Annotations in MBD

Figure 18.

We just need to point out that implementing this idea will serve not only the users who have the MBD add-in, but all of us. DimXpert is included in all seats of SOLIDWORKS and is useful for annotating 3D models, quickly creating drawing views. DimXpert annotations can also make eDrawings deliverables more valuable by allowing users to interact with the model (click on a dimension to highlight the entities that are dimensioned).

#2 Ability to Toggle a Selection Filter for Entities from a Specific Component

Figure 19.

Recep’s idea will allow users to save valuable time when working with complex assemblies. It is all about giving more control to the user.

#1 AutoSolve Dangling Relations and Dimensions in Sketching and Drawings

Figure 20.

This idea is all about improving the UX (user experience) consistency. Troubleshooting and fixing dangling dimensions, especially on drawings, can be a chore. We might need an injection of AI to implement this request.

Permanent Top Ten List?

One thing that users complained about was the brief visible life of the Top Ten List. The submission of ideas starts in December, with voting done by January and results announced in February. After that, the Top Ten List portal would be removed and little would be known about the implementation progress until the following SOLIDWORKS World event.

Starting this year, all the ideas submitted in this program have been collected in the new SOLIDWORKS Enhancement Ideas Community.

Here, users can continue to submit new ideas, vote (by liking existing ideas) and have clear visibility of the Implementation Pipeline.

Figure 21.

Searching for relevant ideas is a breeze using the 6W Tags.

Figure 22.

Conclusion

The Top Ten List is one of the best tools SOLIDWORKS users have for brainstorming with the whole community, including the SOLIDWORKS Product Definition Team. It is also the most effective one for seeing their ideas quickly implemented in the software.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for TriMech Solutions, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver. He has presented 38 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, twice at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community. In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

Figure 1. Top 10 List 2023.

As we stated in previous articles on the same topic, the Product Definition Team works tirelessly throughout the year to pick the brains of SOLIDWORKS users throughout the world in order to collect the best enhancement requests. They do this by using the Enhancement Request Program, participating on the SOLIDWORKS Forum and performing hundreds of in-person and virtual visits to see directly how the software is being used in the real world, and hear how to further improve it to address these real-world use cases.

To make it even easier for the users to participate in this process, once a year in the months preceding  3DEXPERIENCE World, ideas for enhancing the software can be submitted and voted in the Top 10 Ideas competition. As you will see in this article, the voting process is very simple but, realistically, only a small fraction of the 6 million SOLIDWORKS users usually get involved. Most are too busy solving the challenges in their daily jobs to take the time to properly write and submit enhancement requests. As a result, most of the ideas born from “Eureka” moments on the job are never communicated to the developers.

Even finding the time to read and vote on all 383 ideas submitted this year is impossible for most users.

If you are one of these busy users, every January we curate a list of hyperlinks for the ideas we believe will make the most positive impact on your usage of SOLIDWORKS. To vote for them, simply click the hyperlink and press the Like button (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Like = Vote.

Without further ado, here is the 2023 Top Ideas short list.

1.      Add CUDA-BASED GPU Compute

Benefits: Increases processing speed by an order of magnitude.

Figure 3.

Mathiew Prevot titled his idea Add CUDA-based GPU Compute, explaining in detail how much CUDA-based, DirectCompute or OpenCL technology would improve processing simulation studies including finite elements, fluids, mechanics, particles-based simulation (atoms or molecules) for solids, elastics, aging, physical scenarios (shocks, explosions, bending, etc.) and surface simulation.

We suggest voting for this idea because such technology could also be applied to other areas of SOLIDWORKS. Currently, SOLIDWORKS has quite a few areas that use multicore processing:

• Processing drawing views.
• Computing graphics tessellation.
• Allowing assembly and drawing manipulation (zoom in/out, pan) during the opening phase.
• Performing renderings.
• Performing simulation studies.

Although inside a history-based part model most operations must be processed sequentially, there are a lot of other opportunities for multi-core processing. These are a few examples where SOLIDWORKS could use distributed CPU/GPU processing:

• Updating inactive drawing sheets in the background.
• Updating inactive configurations.
• Gathering data for the Assembly Visualization list.
• BOMs.
• Loading a component’s body data when an assembly opens.

2.      Add "Fill Cavity" Tool for Simplifying Geometry - Shrink Wraps

Benefits: Significantly reduces the work required to optimize complex models to be used in large assemblies.

Figure 4.

Currently SOLIDWORKS has two flavors of the Defeature tool, which are doing an acceptable job for simplifying complex geometry.

Defeature Simplify can fill some cavities using an internal algorithm that is not controlled by user. Also, it does not work with Surface bodies. Defeature Silhouette simply recreates geometry based on space claim. Read this article for an in-depth description of both.

Neither is perfect when the user wants to simplify huge components with a lot of faces that have little gaps. Moreover, such components could have a lot of surface bodies with little gaps between them.

What we need is an intelligent tool that can figure out the external faces of such components based on user input. Then simply close all gaps and fill the inside with solid material. It does not have to be perfect—a shrink wrap would do.

Vote for this idea if you work with complex models containing imported geometry features and you require only the space claim and mounting holes.

3.      Search and Rename Functionality in Feature Manager Tree

Benefits: Saves time when revising models containing long and complex Feature Trees.

Figure 5.

SOLIDWORKS has a decent Feature Manager Tree filter, but there are vast opportunities for improving it.

1. Make it work in conjunction with the Entities Selection Filter (F5).

Figure 6. Currently, it is not possible to search only for a type of entity, like a sketch.

2. Allow Search and Replace.

As an example, imagine how much easier it would be to find all sketches named “Connection Reference” and rename them in bulk to “ConnectRef.”

Figure 7. Example (MS Word): All of us are using Search and Replace functionality in most text editing software.

4.      Component Driven Component Pattern

Benefits: Automates the insertion and mating of components in bulk inside assemblies.

Figure 8.

SOLIDWORKS has many tools that allow users to teach the software what to do and rely on it to repeat it as many times as needed. Examples: Copy with Mates or Smart Components.

What about a situation where you have a number of components already inserted at different locations in an assembly, and you need to add other components in the same relative position to the existing ones? The user could manually insert a mate at an instance of the second component, and ask SOLIDWORKS to add the rest of the instances. Norbert Gál provides this example:

Figure 9.

Existing components:

• “N” instances of component “A” in various locations and orientations.
• One instance of component “B” which can be mated or not to an instance of the "A" component.

Proposed feature:

• Select one or more seeds for the patten (example: the existing instance of component "B").
• Select the seed position of the pattern (one of the component “A” instances).
• Select all or some of the other instances of component "A" to determinate the number of instances for component “B”.

Result:

The new pattern feature inserts and locates the correct number of component "B" instances based on the locations and orientations of selected "A" instances.

Such a feature would save this company a lot of time, while shrinking the Feature Manager Tree.

5.      Allow Import Diagnostics to be Used Anywhere

Benefits: Saves time when healing topological errors.

Figure 10.

The Import Diagnostics tool is amazing (read this article for an in-depth dive in its functionality). Unfortunately, it can be used only on parts that have only imported features. The moment you add any other feature, the tool no longer is available.

Allow the user to activate it at any time. Should the repair generate dangling sketches or features, that is fine; warn the users but allow them to proceed.

This would work well in conjunction with the next idea…

6.      AutoSolve Dangling Relations and Dimensions in Sketches and Drawings

Benefits: Faster and more consistent model changes while preserving the design intent.

Figure 11.

SOLIDWORKS 2023 added the amazing Auto Repair option for dangling mate references.

Figure 12.

​​​​​​​We should have the same option for dangling relations and dimensions in sketches and drawings.

Imagine you open a drawing that has a zillion dangling dimensions that look all right (they seem to be connected to the correct edges) and are only a bit yellowish-green. They are obviously sick.

Currently the solution is either deleting all and recreating them, or patiently dragging the reattach dots one by one and hope to catch them all.

What we need is an Auto Repair option for all dangling dimensions in a sketch or drawing view, or only for the selected dimensions/relations.

7.      Isolate Folders

Benefits: Improves UX consistency and enables users to save time working in assemblies.

Figure 13.

It’s currently possible to group select components and then isolate them in an assembly. However, it is not possible to select a folder (to effectively use this as a group select) and then isolate them. Adding Isolate to the Folder right click menu in the Feature Manager Tree would make user experience more consistent.

8.      Allow the Creation of BOMs Based on Visible Components

Benefits: Eliminates the need of using Configurations for creating BOMs in drawings. Dramatic improvement in speed and reduction of file size.

Figure 14.

Currently if you want a new BOM, you need a configuration. Each new configuration adds a new assembly in the RAM, drastically impacting drawings performance.

Many times users would like to simply create a BOM of all components visible in a drawing view. That can be achieved at least two different ways:

1. Add a filter in the BOM to remove all hidden components (or not).
2. Create BOM based on display states.

9.      Enhance the Large Design Review Mode for Applying Mates

Benefits: Increases the usability of existing functionality to improve the productivity of large assembly users.

Figure 15.

In 2019, SOLIDWORKS added the editing mode for assemblies opened in Large Design Review mode. What a great idea! If this would work properly, users could add new components and mate them inside huge assemblies.

The developers wrote the initial functionality and waited for the users to come back with feedback. So, here we are!

Currently:

1. Moving components inside an assembly opened in LDR mode is atrocious. Even when using the Move with Triad tool the movement is jittery. This needs improving.
2. The “applying mates” workflow can be drastically improved. At the very least we need the Component Preview Window to work in this mode.
3. Editing mates is hard. We need at the very least a rudimentary implementation of Breadcrumbs to allow the selection of mates of top-level components directly in the graphics area.

10.  MBD Applying Industry Standards

Benefits: Matches available options for MBD with what has already been implemented in the 2D drawing environment.

Figure 16.

Just as we can apply ANSI or ISO standards in drawings, users should be able to choose industry standards for our models.

This is similar to NADCA, SPI or custom setups based on specific vendors that intend to have the item manufactured. This idea would speed up the creation of GD&T based on those standards and hopefully, in some cases, only need to be checked or tweaked. It would also help with quickly evaluating different manufacturing methods to see what manufacturing method fits within the design requirements.

11. Allow Loading of Graphics-only Components in Resolved Assemblies

Benefits: Incredible speed and responsiveness when working with large assemblies.

Figure 17.

A huge assembly can open in 10 seconds in Large Design Review mode. It does that by loading only the graphics data of all its components.

When an assembly is resolved, something like that can be achieved partially using SpeedPak configurations but that is a lot of work and has many issues.

Users should be able to right-click on any component (a part or subassembly) and set it to one of these states:

• Resolved
• Lightweight
• Graphics

12. Enhance Markups

Benefits: Incredible speed and responsiveness when working with large assemblies.

Figure 18.

Markups are fantastic for saving paper and time when documenting parts, assemblies and drawings. Currently, there is one major obstacle in fully adopting markups: they cannot be anchored to a drawing entity, a drawing view or to the sheet.

Markups should get the same anchoring (attaching) functionality that an annotation has in a drawing, allowing them to be attached to a:

• Sheet
• Drawing view
• Component in drawing view
• Edge

13. Multiple Measurement: Allow Multiple Measurements Using Measure Tool

Benefits: Incredible speed and responsiveness when working with large assemblies.

Figure 19.

In CATIA, one can measure values between multiple entities without having to deselect the selected entities. The same feature should be extended to SOLIDWORKS, as this will save a lot of time. This can be further enhanced by giving an option to set first selection as the base selection and measurement values can be shown with other selected entities.

14. Add Super Features in SOLIDWORKS

Benefits: Makes edits faster and more robust, allowing quick changes of design Intent.

Figure 20.

We already have rudimentary super features in SOLIDWORKS, like the capability to convert a fillet to a chamfer and vice versa.

What we need are the type of super features that exist in xDesign:

Figure 21.

For example, when editing an existing Cut-Extrude, in the “Extrude” dialogue, the type of feature can be changed to “Add” to add solid material instead of a Cut. It can even be changed into a Thin Feature or a Surface Body.

15. Conditional Warnings When Opening Drawings

Benefits: Increases security, reduces errors.

Figure 22.

When opening a drawing, a warning should be shown when one of these conditions is met:

• There is at least one "no print layer" with at least one object on it.
• There are views excluded from an automatically rebuild.
• There are overwritten BOM cells.
• There are overwritten dimensions.
• There are hidden elements (dimensions, etc.) in the drawing.
• There are dissolved model views.

It should be possible to click on every entity that was found and jump/focus on it in the drawing.

16. Add Selection Filters (F5) for Features and Part Components

Benefits: Saves time during edits and makes the user interface more consistent.

Figure 23.

The F5 selection filter is amazing, a true time saver.

Figure 24.

Have you noticed the two most important types of entities missing in the options above? There is no filter for Features or for Components.

Why is this a huge problem for users? Here are two examples:

• A complex multibody part resulting from importing a STEP file. You want to select in the graphics area for the imported features to keep, then invert the selection and delete the rest.
• You cannot do that without using crazy workarounds. When you select in the graphics area, you think you selected features (you see them selected in the Feature Manager Tree) but you actually selected faces. If you invert the selection, you see this:

Figure 25.

Figure 26.

If only there was a filter that would allow selections of features in the graphics area.

The same limitation exists in assemblies. There is no selection filter for selecting part or subassembly components.

17. Right-clicking to Accept a Feature Should Not Open the Right Click Menu

Benefits: Saves time repeating commands.

Figure 27.

While the SOLIDWORKS user experience is very close to perfection, there are still areas where it is inconsistent. For example, when using Quick Mates, right-clicking to accept the mate instead of left-clicking on the green check mark causes the right-click menu to appear. Then you must click somewhere else to clear it.

18. Allow Copy with Mates to Add (or at Least Ignore) Advanced, Mechanical and Locked Mates

Benefits: Increases speed when working with assemblies.

Figure 28.

Currently, when using Copy with Mates tool, the user cannot select components which have some advanced, mechanical and locked mates. It would be great if these mates could either be accepted—or, at the very least, ignored—so their components could still be copied.

Figure 29.

19. Tell Us Which File is at Fault

Benefits: Saves time troubleshooting errors.

Figure 30.

As John Lhuillier stated: Sometimes, when SOLIDWORKS has a warning or error it is vague on which file or files is at fault. For example, when working on an assembly, you still get the occasional error that a part is in roll back and the assembly is not accessible. If it knows there is a part that's at fault, tell us which part it is.

20. Drawings: Show Manually Edited Dimensions in Different Color

Benefits: Saves time troubleshooting errors.

Figure 31.

If you edit dimensions and overwrite the automatically created value, show the dimension in different color, so everyone can see that it was overwritten. Plus, you can provide an option for the color.

Call for Action

The goal of this article is to make it very easy for any user to vote on a curated list of ideas. If you like any of them, voting is as simple as Clicking and Liking.

That being said, we are sure that once you see how easy is to read the rest of the ideas, you will spend more time in the Top Ten List Community and find even more ideas worth voting for.

Let’s help SOLIDWORKS improve by taking a few minutes to make our preferences known!

If you want to see which of the ideas made the Top Ten, please attend The Top Ten List Meet Up Session at 10:45 am ET on Wednesday, February 15^th, 2023 at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2023.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for TriMech Solutions, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 38 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, twice at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SOLIDWORKS User Group Network (SWUGN) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin.

Figure 1. Assembly open progress indicator reporting opening time in SW2023 vs SW 2022.

For many SOLIDWORKS users the best enhancement in SOLIDWORKS 2023 will be the ability to open large assemblies three to five times faster than before. For the drawings of such assemblies, the increase in performance is even more impressive: five to ten times faster. SOLIDWORKS is not one to brag, however. You will find little mention of this most important enhancement in the What’s New 2023 document.

There are very few things more frustrating for SOLIDWORKS users and their managers than having to wait for large assemblies to open, especially assemblies containing components with many complex imported features. Anyone who works in the automotive, aerospace or defense industries needs to incorporate components imported from STEP or IGES files that have thousands of bodies with tens of thousands of complex faces.

Throughout the years, especially during the submissions and voting phases for the 3DEXPERIENCE World Top Ten Ideas List, there were many votes for the SOLIDWORKS Product Definition (PD) Team to spend its R&D budget more on increasing performance and stability rather than on adding new features.

Improving performance is a nice request, easy to express, but vague. There is not one thing that needs addressing but rather several requiring distinct modules to be recoded. If all enhancement requests made by SOLIDWORKS users would be apples in a tree, the PD Team could focus on harvesting the biggest and ripest—not necessarily the lowest hanging.

Many performance-related enhancements have been unlocked in the last four years:

• 2019: Enhanced graphics performance for part and assemblies.
• 2019: Edit assemblies opened in Large Design Review Mode.
• 2020: Assemblies open faster when loading components with multiple configurations.
• 2020: Open drawings in seconds in Detailing mode.
• 2021: Enhanced Graphics Performance for drawings.
• 2022: Ability to open subassemblies and drawings in LDR and Detailing modes from assemblies opened in LDR mode.
• 2022: Enhanced Detailing mode for drawings.

What about the lowest hanging, ripest and beautiful golden apple, about which we wrote last August, where we reported on the impact of large number of face-level appearances on opening time and graphics-generation time?

Figure 2. The impact of face-level appearances on opening time and graphics computation time.

Why was SOLIDWORKS so slow in processing large numbers of face and body-level appearances? The explanation lies in how information is read from a part file and loaded into RAM during the assembly opening process.

Most users believe that if the size of a part file is 100 MB, SOLIDWORKS will copy that amount of data in the RAM and move on to load the next component of the assembly. That is not true.

First, a SOLIDWORKS file is compressed (think ZIP files) so it needs unzipping before it is read. Then SOLIDWORKS performs a large number of small reads from the part file in order to grab the information that is relevant for the assembly. Imagine this dialog between the software and the part file:

And even worse, all this work was done by a single core of the CPU. As shown in Figure 2, the result was a component loading time that was 20 times longer than when the part had no appearances.

With such a great potential for improving performance, why was this problem not submitted as an enhancement for the Top 10 list? Very simple: most users affected simply thought that this is “normal.” After all, everyone—other than readers of Engineersrule.com and the students of Trimech’s Large Assembly and Drawing Workshop—knows that SOLIDWORKS is slow when working with imported geometry. So, creating an enhancement request for this scenario did not happen.

When Fixing a Bug is Equivalent to Implementing an Enhancement

The good news is that enhancement requests are not the only ways to log ideas for improving the software. Sometimes a great enhancement can be reported under the form of a bug report (SPR).

This is what got logged under SPR 1227113: Graphics – Display, Parts – Open: Performance: File specific: 2014 file to 2021 file migration issue. This is a very cryptic description. Fortunately, the experienced applications engineers from the Technical Support team sensed the potential for unlocking performance, so they flagged the SPR as “critical.”

Figure 3. Solving a critical SPR turned into the biggest enhancement in SOLIDWORKS 2023.

Translation: Starting with SOLIDWORKS 2023 the performance is drastically increased for parts with large number of imported features and large number of face-level and body-level appearances, assemblies containing such parts and drawings containing such parts.

The performance increases for switching from drawing to model and back were noticed during the 2023 BETA Testing period:

Part and Assembly Environments:

• File open
• Configuration change
• Apply/Modify/Remove appearances
• Rollback/Roll forward
• Graphics Regeneration

Drawings:

• File open
• Drawing Views update
• Changing sheets
• Graphics Regeneration

It is interesting that after SOLIDWORKS 2023 was installed, we read the What’s New manual and found only three lines about assembly performance improvements:

Figure 4.

There is nothing else about reducing assembly opening times in this document.

Testing Setup

To test the new version, we chose a file known to greatly tax the CPU for both single-core and multi-core processing.

Figure 5.

All files were saved in SOLIDWORKS 2022 version.

Hardware

The workstation we chose is the latest 15” Dell Precision laptop with the following configuration:

Figure 6. Dell Precision 5570.

Software

For the test we used Windows 11 and installed both SOLIDWORKS 2022 SP4.0 and SOLIDWORKS 2023 PR1 on the workstation.

Measurables

To compare the differences in performance between SOLIDWORKS 2022 and 2023 we followed this protocol.

1. Ensured that the system settings will allow us to open the assembly in resolved mode.

Figure 7. System Options for SOLIDWORKS 2022.

Figure 8. System Settings for SOLIDWORKS 2023.

2. Reboot the machine.
3. Wait 10 minutes to ensure all starting processes are finalized.
4. Start SOLIDWORKS 2022.
5. Open the assembly in SOLIDWORKS 2022.
6. Capture Opening time from the Assembly Open Progress Indicator.

Figure 9. SOLIDWORKS 2022 SP4.0 - Open Time.

7. Capture Graphics Generation Time using Performance Evaluation/Assembly Rebuild Report.

Figure 10. SOLIDWORKS 2022 SP4.0 - graphics generation time.

8. Reboot the machine.
9. Wait 10 minutes to ensure all starting processes are finalized.
10. Start SOLIDWORKS 2023.
11. Open the assembly in SOLIDWORKS 2023.
12. Capture opening time from the Assembly Open Progress indicator.

Figure 11. SOLIDWORKS 2023 PR1 - Open time.

13. Capture graphics generation time using performance evaluation/assembly rebuild report.

Figure 12. SOLIDWORKS 2023 PR1 - graphics generation time.

The difference in performance is spectacular.

Figure 13. SOLIDWORKS 2023 is three times faster opening the assembly.

Figure 14. SOLIDWORKS 2023 computes graphics-triangles 18% faster than SOLIDWORKS 2022.

It is worth noting that for slower computers, the differential in performance is even higher. For example, doing the same test on a Dell Precision 5560, SOLIDWORKS 2023 opened the assembly four times faster than 2022.

SOLIDWORKS 2023 vs 2022 – Large Assembly Opening Race

If you want to see the two versions of SOLIDWORKS racing to open this assembly, watch this video. It is worth mentioning that recording the screen slowed down the opening process, thus the numbers differ from the screenshots above.

Summary

These are the types of enhancements users like the most. Simply upgrade SOLIDWORKS to the latest version and suddenly assembly files open several times faster, while the graphics computation lag diminishes significantly.

SOLIDWORKS 2023 is a game changer for working with such assemblies. Upgrade as soon as your IT department completes its evaluation of the new version.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for TriMech Solutions, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 33 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, twice at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

Figure 1. Alin's treasure chest of best practices, tips and tricks.

Starting with this article, I begin sharing the most sparkling ones with the readers of EngineersRule.com.

Browsing, Searching or Simply… Clicking

What is the first thing most users do upon starting SOLIDWORKS? Open a file, of course.

95 percent of users find the files they need to open by browsing through multiple folders. This is a costly process that can take tens of seconds and even minutes. The other 5 percent use some type of a search tool, either as part of PDM or the Windows operating system. Searching, especially using the PDM functionality, is much faster than browsing but still requires typing and multiple clicks.

But most of the time, the document we need to find has been used recently and could be found instantly using the versatile Recent Documents list. Therefore, the focus of this article is on digging up all the gems buried in this tool.

Accessing the Recent Documents List

The documents used recently can be found by accessing the Recent tab in the Welcome dialog box. This box appears automatically once SOLIDWORKS is loaded, unless at one time you checked the Do not show on startup box.

Figure 2. The Welcome dialog box.

The Welcome dialog box can be recalled at will by:

1. Pressing the Home icon on the standard toolbar.
2. Pressing the Home icon on the task pane.
3. Double-clicking on the empty SOLIDWORKS window.

Figure 3.

That being said, the fastest way to access the recent documents list is by using the R keyboard shortcut.

Figure 4.

Setting Up the Maximum Number of Recent Documents Displayed

The number of recent documents displayed is 50 by default. Users can increase or decrease this number from 1 to 100 by adjusting the corresponding system setting.

Figure 5.

I strongly recommend checking the box that allows for the inclusion of documents opened from other documents. Examples:

• Opening a component of an assembly.
• Opening a part or an assembly referred by a drawing view from a drawing.

Recent Documents Functionality

Filter documents by:

• Type: Parts, Assemblies and Drawings
• Top-level assemblies
• Name
• Combinations of all the above

See more information about the document:

• Type
• Size
• Date modified
• Owner (who has writing rights)
• Location

Pin documents at the top of the list.

Select the document in File Explorer.

Remove documents from the Recent Documents list:

• Individually
• All unpinned documents
• All documents

Open documents (writable or read-only):

• Resolved
• Quick view (for parts)
• Lightweight (assemblies and drawings)
• Large Design Review (assemblies)
• Detailing (drawings)
• Select opening configuration
• Select opening display state
• Access file references
• Load or not hidden components (assemblies)
• Force the loading of Speedpak configurations (assemblies and drawings)

Filtering Documents

The filter area is found at the top of the dialog box.

Figure 6. Display all recent documents.

The first three icons are toggle buttons. Any combination of part, assembly or drawing type can be displayed, as shown in Figures 6 through 12.

Figure 7. Display part documents only.

Figure 8. Display assembly documents only.

Figure 9. Display drawing documents only.

Figure 10. Display part and assembly documents.

Figure 11. Display part and drawings documents.

Figure 12. Display assembly and drawing documents.

A special toggle button is the Filter Top-Level Assemblies icon. Once activated, it will cancel the other three filters and will display only the assemblies that are not used as subassemblies in their own folder.

All four icons can be used in conjunction with the text input in the Filter by Name box. Documents matching the file type, which contains the string of characters from the Filters by Name box, will be displayed.

Figure 13. Filter by Name.

Figure 14. Filter Top-Level Assemblies.

Access More Information About a Document

Hover over a document tile to see:

• Document type
• Size
• Date modified
• Owner (who has writing rights)
• Location

Figure 15. Hover to see document details.

Pin and Unpin Documents

If users plan to work with the same document for a longer duration (such as hours, days or weeks), it is a good idea to pin it. To do that, hover over the document and select the pin icon.

Pinned documents will be moved to the top of the list, behind only previously pinned documents. These documents will not disappear from the list, regardless of how many other files are opened.

Figure 16. Pinned vs. unpinned documents.

Quickly Locate and Select Documents in File Explorer

One of the most useful functions of this tool is the ability to instantly trigger the opening of a File Explorer window in the folder where the document is located and with the document already selected.

For that, hover over a document tile and select Show in Folder.

Figure 17. Show in folder.

Remove Tiles from the Recent Documents List

At the end of a project, it is a good idea to declutter the Recent Documents list.

To remove individual tiles, right-click on the tile and select Remove.

Figure 18. Remove tiles from Recent Documents.

To remove multiple tiles, select the Remove drop-down button and select either:

• Unpinned items
• All items

Figure 19.

Advanced Opening Functionality

To turn on the advanced opening box, you can either:

• Hover over the document tile and select the double arrow from the bottom right corner of the tile (Figure 20).
• Right click on the tile and select Open with options (Figure 21).

Figure 20.

Figure 21.

The result is shown in Figure 22.

Be curious and select each drop-down menu in turn.

Open:

• Open resolved
• Open read-only

Figure 22.

Mode:

• Quick View and Resolved for parts (Figure 23).
• Large Design Review, Lightweight and Resolved for assemblies (Figure 24).
• Detailing, Lightweight and Resolved for drawings (Figure 25).

Figure 23.

Figure 24.

Figure 25.

For parts and assemblies, the document can be opened in a specified configuration or display state.

Figure 26.

It is worth noting that new configurations can be automatically created for assemblies upon opening if the <Advanced> option is selected (Figures 27 and 28).

Figure 27.

Figure 28.

Assemblies and drawings can be forced to automatically load all components in a Speedpak configuration, if one exists (Figure 29).

Figure 29.

To speed up the opening process, assemblies can be opened without the hidden components’ body data loaded. This works well when the assembly contains optimized display states.

Figure 30.

Access to file references is available for all document types. This allows the user to control which files are loaded as:

Figure 31.

Opening Documents from a Recent Used Folder

As new documents are opened, SOLIDWORKS collects their locations in the Recent Folders. These folders can also be pinned as needed.

Figure 32.

Once a folder is selected, SOLIDWORKS starts the File Open command in the selected folder.

Figure 33.

Summary

Most of the files you are opening when using SOLIDWORKS have already been opened in the recent past. Mastering the use of the Recent Documents list can make the difference between spending minutes browsing for them or locating and opening them in a couple of clicks.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the ebook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for TriMech Solutions, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 33 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, twice at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

In recognition of his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

In Formula One, most people are focusing on the Drivers Championship but the more important one is the Constructors Championship, on which basis millions of dollars are distributed to the teams the following year.

Similarly, in an engineering department, the productivity of the whole team is more important than the output of an individual CAD user.

Like the driver from a top team, for maximum efficiency a CAD power user needs the best software, fast hardware specs, professional training and an optimal environment.

It is interesting how many companies are focusing on only one or two of these factors and missing the opportunity to maximize efficiency for the whole team.

Examples of missed efficiencies:

1. The company invested in the software and hardware upgrades but neglected to professionally train the user on best practices, tools and techniques relevant to her/his job.  This is like asking someone off the street to drive a Formula One car. They might be able to start it and get it to its destination, but it will be a slow and painful process.
2. The company invested in software upgrades and training but uses hardware that is not optimal for working with their large assemblies. That would be like running a Formula One car, with the best pilot, on slicks in heavy rain.
3. The company invested in the proper software, hardware and training but each user prefers different settings, methods and techniques for getting the job done. There is no consistency in their deliverables. That would be like having a subpar team of mechanics and pit crew. You have a fast car and an excellent driver, but you cannot win any race because the car is not optimized for each race.

There are multiple articles written on the topics of software, hardware and training. This article will focus on one important aspect of the CAD environment: System Settings.

SOLIDWORKS was built on the principle that users will tell how the software should work—not the other way around. As a result, with over 6 million users of the software, the options for customizing one’s environment accommodates for the differences in needs, modeling techniques and hardware systems that exist in the SOLIDWORKS community. As usage needs shift from individual users to teams and companies, consistency in SOLIDWORKS settings and modeling techniques becomes more important than the personal preferences of each user.

Figure 1: Speed or consistency? How about both?

Accessing System Options

System Options in SOLIDWORKS can be accessed from multiple locations in the interface. Most users prefer the convenience of a single-click access using the gear-like icon on the standard toolbar.

Figure 2: System Options access icon.

If a document has already been opened, the dialog box has two tabs:

• System Options – customizing the usage of the software, independent of which file is opened.
• Document Properties – customizing specific settings related to the active document.

Good to Know

It is worth noting that depending on the SOLIDWORKS version you have installed, you might find certain settings under System Options in one version and under Document Properties in another.

Example: The setting for saving Detailing mode data for drawings is a system option in SOLIDWORKS 2020 and 2021 and a Document Property in SOLIDWORKS 2022 or newer.

Figure 3. Detailing Mode Data as a System Option in SOLIDWORKS 2021.

Figure 4. Detailing Mode Data as a Document Property in SOLIDWORKS 2022.

Finding a Specific System Option

Browsing to find a specific system option is a daunting task because there is no apparent logic for the order the options are listed in. As SOLIDWORKS evolved over the years, new options were added in various places with little care for the user experience.

As a result, new users could get lost trying to find a specific option by browsing.

Figure 5. A chaotic set of options, almost impossible to browse.

Fortunately, since 2013, the developers added the Search Options field, making finding any option a breeze (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Why browse when you can search?

Specialized Sets of System Settings

With such a large number of options to customize, professional CAD administrators need to examine the way their team uses SOLIDWORKS in depth in order to find the optimal set of settings that maximizes productivity while minimizing possible errors.

For a user, working with optimal system settings is akin to driving a Formula One car that has been tuned for a specific course and specific weather. Not having to worry about what could go wrong with the car allows the user to focus only on driving their CAD program the most efficient way.

Users who design parts with complex shapes would benefit from a different set of system settings than the mold designer or users of large assemblies and drawings.

For example, students in TriMech’s Large Assembly and Drawing workshop receive a reference document describing in detail a set of settings focused on optimization for:

• Minimizing opening times for large assemblies and drawings.

• Minimizing operational slowdowns after the model or drawing has been opened, caused by:

• Repetitive model rebuilds.
• Repetitive assembly updates.
• Repetitive graphics generation.
• Repetitive drawing views updates.

• Maximizing operational efficiency, by:

• Reducing repetitive interactions with the user interface.
• Eliminating unnecessary interactions with the user interface.
• Reducing steps needed for finding or accessing: Tools, Commands, Feature tree items, Modified dimensions.

• Reducing clutter on the Graphics area and the Feature tree.

• Maximizing operational security.

• Ensuring modeling consistency.

This article will focus on a selection of 20 system settings that are critical for one or more of these factors:

• Productivity
• Security
• Ease of use

1. Verification on Rebuild

This setting is probably to biggest slow-down factor for users of complex parts or large assemblies that is independent of the user experience with using SOLIDWORKS.

Figure 7. Uncheck for "Turbo" mode, check for "Safe" mode.

To understand the effect of this setting, it is worth remembering the importance of having solid and surface bodies with clean topology in your models. One of the typical factors that would invalidate a body in SOLIDWORKS is the intersection of its faces without generating an edge along the intersection curve. A typical error is that “a face is piercing trough the solid” when running the Import Diagnostics tool (see Figure 14 in the Import Diagnostic Tool—The Ultimate Guide article).

Imagine how much work the software needs to perform for validating every feature that adds or modifies faces. Ideally, any new or modified face should be checked for invalid piercing against all the faces of the model regardless of a common edge with the new face.

That is the effect of checking the “Verification on rebuild” setting. All faces will be involved in this validation process. Should the software spot a piercing condition, an error tag will appear on the feature that generated the invalid faces.

To save time, this setting can be unchecked. In this case, only the faces who share edges or vertices with the new faces will be checked during the rebuild process. The chances of such errors appearing are minuscule, but it is important for the user to be aware of how to spot them before more work is being performed on a flawed body.

To demonstrate this functionality, follow these steps:

1. Uncheck the “Verification on Rebuild” setting.
2. Create a simple part containing a solid body in the shape of a cube.
3. Apply a Shell feature as per Figure 8, by selecting the top face and applying a small thickness value.

Figure 8.

4. The result is shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Y-Axis is up.

5. Rotate the viewport 180 degrees about the X Axis. The opening of the box is now pointing down (Figure 10).

Figure 10. Y-Axis is down.

6. Apply a fillet on the top face with a radius larger than the thickness of the shell.

Figure 11.

The result is an invalid solid body. The faces created by the Fillet features are piercing through the inner faces of the Shell. Notice that there is no error displayed in the FeatureManager tree.

Figure 12. Faces piercing other faces and there is no error.

While such situations are very rare in practice, it is important for users to be trained to run the Check tool before a part is saved. This way the chances of the design progressing a lot on a flawed model are reduced.

7. Use the Check tool.

Figure 13.

Let’s see what happens when the “Verification on rebuild” is checked.

8. Check the “Verification on rebuild” system option.

Figure 14.

9. Press CTRL+Q to force-rebuild the model.

Note that the Fillet1 feature has an error and the model does not create the invalid faces.

Figure 15.

You might wonder why there is even an option for turning off “Verification on rebuild.” To understand its impact on performance, let’s consider a model with only two features but with many faces.

Figure 16. Only two features.

Figure 17. 8838 faces!

We will force-rebuild the part with “Verification on rebuild” checked and unchecked.

The rebuild times are measured by the Performance Evaluation tool and displayed in Figures 18 and 19.

Figure 18. Verification on rebuild unchecked.

Figure 19. Verification on rebuild checked.

The results clearly show how much longer the cuts, which generate all those faces, take when the thorough validation process is performed.

In this case, the model is processed three times faster with the setting unchecked. The slow-down factor grows exponentially with the number of faces so the impact on performance could be significant.

Assembly Impact

While this setting controls the checks that are performed during the rebuilding of parts, it could also drastically impact assembly performance if one or more of the following conditions are present:

• Components missing body data (that would trigger their rebuilding).
• Assembly features.
• In-context relations that require updating.
• Changing configurations when the configuration data is not pre-computed.

To mitigate these issues, when using Large Assembly Settings, the Verification on rebuild setting could be automatically unchecked when an assembly meets the conditions you defined for qualifying it as a large assembly.

Figure 20.

2. The combination of “Open referenced documents with read-only access” and “Don’t prompt to save read-only referenced documents (discard changes)”

The top two settings in the External References group of settings could be extremely useful for specific case studies. Unfortunately, when both are checked, the results are disastrous.

Figure 21. Do not do that!

To demonstrate how dangerous this combination of settings could be, let’s consider this case:

1. Check both settings.
2. Open an Assembly.

Figure 22.

3. Double-click on a face of a component to reveal its part dimensions.
4. Modify one or more dimensions.

If you had not dismissed the error message shown in Figure 23, you might have a chance of noticing the problem. In practice, many users dismiss such messages.

Figure 23.

5. Accept the change and rebuild.

Figure 24.

6. Save the assembly.

Notice that only the assembly file is listed in the list of models that will be saved.

Figure 25.

7. Press Save All.
8. Close the assembly.
9. Re-open the assembly.

Notice that none of the modifications we performed at the part level have been saved.

Figure 26.

Users have been known to lose several days of work in the assembly environment because of these two settings. While each of them is useful in specific use cases, together they spell disaster.

3. Purge Cached Configuration Data (Productivity)

About 10 years ago, during the Top 10 Ideas season, users with an AutoCAD background started a campaign for implementing a Purge function in SOLIDWORKS.

They argued that AutoCAD had a fantastic purge function that would quickly remove unused data and drastically reduce the file size. They thought SOLIDWORKS files were bloated and could use such a function.

There is a reason behind having a larger file in any CAD software, including AutoCAD and SOLIDWORKS. When computing a certain data set is time consuming, it might be more efficient to save that data in the file for future reuse. Avoiding computing unchanged data over and over could save users a lot of time.

Purging simpler AutoCAD 2D data might not have a huge impact on performance, since such data could be recomputed relatively fast. The situation is different for many SOLIDWORKS cases.

When developers considered what type of data could be safely “purged” from a SOLIDWORKS part or assembly file, they came up with configuration data.

Configurations in SOLIDWORKS could save the following type of data in the part or assembly file:

When thinking about configuration data, we can make an analogy between baking a cake and building a SOLIDWORKS model.

When baking a cake, you follow a recipe. Features, mates and custom properties are part of the SOLIDWORKS recipe. They must be saved in the file.

To create a variation of that cake, simply modify the recipe. The look and the taste will be different. A recipe is pure information, usually written on a piece of paper. It cannot be eaten.

To produce the actual cake, you need to bake it according to the recipe. It is the same thing with SOLIDWORKS: to generate the body data you have to build the model feature by feature. Moreover, to generate the graphics data you must tessellate the body data in tiny triangles and hand it over to the video card to display.

Body data and graphics data take a lot of space, so purging them may have sounded like a good idea. It is true that usually computing the graphics is fast. After all, it is always done when the file is loaded, so no big loss here (other than the inactive configurations would not be accessible in eDrawings or the Large Design Review mode).

At the first sight, even computing the body data is usually pretty fast at part level. Assemblies and drawings, however, are a different story.

When the body data for a component of the assembly is missing (think of a small bolt that the assembly requires in one of its inactive configurations), the part needs to be rebuilt during the loading phase of the assembly. After rebuilding, it is identified by the assembly as a changed component. That triggers the rebuilding of all subassemblies containing it all the way to the top level, thus drastically increasing the opening time.

As you can imagine, the slow down is even worse for the drawing of the assembly. Since the assembly is identified as modified all drawing views will require updating. Depending on the number and types of drawing views, this could be a painful experience.

When the assembly or drawing is saved, because this setting is checked, all inactive configurations will get their body data purged, so the unnecessary rebuilding will happen again the next time the files open.

Example:

The part file in Figure 27 has a rebuild time of 15.19 second.

Figure 27.

It has two configurations. As you could see in Figure 28, the inactive configuration does not have the body data computed.

Figure 28.

Opening an assembly calling for the Orange configuration takes 4 seconds. Opening an assembly that uses the Blue configuration takes 24 seconds, most of that taken by the rebuilding of the part, followed by the rebuilding of the assembly. That is six times slower.

Figure 29.

When SOLIDWORKS 2013 was released, everyone praised Purging Configuration Data as an extraordinary enhancement. IT departments were thrilled because SOLDIWORKS files shrunk instantaneously and free space on the server grew.

It took a while for complaints about performance to start to trickle in. Users did not notice the performance hit right away, and it was gradual. The more files were saved, the more body data was lost, affecting mostly the library files.

After 10 years, there are still many technicians, instructors and presenters that recommend checking this setting without thinking of the implications on user performance when working with large assemblies and drawings.

The moral of this story: don’t allow anyone to check the “Purge cached configuration data” setting.

4. Automatically Populate View Palette with Views

This is one of the settings that should be a document property and not a system option.

Figure 30.

The View Palette is an amazing tool for speeding up the creation of drawing views. SOLIDWORKS pre-computes a set of drawing views based on the:

• Default orientation views:

• Front
• Back
• Right
• Left
• Top
• Bottom
• ISO
• Isometric
• Dimetric
• Trimetric

• Current model orientation view.

• Saved orientation views.

• Saved section Views.

• Saved 3D views.

For example, for the model shown in Figure 31, the View Palette would automatically compute 17 views.

Figure 31.

Figure 32.

This is great for drawing of parts and small assemblies. For drawings of large assemblies, the amount of time spent computing and updating these views can be measured in minutes.

Figure 33. 21 minutes just to rebuild a set of potential drawing views that I no longer need?

This is a system option. When working with drawings of large assemblies you must remember to uncheck it. Hopefully, in a future version, this will become a document property, so you could deactivate it only for slow drawings.

5. Use Software OpenGL

This is one of those options that was introduced in SOLIDWORKS only for diagnostic purposes. When the graphics misbehave, you can check the setting to deactivate the hardware acceleration for the graphics and let the CPU do all the heavy work.

Notice that when a file is open, the option is greyed out and unselectable. Should you want to check or uncheck it, you need to close all files first.

Figure 34.

This option should never be checked in production by users. The response of the graphics would be horrendous, especially when working with complex parts or assemblies. You will encounter pronounced lag when spinning, panning or zooming the viewport. Also, any other operations like selecting or highlighting entities would have a visible lag.

6. Enhanced Graphics Performance

Before SOLIDWORKS 2019, the graphics engine was based on OpenGL 2.0. When manipulating the viewport (zoom, rotate, pan, select) the work was shared by the CPU and the GPU (video card). This engine was old and slow and was not optimized to take full advantage of the power of modern video cards. There was almost no difference in performance between an entry-level graphics card or high-level one.

Starting with SOLIDWORKS 2019, a new graphics engine based on OpenGL 4.5 was offered as an option, using much more the GPU power.

Figure 35.

SOLIDWORKS 2019 and 2020 had this implemented only for parts and assemblies. Starting with the 2021 version, the graphics performance for drawings is also enhanced.

With this setting checked, the performance scales predictably with the quality of the video card. Even for midrange professional video cards, the rate of frame per second increased to above the human eye perception when spinning, zooming or panning large assemblies or drawings.

Figure 36. Who can perceive a rate of 274 frames per second?

Moreover, with this option checked, there is no need to “dumb-down” the graphics during dynamic manipulations. It is actually better to maintain maximum level of detail throughout the operations to eliminate the computations required for creating blocky views before spinning or zooming starts, and then reverting to the full detail when manipulating the viewport stops. Ideally, you should have the settings shown in Figure 37.

Figure 37.

Be aware that if you have one of the latest NVIDIA video cards, in order to enable this functionality fully, you would have to download and install a software patch corresponding to the version of the software you are using.

Figure 38.

As usual with any new technology, there are growing pains. The stability of the new graphics engine improved with every release and every service pack but there are still bugs that could affect specific operations.

Some users report that sometimes random components of the assembly change their display style from shaded to wireframe. The solution is a forced refresh (CTRL+Q).

Other known issues affecting older versions:

• Sometimes pressing the ALT-key while mating does not hide the face the mouse is hovering over (fixed in SOLIDWORKS 2022).
• Sometimes right-clicking on a face when the Select Other command is active does not hide the selected face (fixed in SOLIDWORKS 2022).

If you find that such problems are frustrating, you can deactivate the new graphics engine by deselecting this setting. You will have to restart SOLIDWORKS for the change to take effect.

7. Use Specified Color for Changed Dimensions on Open

This is one of the most important options impacting productivity and security when performing revisions of drawings.

Figure 39.

When this option is checked, any modified dimension will be temporarily shown in orange (default color) when a drawing opens.

Example:

In the model shown in Figure 40, we will change one dimension from 70mm to 90mm and rebuild the part.

Figure 40.

Upon opening and updating the drawing, any modified dimension is shown in orange. Notice that not only the 90mm dimension is highlighted, but also the 185 mm one. Is the second change correct? Maybe not, but at least we were warned.

Figure 41.

If you hover over the text of an orange dimension, the old dimension value is revealed.

Figure 42.

Unlocking this functionality will make capturing changes in dimensions during revisions an easy task. Moreover, it will highlight any other changes in drawing dimensions, including unintended consequences of the model changes.

8. Scroll Selected Item into View

Having the ability to quickly see in the FeatureManager tree the feature or component item corresponding to the item you selected in the graphics area is very valuable.

Figure 43.

Unfortunately, when working with large assemblies, waiting for the item to scroll into view in the FeatureManager tree will be time consuming. Even worse, if you have SOLIDWORKS 2020 or older, attempting to isolate several components from an assembly opened in Large Design Review mode would trigger a lag that could last hours as SOLIDWORKS tries to bring each selected component into view one at a time).

The solution is checking and unchecking this setting as needed. While this operation is cumbersome, it could be easily sped-up by using a toggle macro, like the one presented at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021.

Figure 44. Scroll Selected Item into View OFF.

Figure 45. Scroll Selected Item into View ON.

9. Help Make SOLIDWORKS Products Better by Automatically Sending Your Log Files to DS SolidWorks

You may be reluctant to send any type of data to someone else but this might help allay your concerns about the amount and type of information that is sent to SOLIDWORKS and how the transfer of data could impact performance and security.

Figure 46.

• As stated in the SOLIDWORKS Customer Experience Improvement Program, the type of data sent to SOLIDWORKS is limited to:

• Computer manufacturer.
• CPU type, speed and number of cores.
• Video card manufacturer and driver version.
• Operating system and version.
• Version of installed operating system pre-requisites.
• IP address of Internet service provider.
• SOLIDWORKS version and serial number.
• SOLIDWORKS memory allocation and usage.
• SOLIDWORKS active user interface toolbars.
• SOLIDWORKS Add-Ins loaded.
• SOLIDWORKS session duration and CPU usage.
• SOLIDWORKS session user interface command sequence.

• The Customer Experience Improvement does not acquire information about you, your SOLIDWORKS designs or the usage of any other applications or activities.

Specifically, no model geometry, images or any other information that relates to the intellectual property of your designs that would enable the reconstruction of your design models.

No one will contact you unless you request it.

• Information contained in the log files is treated confidentially.
• The other major benefit for turning this setting on, is giving your company’s CAD admins access to a functional CAD Admin Dashboard. CAD admins now have access to the new SOLIDWORKS Admin Portal.

A good use case for this functionality is when multiple members of your team are experiencing unexplainable crashes. If all have this option checked, your VAR could ask SOLIDWORKS to comb through the logs sent by your users in order to find common causes triggering such events. Historically, this process solved many instability issues affecting multiple users.

10. Automatically Check and Update All Components in Large Design Review Mode

This is an important setting affecting the security of data displayed when an assembly is opened in Large Design Review mode.

The Large Design Review mode is a very powerful tool for significantly improving the productivity of large assembly users. About 50 percent of the most common tasks performed on a large assembly can be done in this mode. Opening assemblies in seconds and starting working is very tempting but with great power comes great responsibility.

Figure 47.

Opening assemblies so fast in this mode was made possible by using solely the graphics data saved in the assembly file. You could actually email someone else only the assembly file and they should be able to open it and access a lot of information about the assembly and its components. Starting with SOLIDWORKS 2020, they could even modify your assembly and send the revised version back to you.

The potential problem relies in the validity of the data saved in the assembly file. If a component or more were modified after the assembly was last saved, those changes will not be displayed in this mode since they were not captured in the current assembly file.

For users who have not received professional training in the use of the Large Design Review mode, it is imperative that this setting is checked. This way, when the assembly opens, SOLIDWORKS will dedicate a secondary CPU core to check and update the graphics data for all components. That is usually performed fast if the component files are on your local drive.

Also, considering that the checking operation is performed by a secondary core, you can continue working with the assembly during this process.

11. Display Temporary Axes Upon Hover Over Cylindrical Faces

This was one of the Top Ten List ideas voted a year ago. It was promptly implemented in SOLIDWORKS 2022.

Figure 48.

However, the initial implementation created all kind of problems:

• When attempting to select a small cylindrical face, the temporary axis would be selected instead.
• The breadcrumbs would not work properly.
• In an assembly, hovering over a face of an instance of a component would show the temporary axis for all instances of that component.

Users raised these issues on the SOLIDWORKS forum and the Product Definition team reacted fast by including this new setting in SOLIDWORKS 2022 SP 2.0.

A temporary axis is a child of a face, so using it in mates would be counterproductive. You might as well uncheck this option unless you have a specific use case where it would be beneficial.

12. Show Breadcrumbs on Selection

Breadcrumbs are the best thing added to SOLIDWORKS since… sliced bread.

Figure 49.

They free the user from the tyranny of the FeatureManager tree. When selecting a face, the user can access any entity related to that face directly in the graphics area. The context toolbar and right-mouse-button menu work like a charm with each selection level.

Figure 50. Initial selection of a face.

Figure 51. Accessing the mates of the first level subassembly.

While it might be tempting to also check the “Show breadcrumbs at mouse pointer” box, we recommend using instead the “D” keyboard shortcut for bringing breadcrumbs near the cursor.

The automatic behavior triggered by the second checkbox pushes the context toolbar away from the cursor and unnecessarily complicates the graphics area.

13. Dynamic Highlight from Graphics View

This is one of the most useful settings in SOLIDWORKS and is, at the same time, the most unchecked option in the user community.

Figure 52.

When checked, the user gets instant confirmation about which entity will be selected by simply hovering over it. This is very useful when selecting entities that are close to each other or otherwise hard to select.

Figure 53. I wanted to select that edge. By painting it orange, SOLIDWORKS confirmed that my selection will work as intended.

14. Include Documents Opened from Other Documents

The Recent Documents portal is a fantastic time saver when working with a set of files and folders for a long time.

Figure 54.

By pressing “R” you can access up to 100 recently opened files. Hovering over any of the thumbnails will provide a wealth of information.

Figure 55.

As you experiment with this functionality, attempt to pin and unpin a file, try the Show in Folder command or click on the double arrow on the bottom right of a thumbnail.

What about components that you open directly from an assembly containing them? If you need to see them added to this portal, check the option listed in Figure 54.

15. Include Detailing Mode Data When Saving (SOLIDWORKS 2020 and 2021)

While this setting is available as a system option only in SOLIDWORKS 2020 and 2021, its state could have a critical impact on:

• Opening drawings speed.
• Saving drawings time.
• Drawings file size.

Figure 56.

As we wrote in the Fast Drawings of Slow Assemblies article, the detailing mode revolutionized working with large drawings by allowing the drawings to open without their models in memory.

“Unfortunately, with improved functionality, more data needed to be written in the drawing file. If the drawing data was not optimized for this use, the saving operation took much longer than expected (hours versus seconds),” says Mark Johnson, the SOLIDWORKS User Success Engineering Director.

“The way Detailing mode works is every edge is assigned a unique silhouette edgeID by SOLIDWORKS behind the scenes.  High Quality Hidden Lines Removed (HLR) drawing views already have these edge IDs, so drawings save performance for HLR drawings is the same in 2020/2021 and older versions.”

“These unique silhouette edgeIDs are not present for Shaded or Shaded with Edges.  As a result, upon save, these edgeIDs must be generated and assigned to all shaded with edges views across all sheets.”

“The result is the potential for a much slower save of an SLDDRW in 2020/2021 vs 2019 and older.”

In summary, if a drawing view could not be set as a high-quality view, the information related to model edges could not be efficiently written in the drawing file. That makes sense considering that in draft quality views, the edges are computed based on the graphics-triangles extracted by tessellating the mathematical body data of the model. Imagine the sheer number of tiny triangles edges that must be stored for each single edge.

It is worth noting that if your drawings illustrate components with imported geometry errors, the drawing views will always be draft quality and the saving operation will suffer.

The problem was discovered very late and SOLIDWORKS R&D came up with a drastic solution: a System Setting that would enable users to decide if the data required for the Detailing mode will be saved or not saved in the drawing file.”

Figure 57.

The solution was not ideal for many reasons:

• It applies to all drawings on that system, regardless of whether they are small or large or if they have high quality or draft quality views.
• It could impact the consistency of the drawing files in a company. Imagine if one user has the setting checked and another unchecked. When the first user saves the drawing, the detailing data is saved. When the second user opens and saves the drawing, the data is scrubbed—or vice versa.”

SOLIDWORKS 2022 implemented a much better solution by moving this option to the document properties. This way, the users could have the Detailing mode data not saved for most of the drawings (small drawings would never use this functionality) and saved for large drawings.

Figure 58.

16. Part/Assembly Tangent Edge Display – As Phantom

Some of the most frequent checks that a complex part designer performs when modeling is Deviation Analysis, Curvature Analysis or Zebra Stripes display to ensure that certain faces are tangent to each other.

Fortunately, by checking this option, the software will automatically provide visual feedback about tangencies in the model by displaying the edges shared by tangent faces in phantom font.

Figure 59.

Instantly seeing the result of any edits is a great time saver.

Figure 60.

17. Scale Sketch on First Dimension Creation

Checking this option eliminates the danger of sketch entities jumping all over the place when the first dimension is applied.

Figure 61.

SOLIDWORKS simply scales all entities in the sketch with the ratio between the original length of the entity that is dimensioned and the dimension value. It is a thing of beauty.

18. Search While Typing (Incremental Search)

Search is superbly implemented in SOLIDWORKS. When working with assemblies having thousands of components with many features and custom properties, searching for a specific entity can be time consuming. By unchecking this setting, users ensure they will not experience lag when typing the search criteria.

Figure 62.

19. Don’t Prompt to Save Read-Only Referenced Documents (Discard Changes)

While this option should never be checked simultaneously with the “Open referenced documents with read-only access,” on its own it is a great time saver, especially for PDM users.

Figure 63.

When working with large assemblies or drawings, small changes could trigger updates at the component level without actually changing their geometry. Moreover, for many users, such components are loaded from a read-only library, or they have not been checked out from a PDM vault.

If this option is not selected, the saving time will be increased significantly as SOLIDWORKS checks and displays the list with all perceived modified components. In reality, maybe only the main assembly and one or two subassemblies had to be saved, so ignoring the read-only files could greatly improve efficiency.

20. Create Configuration Tables on Open

Have you read about the amazing new configuration tables enhancement introduced in SOLIDWORKS 2022 and could not find it in your models? Turning this option on will allow the creation of such tables on existing files.

Figure 64.

Figure 65.

Summary

The System Settings are the foundation of SOLIDWORKS usage. An optimal set of settings positions any user to achieve maximum efficiency for their specific use cases.

This is even more important when considering team-level consistency. CAD admins could even lock certain system settings using Administrative Image Option Settings.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for TriMech Solutions, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 33 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, twice at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community. In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

• Large number of faces that have appearances applied at face-level (the number of faces is important, not the number of appearances).
• Large number of bodies, especially surface bodies.

In the present article, we are presenting one more factor that impacts performance: unnecessary geometrical and topological complexity.

Table 1. Factors that contribute to system slow down.

As shown in Table 1, for each factor we cover:

• Diagnostic tools and techniques.
• Optimization techniques.
• Return on investment (time spent fixing the problem versus the initial performance impact).

A Dell Precision 5560 with an Intel Core i7-11850H CPU, 64 GB RAM and a NVME SSD was used to extract results.

3. Complex Geometry and/or Topology

Diagnostic Tools

A high degree of geometry complexity can impact performance in multiple areas:

• File size
• Part opening time (when the part opens in its own window)
• Assembly loading time (when the part is used as a component of an assembly)
• Graphics generation time
• Drawing view update time
• Slow viewport manipulation (zoom, pan, rotate)

To identify if a part is responsible for any of these slow-downs, different diagnostic tools are available.

File Size

There are many ways to get the file size reported, but the old technique of using the File Size from the Windows File Explorer is still the best.

Figure 2.

Part Opening Time

Sometimes we need to open the part file in its own window. The opening time is recorded as a file property when the file is saved. In order to find out how long it took for the file to open, you need to save it.

The open time can be found by hovering with the mouse over the part file in File Explorer and recording the Last Open Time value from the pop-up.

Figure 3.

Alternatively, a new column can be added to the File Explorer, listing the open time for all files in the folder. To add this column, follow these steps:

Right click on any column and select More.

Figure 4.

Check the SW Open Time box and click OK.

Figure 5.

The advantage of this tool is that the files can be sorted by the open time values.

Figure 6.

Assembly Open Time

To gauge how much a part takes to load as a component of an assembly, we can use one of these two tools:

• Performance Evaluation
• Assembly Visualization

Performance Evaluation – Details of the Open Document File

Figure 7.

The list contains all files that take longer than 0.1 second to load. Notice the Open File buttons, which allows for fast examination of the major culprits.

The Show These Files button gives you access to the whole list.

Figure 8.

From here you can open one or more documents simultaneously, save, copy or print the list.

Assembly Visualization – SW Open Time

Access the Assembly Visualization tool from the Evaluation tab in CommandManager or from the Tools menu.

By default, the three columns listed would be File Name, Quantity and Mass. You can change the reported value in the third column or add a new column by selecting the right arrow (Figure 9).

Figure 9.

Let’s replace the Mass values with SW-Open Time. Click More…

Figure 10.

From the Select another property dropdown, select SW-Open Time.

Figure 11.

The result is shown in Figure 12. Notice that in order to sort the part files based on this criterion, you need to select the column’s header.

Figure 12.

Both rollback bars from the top and bottom can be used for isolating components in the graphics area, for further examination.

Figure 13.

Graphics Generation Time

The impact of complex geometry on graphics computation can be computed by inserting the part as one component in a dummy assembly and then using the Assembly Rebuild report from inside the Performance Evaluation tool to read the Generation Graphics value.

Figure 14.

Bonus Material

For a detailed guide in the use of Performance Evaluation you can read this article: Powerful Time Saver: The Performance Evaluation Tool.

For a detailed guide in the use of Assembly Visualization you can read this article: The X-Ray Machine for SOLIDWORKS Assemblies.

Drawing Update Time

Create a dummy drawing of the part, containing all the drawing views that you usually use in an assembly drawing containing this part as a component.

For example, for the part used to extract the data from Figure 14, a drawing containing two model views, two projected views and a section view, takes 7.4 second to update.

Figure 15.

Simplification Methods

When used as components of large assemblies, parts imported from STEP files could have a lot of unnecessary details. For example, at the top-level assembly only the exterior of the part shown in Figure 16 is required. The inner faces will never be visible at that level.

Figure 16.

In the following case studies, the inner faces we attempt to remove are the 128 faces shown in red in Figure 17.

Figure 17. Faces to be removed are shown in red.

Should the optimization operation be successful, we would eliminate about 13,500 graphics triangles (Figure 18).

Figure 18. Care to count the graphics-triangles?

Your definition of an inner face may differ from the SOLIDWORKS’ definition. As long as a face has contact to the “outside air” it will most likely be identified by SOLIDWORKS as an outer (or external) face. That is why your input is required to perform quick simplification processes on such parts.

We will attempt to remove the inner faces of this pump using several tools and techniques:

• Surface modeling and direct editing tools.
• Defeature simplify.
• The Intersect tool.

3.1. Surface Modeling and Direct Editing Tools

In this case study, we will manually select the inner faces and delete them, using the Delete and Patch option of the Delete Face command.

Easy, right? Unfortunately, there are 128 faces to select and none of the automatic selection tools such as Select Tangent Faces would identify all of them. Holding the CTRL key and selecting them one by one would be tedious. That is why the technique we will cover next is so valuable. It works in cases where you have tens of thousands of inner faces. We will simply temporarily separate the inner faces into their own body, then isolate and select them in bulk in order to automatically create a selection set.

Step 1 (optional)

To make the selection easier, show two viewports on the screen.

Figure 19.

Step 2 (optional)

Unlink the two viewports, so they can be manipulated independently.

Figure 20.

Step 3 (optional)

Reorient the viewports to show the connections between the outer and inner faces.

Figure 21.

Step 4

Using the Delete Face command, delete the connecting faces.

Figure 22.

At this point you will have multiple surface bodies, one of which contains all inner faces.

Step 5

Using the Delete/Keep Bodies command, keep only the surface body containing the inner faces. Alternatively, just Isolate the same body.

Figure 23. Using Delete/Keep Bodies command.

Figure 24. Using Isolate.

The goal is to have only the faces we need to select visible.

Step 6

Press F5 to reveal the Entities Filter toolbar and activate the Face Filter. Alternatively, press X on your keyboard (the ON/OFF switch for the Face Filter).

Figure 25.

Step 7

Press CTRL + A. Because the Face Filter is active, SOLIDWORKS selects all visible faces in the model.

Figure 26.

Step 9

Right Click on the empty area and using the Selection Tools submenu of the right mouse button menu, create a new selection set.

Figure 27.

Step 10 (optional)

Rename the new selection set Inner Faces.

Figure 28.

Step 11

Delete the DeleteFace1 feature in the FeatureManager tree and all its children. The FaceID will not be changed for the faces collected in the selection set.

Figure 29.

Step 12

Select the Inner Faces selection set, and use the Delete Face command with the Delete and Patch option.

Figure 30.

The result is nothing short of miraculous. The inner faces are gone, and their neighbors have regenerated themselves.

Figure 31.

3.2. Case Study: Using Intersect to Fill Complex Cavities

The Intersect tool is ideal for filling cavities, as long as they are completely capped with faces of solid or surface bodies or planes.

When the openings are planar, the best tool for capping them is Planar Surface. We love it because it can use multiple contours in various locations of the part. Plus, it does not require sketches.

Step 1

Start the Planar Surface command and select the edges of all openings. Do not hesitate to use the Magnifying Glass “G”-shortcutto ensure you select the correct ones.

Figure 32.

Just in case you get an error like the one shown below in Figure 33, please report it to your VAR as a bug and complete the planar surfaces using multiple features (Figure 34).

Figure 33. There is nothing wrong with the selections. Shown here is a bug that can be easily circumvented by creating an extra Planar Surface feature to cap the opening.

Figure 34. Sometimes we need an extra step...

At this point, all the openings have been closed. It is worth noting that planes are excellent for closing multiple planar openings (Figure 35).

Figure 35.

Step 2

Start the Intersect command, select all solid and surface bodies existing in the part, choose Create both as the option and select the Intersect button.

Figure 36.

Step 3

Make sure the Merge result box is checked and complete the command. Optionally, check the Consume surfaces box in order to close the openings.

Figure 37.

And we are done!

Figure 38.

3.3. Case Study: Using Defeature Simplify in Parts

In assemblies, the Defeature tool has two flavors:

• Simplify – used for assemblies with a small number of components, where the main goal is removing small faces and cavities.
• Silhouette – used for large assemblies, where the main goal is drastically simplifying geometry complexity.

As you saw in the previous articles, the Defeature Silhouette tool is superb for quickly simplifying complex assemblies. Unfortunately, as of SOLIDWORKS 2022, we do not have access to this tool inside the part environment. However, a similar command called Defeature Simplify is available but in a stripped-down version of the same tool found inside an assembly.

As we will see, this tool is missing one small detail that makes using it very cumbersome.

Step 1

From the Tools menu, select the Defeature tool. Alternatively, use the Command Search.

Figure 39.

Figure 40. Using the Shortcut toolbar to access the command search.

Step 2

The first screen lets you select faces for preservation. Notice that the box is called Features to Keep, but that is misleading since we have only one Imported feature and we want to modify it by deleting the inner faces.

In this case, we would like to preserve all mounting holes. All of them are under 10 mm, so let’s use this option to select all holes between 0 and 10 mm, as shown in Figure 41.

Figure 41.

If needed, other small faces could be selected for preservation.

Step 3

Click Next (right arrow).

Figure 42.

Step 4

SOLIDWORKS splits the screen and shows on the right viewport a preview of how the defeatured part will look like. Looks like it could not close all the openings.

You could try to use the rudimentary sectioning tool built inside the command, but you will discover there is no triad to let you move to the section plane. To offset the section plane, you must input dimensions and pray that the moved plane intersects the part—often an exercise in frustration, as shown below.

Figure 43.

The Missing 5% of the Defeature Simplify Tool

Step 5 (wishful thinking)

Remove other items.

The end is in sight, but there is a chasm in the way—and we are denied a bridge across it.

We have an option to select other faces for removal. Let’s try to select all the faces tangential to the one we will select.

Figure 44.

You would expect all tangent faces to populate the Items to Remove box. Instead, you get more options—for removing faces, features or bodies. Select the face icon from Figure 45, and watch as everything goes wrong.

When hovering over the face icon, the caption reads Select Body.

Figure 45.

If you click on the icon, it is only the last face in the tangency chain that gets selected.

Figure 46.

Therefore, these faces cannot be automatically selected. Even if we try to use a selection set, the target pop-up from Figure 45 makes sure only one face from the selection set is retained.

Conclusion

For this specific case study, Defeature Simplify would work well if its workflow was slightly corrected. When multiple faces are selected, the target toolbar should evaluate all of them!

3.4. Case Study: Using Defeature Silhouette in Multibody Parts

The volume pump from the previous case studies will not work well with the Silhouette option of the Defeature tool, because we want to retain the complex outer faces.

Instead, we will use the Sectional Valve used in the previous articles, but this time imported as a multibody part.

Figure 47. We do not need 500 bodies for a simple space claim usage.

As we stated earlier, Defeature Silhouette is available only in the assembly environment—so, in order to use it, we need to insert our part in a dummy assembly.

Step 1

Insert the part into an empty assembly. A quick way to do that is using the Make Assembly from Part option.

Figure 48.

Figure 49.

Step 2

Start the Defeature tool.

Figure 50.

Step 3

Select the Simplify option.

Figure 51.

Step 4

From here, we will repeat the steps used in the previous articles, but instead of using the components selection box, we will use the bodies selection box. The following screenshots show various options for simplifying the bodies we want to retain for the space claim.

Figure 52.

Figure 53.

Figure 54.

Step 5

Select Next.

Figure 55.

Step 6

Use the option Save as a new document and select OK.

Figure 56.

After the new part file is created (right) the dummy assembly can be discarded.

Figure 57.

Further Optimization

To further optimize the part, it is worth roundtripping it through Parasolid to eliminate intersect, delete face and defeatured features.

Summary

With the continual enhancements in hardware and software, SOLIDWORKS can handle many parts with complex geometry with little impact on performance. But with enough parts, assembly or drawing performance will be affected, and therefore your productivity will take a hit. Different diagnostic tools can be used to pinpoint the parts that are affecting performance.

We covered multiple methods for simplifying complex geometry. These methods can be applied successively until the user regains performance.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for TriMech Solutions, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 33 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, twice at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community. In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

You can read more about the voting process in last month’s article, Here’s What to Vote for in the Next SOLIDWORKS.

The Presenters

The session lived up to its hype, starting with the list of presenters which included:

• Gian Paolo Bassi, 3DEXPERIENCE Works Senior Vice President
• Manish Kumar, CEO of SOLIDWORKS
• John Sweeney, Senior Director, SOLIDWORKS Product Development
• Bruce Holway, Director, SOLIDWORKS Product Definition

Figure 1. The session was presented by the Who's-Who of SOLIDWORKS.

SOLIDWORKS is Listening to Its Users

Bruce Holway started the show by listing all the ways that SOLIDWORKS listens to its users:

• Alpha testing (Product Definition team)
• Usability testing (User Experience team)
• Enhancement requests (thousands every year)
• Reading and participating in Forum discussions (over 100,000 threads)
• Customer visits (tens every year)
• User group meetings (SWUGN)
• Meetings and conversations with VAR AEs
• Technical support cases
• The Top Ten List

A Comprehensive History of The Top Ten List

Since the topic of the session was the Top Ten List, Bruce also presented a list of all the ideas voted in the Top Ten List from 2001 to 2021.

It was interesting to see how many of these ideas have been implemented in SOLIDWORKS. A few interesting stats:

• Every year, 20 to 40 percent of the previous year’s ideas were implemented. An example from 2017:

Figure 2. A throwback to SOLIDWORKS World 2017, when the CEO lost his head for a second.

• By 2021, 65 percent from all ideas voted in the Top Ten List between 2001 and 2021 have been already implemented.

Figure 3. 65 percent implementation rate for all concrete ideas.

• In 2022, 16 enhancements that made it in the Top Ten list in the past became standard SOLIDWORKS functionality.

Figure 4. The Top Ten List continues to be a source of inspiration for the SOLIDWORKS Product Definition Team.

The Top Eleven List – 3DEXPERIENCE WORLD 2022

Due to the fact that three ideas received a similar number of votes, Bruce’s team decided to add an eleventh idea to the winning list. This is the 3DEXPERIENCE WORLD 2022 Top Eleven Ideas List:

Tied for 9^th Place: PDM - Correct the Problems with Different Screen Resolutions (4K-Monitors)

Submitted by: Lard Uhlenhaut

Votes: 48

Figure 5. In the 9^th to 11th place...

As Bruce said, this is one area where SOLIDWORKS will focus next. Afterall, most professional monitors nowadays are 4K.

Tied for 9^th Place: Breakout Counterbores to Avoid Zero Thickness Condition

Submitted by: Dave Laban

Votes: 48

Figure 6. In the 9^th to 11th place...

How many times have you tried to place a counterbore hole and received an error due to the tangency between the cylindrical face of the whole and the edge of another face? The workaround was to create a breakout counterbore manually, using the Extrude-Cut feature. Hopefully, in the near future, this operation will be automated as part of the Hole Wizard feature.

Tied for 9^th Place: Allow More Options for Attaching Entities to Other Entities in Drawings

Submitted by: Alin Vargatu on behalf of his client Hugo Breton

Votes: 48

Note: This idea was promoted in last month’s article. Many thanks to those of you who voted for it.

Figure 7. In the 9th to 11th place...

As we wrote in the previous article, this idea will make detailing and revising drawings faster and easier.

8^th Place: Bidirectional Linear Patterns

Submitted by: Deepak Gupta

Votes: 49

Figure 8. In the 8th place.

Deepak is always focusing on speed and consistency between similar SOLIDWORKS features. This idea will certainly improve both consistency and operational speed.

7^th Place: Linear Patterns Allow Staggers

Submitted by: Alin Vargatu on behalf of his client Stephan D’Aoust

Votes: 50

Note: This idea was promoted in last month’s article. Many thanks to those of you who voted for it.

Figure 9. In the 7th place.

As many users commented, this functionality is a must in many industries, including aerospace and construction.

6^th Place: Linear Patterns Allow Staggers

Submitted by: Glen Schroeder

Votes: 52

Figure 10. In the 6th place.

Another time saver from Schroeder. For SOLIDWORKS users, every click counts. This idea will enable them to focus on design intent, not on clicks. It will also eliminate a common source of frustration.

5^th Place: User Interface: Show/ Hide All Selected Entities/ Features In Same Step

Submitted by: Deepak Gupta

Votes: 53

Figure 11. In the 5th place.

There is little more frustrating than selecting multiple entities in bulk in the Feature Manager (e.g. sketches, planes, axes…), pressing the Hide/Show button and having only one group of entities appearing or disappearing. This functionality should have been implemented in the previous millennium.

4^th Place: Provide A Better Way of Re-Attaching Dangling Dimensions

Submitted by: John Lhuillier

Votes: 58

Note: This idea was promoted by us in last month’s article. Many thanks to those of you who voted for it.

Figure 12. In the 4th place.

SOLIDWORKS has decent tools for re-attaching dimensions, but they are not intelligent. For example, a linear dimension can be defined by selecting:

• One line
• Two parallel lines
• A line and a point
• Two points
• Two parallel faces or planes
• A line and a plane or planar face
• A point and a plane or planar face

… and the list goes on and on.

When such a dimension goes dangling, the success of re-attaching it depends on how quickly the user can guess the dimensioning scheme. Lhuillier’s idea suggests simplifying the re-attaching process, making it independent of the original mating scheme.

3^rd Place: Assembly Cut-Extrude to Have the Same End-Conditions As A Cut-Extrude in Parts

Submitted by: Alin Vargatu on behalf of his client Hugo Breton

Votes: 74

Figure 13. Bronze medal.

Note: This functionality has already been implemented in the Alpha version of SOLIDWORKS 2023, as presented in the General Session - Day 3:

Figure 14. Watch the video.

2^nd Place: More Functionality for Breadcrumbs

Submitted by: Alin Vargatu on behalf of his client Hugo Breton

Votes: 78

Note: This idea was promoted in last month’s article. Many thanks to those of you who voted for it.

Figure 15. Silver medal.

The breadcrumbs are already formidable tools in the hands of power-users. Adding this functionality will add the missing 5 percent of its ideal functionality.

1^st Place: When Parent Features Are Suppressed, Children Should Have the Option to Remain Unsuppressed and Dangling or Having the External Relations Frozen

Submitted by: Alin Vargatu on behalf of his client Hugo Breton

Votes: 79

Note: This idea was promoted in last month’s article. Many thanks to those of you who voted for it.

Figure 16. Gold medal.

Again, this idea is about the consistency of the software. When the tool behaves so elegantly when deleting entities and so clunky when suppressing them, the users get frustrated. Let’s eliminate the source of frustration.

SOLIDWORKS Quality and Performance Focus

Like almost every year, there were ideas recommending improvements in software performance and quality. This year, these ideas were submitted by Dave Laban, and both got a significant number of votes.

John Sweeney shared information about SOLIDWORKS’ efforts in addressing them. It was interesting to see how many resources his team is dedicating to quality and performance in the last two releases. Killing bugs and improving performance scored 64 percent in SW 2022.

Figure 17. The Performance and Quality of the software increases every year.

With a goal of reducing the backlog of reported bugs by 90 percent, Sweeney’s team focused on the ones with the biggest severity and the largest number of users affected.

SOLIDWORKS Quality Initiative

Figure 18. Let's kill the biggest, baddest bugs first.

Comparing the 2021 release to the 2018 one, the goal of reducing the backlog by 90 percent has been achieved.

Figure 19. 10 percent remaining...

Even more interesting, the new bugs (introduced by the new releases of SOLIDWORKS) were also reduced in numbers. From 2015 to 2021, this number was reduced by 23 percent.

Figure 20. A 23 percent reduction in new bugs.

SOLIDWORKS Performance Initiative

Along with reducing bugs, the SOLIDWORKS R&D Team started an ambitious program of re-writing big chunks of the old code of the software that was not optimized for maximum performance. John highlighted just a few of the areas which saw the biggest improvements in performance.

Figure 21. Speed, speed and more speed is what users want.

Based on our experience using all versions of SOLIDWORKS from 2018 to 2022 to produce and edit large assemblies and drawings, we can confirm that the improvements in speed are real and quite impressive. Benchmarking these improvements is a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Past articles on these improvements:

• 20 to 30 Times Faster Graphics Response with SOLIDWORKS 2019’s New Graphics Engine
• A Potential Game Changer: No More Pain Detailing Large Drawings.
• Large Assemblies Open Faster Than Ever in SOLIDWORKS 2020
• Fast Drawings of Slow Assemblies

We will be starting a benchmarking exercise focused on real-life use cases for large assemblies and drawings. The results will be revealed in a future article.

The SOLIDWORKS Commitment for Developing SOLIDWORKS Indefinitely

The second half of the presentation reinforced SOLIDWORKS’ commitment to further developing SOLIDWORKS.

Gian Paolo Bassi stated, “I hope you understood our focus on developing SOLIDWORKS and the message we bring you is very clear, that we are doubling our commitment to you as users, to the future of SOLIDWORKS, and at the same time, the expansion of SOLIDWORKS into new domains that we are sure all of you will enjoy and which will make you more productive and more successful in your professional lives.”

Manish Kumar, the new SOLIDWORKS CEO added, “A prize should be awarded to John and his team, because what they accomplished is amazing. At this point every developer has a short list of bugs that he is responsible for solving, so planning is straightforward. This was not possible before John started this quality initiative. The number of escalations are also down this year to the minimum ever recorded.”

A “Real Prize” for the Users Who Submitted Top Ten Ideas

Gian Paolo Bassi revealed that he will award prizes (to be announced soon) to all users who submitted ideas that were voted in the Top Ten List this year. At this time, we do not know what these prizes will look like, but we were told they are in the works.

Call for Action: Join the SOLIDWORKS 2023 Beta Program.

For those of you who cannot wait to try the latest enhancements in the software, we recommend joining the Beta program that starts in early June. You will be able to download and install an early version of SOLIDWORKS 2023 and test it with your own files, replicating your own methods and processes.

This is the best way to catch the bugs that affect you and your team early, in a stage where Sweeney’s team can be the most effective in addressing any problem.

Learn more about the new enhancements in SOLIDWORKS 2022 with the ebook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for TriMech Solutions, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 33 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, twice at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

In recognition for active engagement in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

Figure 1. Top 10 list – 2022.

As we stated in the last year’s article on the same topic, the Product Definition Team works tirelessly throughout the year to pick the brains of the SOLIDWORKS users throughout the world in order to collect the best enhancement requests. They do that by using the Enhancement Request Program, participating on the SOLIDWORKS Forum and performing hundreds of in-person and virtual visits to see directly how the software is actually used in the real world and hear how to further improve it to address these real-world use cases.

In the months preceding the 3DEXPERIENCE World event, ideas for enhancing the software can be submitted and voted on in the Top 10 Ideas competition. As you will see, the voting process is very simple but only a small fraction of the 6 million SOLIDWORKS users will get involved. Most of them are too busy solving the challenges in their daily jobs to take the time to properly write and submit enhancement requests. As a result, most of the inspired ideas to improve SOLIDWORKS, the “Eureka” moments, are never communicated to the developers.

Even finding the time to read and vote on all the ideas submitted by users (there were 347 ideas this year alone) could prove difficult for many users.

If you are one of those busy users, this article will help you. Here we have a curated list of hyperlinks for the ideas we believe will make the most positive impact on your usage of SOLIDWORKS. To vote for them, simple click the hyperlink and press the like button (Figure 2). [Ed. You will have to have a Dassault Systèmes account.]

Figure 2. Like = vote.

1.      Make SOLIDWORKS Multi-Core

Benefits: Increased speed, reduced lag.

Figure 3.

Currently, SOLIDWORKS has quite a few areas that use multicore processing, including:

• Processing drawing views.
• Computing graphics tessellation.
• Allowing assembly and drawing manipulation (zoom in/out, pan) during the opening phase.
• Performing renderings.
• Performing simulation studies.

While inside a history-based part model, most operations must be processed sequentially—but there are a lot of other opportunities for multi-core processing. These are a few examples where SOLIDWORKS could take advantage of more CPU cores:

• Updating inactive drawing sheets in background.
• Updating inactive configurations.
• Gathering data for the Assembly Visualization list.
• BOMs.
• Loading components body data when an assembly opens.

2.      More Functionality for Breadcrumbs

Benefits: Increased productivity by working more directly in the graphics area.

Figure 4.

Breadcrumbs were a gamechanger for the productivity of SOLIDWORKS power users, allowing them to keep their eyes on the model in the graphics area and not require looking at the feature manager tree. Thus, they could focus on designing, not on hunting for planes, bodies, subassemblies or mates.

Currently, in an assembly, clicking a component shows its mates just above the breadcrumbs. It would be even more useful if double clicking the editable mates (distance, angle) allowed editing it in the graphics area similar to double clicking an editable mate in the feature tree.

3.      Ability to Replace Templates – AKA “Copy Document Properties Wizard”

Benefits: Update document settings in existing part and assembly files.

Figure 5.

Reading the description on the SOLIDWORKS website, we were confused because there can be no templates in the part or assembly files. After some head scratching, we were able to determine that the enhancement allows us to copy document properties from one file to another. Something similar to the functionality of the Copy Settings Wizard (which applies to System Options), but geared towards document properties.

Figure 6. Copy document properties wizard.

This will be extremely beneficial for CAD admins and power users if it can be applied to multiple files at a time (based on folders or other sorting criteria).

4.      Linear Pattern - Allow Staggers

Benefits: Reduce the feature manager tree length and make conceptual and revision work faster.

Figure 7.

SOLIDWORKS has improved the patterns tremendously in the last releases, but there is always the opportunity to do more.

One SOLIDWORKS user pointed out that another CAD program has settings that allow for staggering successive rows to produce patterns like this with one feature:

Figure 8.

Such a feature would save this company a lot of time, while also shrinking the feature manager tree.

All that is required is adding two fields in the property manager of the linear pattern related to staggering direction and dimensions.

5.      Provide a Better Way of Re-Attaching Dangling Dimensions

Benefits: Reduce time spent detailing during revisions.

Figure 9.

This idea’s title perfectly captures the intent. If you experienced frustration in the past when facing dangling dimensions, you will vote for it.

6.      When Parent Features are Suppressed, Children Should Have the Option to Remain Unsuppressed and Dangling or Having the External Relations Frozen

Benefits: Faster and more consistent model changes while preserving the design intent.

Figure 10.

In a part, if feature B references feature A and you delete feature A, feature B fails but isn’t deleted—and it can be repaired. 

But if you suppress feature A, feature B is automatically suppressed and can’t be edited. A user would like to be able to suppress feature A and “freeze” feature B so that it can be edited and have its references changed so it is not dependent on feature A anymore.

7.      Assembly: Duplicate Pattern

Benefits: Combine Insert Component with Instant Mate References – An unbelievable time-savings for assembly users.

Figure 11.

This idea is a gem that has gone unnoticed by the voters. Imagine you have a screw inserted 100 times in an assembly in various locations. All instances of the screw are mated.

Now, add a nut to the screw and mate it. Then simply use the new Duplicate Pattern to instantly copy the nut to all existing instances of the screw, along with its mates related to the original screw.

Genius? I know!

8.      Ability to Redefine the Horizontal Direction in a Sketch, By Selecting an Existing Edge or a Line from Another Sketch

Benefits: Double the speed when modifying sketches. Give the user full freedom to define the “paper” orientation for each sketch.

Figure 12.

Currently the only way to rotate or mirror “the paper” onto which a 2D Sketch was drawn is by using the Modify tool. It accepts only numerical values for rotation.

Imagine how useful such a tool would be if aligning sketches would work like the Align Drawing View command (Figures 13 and 14).

Figure 13.

Figure 14.

9.      Ability to Pattern Reference Geometry

Benefits: Reduce the length of the feature manager tree while making design intent easier to implement and modify.

Figure 15.

The title says it all. Imagine how much time you would save if you could pattern:

• Planes
• Axes
• Coordinate systems
• Sketches
• Curves

Currently the Variable Pattern can do some of that in a limited capability, but there is so much more that users need.

10. Allow More Options for Attaching Entities to Other Entities in Drawings

Benefits: Make drawings easier to use and modify.

Figure 16.

A simple example: attaching notes to BOM balloons. When the balloon moves, the note follows.

This will take the current grouping functionality to another level.

 Call for Action

The goal of this article is to make it very easy for any user to vote on a curated list of ideas. If you like any of them, voting is as simple as click and like.

We are sure that once you see how easy is to read the rest of the ideas, you may want to spend more time in the Top Ten List Community and find even more ideas worth voting for.

If you want to see which of the ideas made the Top Ten, you can attend this virtual session at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2022.

Learn about all the SOLIDWORKS 2022 enhancements with the ebook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for Javelin Technologies - a Trimech company, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 31 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, once at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

Figure 1. Do you believe?

The first two articles, Fast Drawings of Slow Assemblies and Coordinate Systems Now Mightier Than Origins, Planes and Axes, established the following criteria for judging if a new enhancement is eligible for the “I Believe!” pin:

• Security. It should not introduce new bugs or regressions. If anything, the software should operate more securely than before.
• Ease of use. SOLIDWORKS users expect their software to be intuitive.
• Clear benefit. The new feature should eliminate limitations in functionality or increase productivity.
• Wide use. The more use cases in more industries, the better.
• Requested by users. Users get what they asked for.

Enhancements and… Enhancements: The Evolution of Functionality in SOLIDWORKS

I have a theory about how enhancements mature once injected into the software that can be summarized in one word: gradually.

No brand-new functionality completely satisfies all users. It usually takes several years until the functionality expands to cover more use cases, bugs are worked out, the user interface is further refined and most users are adopting it.

Figure 2. Example of the typical progress for improving a specific functionality of the software.

That makes a lot of sense, if you think about how the enhancement request and implementation process works.

Most SOLIDWORKS enhancements are born from one user’s idea for solving a personal challenge. Usually, the scope of these ideas is narrow, being focused on improving the areas of the software responsible for getting a particular job done. Once the SOLIDWORKS product definition (PD) Team gets involved, the idea gets defined and starts becoming an enhancement.

Many times, the PD team would expand the use case of a new enhancement beyond the original request; but even so, the first release of an enhancement will have a narrow scope. An example of an enhancement in its first release is the functionality added to the coordinate systems in SOLIDWORKS 2022. It is a game-changer but, as our previous article demonstrated, it has not reached even half of its potential. We hope to see more in SOLIDWORKS 2023 and beyond.

Figure 3. Enhancement stuck at 95 percent of its potential. The missing 5 percent stops users from adopting it.

Other enhancements get stalled at 95 percent of their potential, even though they seem brilliant when experienced AEs demonstrate them. After the initial release, users will try the new functionality and will find some ways the tool does not do what they need. Many times, that is also the last time the users will touch that tool. One example is the SpeedPak tool, which brings so much promise (instant simplification of the body data while preserving graphics data). Unfortunately, the missing 5 percent in its functionality soured 95 percent of the users who tried it. After that, they will never adopt it.

However, there are also those enhancements that complete the missing 5 percent in functionality for a tool, making it complete. An example is the latest enhancement for managing configurations, introduced by SOLIDWORKS 2022: the configuration table.

Building on Existing Functionality

Let’s take a quick stroll down memory lane and remember the evolution of the major tools used for creating and managing configurations using tables.

SOLIDWORKS 1997

• Excel design tables used for managing configurations. In this case, the power of Excel acts like on of Marvel’s Infinity Stones, conferring upon users superpowers for automating configurations using advanced formulas and data. Unfortunately, some users abused this power by creating design tables in all parts, even for simple configurations. When Excel and SOLIDWORKS work together, the system slowed down and was prone to crashes.

SOLIDWORKS 2010

• Ability to save configuration table views (which removed the need for Excel). This was a great tool for the regular user. The functionality worked fine for most use cases, but it was not intuitive, nor powerful enough.

SOLIDWORKS 2022

• Improved configuration table view functionality. The missing 5 percent of functionality for configuration table views was added.
• Ability to insert a configuration table in all parts or assemblies with more than one configuration. This is a great tool for the casual user. Once the system options are configured as per the instructions in this article, a very intuitive tool becomes available in all parts and assemblies.

It is interesting to note that as new tools have been added, the old ones have been preserved. Each of them has a place in the toolbox of a SOLIDWORKS power user. Many times, users would use one, two or all three options.

For example, you can have a design table to drive dimensions using complex formulae, several table views for driving subsets of dimensions/features/components/configuration properties, as well as the configuration table for quickly accessing all variables.

Figure 4. So many choices, so many use cases.

Comparing the Table Views from 2021 and 2022 for Parts

The same part was opened in SOLIDWORKS 2021 and 2022. The 2021 table view is shown in Figure 5 and the 2022 table view in Figure 6.

Figure 5. Part table view in SOLIDWORKS 2021.

Figure 6. Part table view in SOLIDWORKS 2022.

Note the two extra buttons on the bottom of Figure 6. They provide a quick way to ensure only relevant information is displayed.

Users can hide the columns related to dimensions and features (Figure 7) or the ones related to configurations parameters (Figure 8).

Figure 7. Columns driving dimensions and sketches/features suppression are hidden.

Figure 8. Configuration Parameters are hidden.

Before SOLIDWORKS 2021, the only way to customize configuration parameters was using Configuration Properties, which was a very tedious process since each configuration needed to be accessed individually. A pleasant surprise is the new option Set Exclude from bill of materials when inserted into assembly which becomes available in SOLIDWORKS 2022 (Figure 9).

Figure 9.

The user is still required to name each table view and press the save button to create or update one.

Comparing the Table Views from 2021 and 2022 for Assemblies

The 2022 enhancements are even more substantial in the assembly environment.

The same assembly was opened in SOLIDWORKS 2021 and 2022. The 2021 table view is shown in Figure 10 and the 2022 table view in Figure 11.

Figure 10. Assembly table view, 2021.

Figure 11. Assembly table view, 2022.

In addition to the features and parameters button, notice the components button that could hide and show the component related columns.

Also, note the fixed column that could be excellent for a quick check if the optimal mating scheme has been used.

“Unconfiguring” a Dimension, Feature or Component

Many times, users would require applying the same value or suppression status for a dimension, feature, or component. That is easily done in SOLIDWORKS 2022 from the table view by right-clicking on the header and taking advantage of the unconfigure tool.

Figure 12. Unconfigure.

When Unconfigure is used, the setting from the active configuration is applied to all configurations.

The New Configuration Table

While Table Views are very useful, the user needs to remember to name and save them. Wouldn’t it be nice if a table containing all variations in a part or assembly would always be readily available?

That is now possible in SOLIDWORKS 2022. Moreover, one extra piece of functionality is reserved only for this table—the ability to block manual model edits outside this table.

Figure 13. Right-click on the header and select block model edits.

Figure 14. The column becomes pink. To allow model edits, right-click again and chose the desired option.

When you block edits, the column displays in a different color. To change this color, click Tools > Options > System Options > Colors. Modify the Dimensions, Controlled by Design Table color setting.

Figure 15.

When the user attempts to manually modify the model (in this case, trying to unsuppress the coincident relation) the error message shown in Figure 16 appears.

Figure 16.

How to Activate the New Configuration Table Functionality

If you read the What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2022 document, you might be under the impression that is enough to open any existing part or assembly with more than one configuration, and the new Configuration Table will magically appear in the Configuration Manager.

In SOLIDWORKS 2022, you will still need a couple of steps to unlock this functionality.

Step 1: System Options > General > check the Create configuration tables on open box.

Figure 17.

If this box is not checked, there will be no configuration table when opening existing parts or assemblies.

Step 2: Open a file containing multiple configurations. Be aware that in SOLIDWORKS 2022 SP0, a configuration table will not magically appear the moment you created a second configuration in a part or assembly. You would need to save and close the file. The table will be created when it is reopened.

Note that in SOLIDWORKS 2022 SP0, double-clicking on the Configuration Table in the Configuration Manager will not open the table. You need to right-click on it and select Show Table (Figure 18).

Figure 18.

Conclusion

The enhancements in the Table View functionality, along with the new Configuration Table represent the missing 5 percent in functionality that users were expecting for a long time. We now have a powerful set of mature tools that should make creating and managing configurations a breeze.

For that, we decide to wear the I Believe pin.

Let us know if you would like more articles from the I Believe in SOLIDWORKS 2022 Series.

Learn about all the new SOLIDWORKS 2022 enhancements with the ebook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for Javelin Technologies - a Trimech company, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 31 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, once at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

In the first article of this series, Fast Drawings of Slow Assemblies, we established the following criteria for judging if a new enhancement is eligible for the “I Believe!” pin:

• Security. It should not introduce new bugs or regressions. If anything, the software should operate more securely than before.
• Ease of use. SOLIDWORKS users expect their software to be intuitive.
• Clear benefit. The new feature should eliminate limitations in functionality or increase productivity.
• Wide use. The more use cases in more industries, the better.
• Requested by users. Users get what they asked for.

A Revolution in SOLIDWORKS?

Digging deeper into the new release revealed a hidden gem—maybe the most important enhancement in the new release. It is the increased functionality for the coordinate system feature, which is also Nate Andrews’ first pick in his recent article about SOLIDWORKS 2021 posted on engineersrule.com. After attending several What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2022 presentations delivered by Dassault Systèmes or by resellers, we did not notice a lot of excitement for this enhancement from the presenters. Also, there seems to be very little information about its use cases in the various blog posts that covered the launch.

The What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2022 guide lists two areas where the coordinate system functionality has been improved:

1. Defining the location and orientation of a coordinate system. There are two new options:

• Use numeric values for defining position.
• Use numeric values for defining orientation.

Figure 2. New definition options.

2. Giving the user access to all components of a coordinate system for referring it in sketches, features and mates, including:

• Origin
• Axes
• Planes

At first sight, the enhancement is good but nothing to write home about. Very few people would get excited about an improvement to such an abstract feature as the coordinate system.

But as we discovered new ways to incorporate the enhanced coordinate systems in various modeling workflows, we got more and more excited. Even the title of this article changed several times as we kept added more pages to its draft. This is a short list of the titles we considered:

• Shrink the FeatureManager with the New Coordinate Systems
• Freedom from the Tyranny of the Model Origin
• 3D Sketching Simplified in SOLIDWORKS 2022
• Another Tool for Top-Down Modeling in SOLIDWORKS 2022
• A Potential Revolution in the SSP (Skeleton Sketch Part) Method
• New Entities for Mating – 2022 Coordinate Systems

The only way to gauge the value of an enhancement is by looking at potential use cases that could significantly change the way designers are using SOLIDWORKS. We found several. So, instead of discarding these titles, we decided to keep them in the article and attach a different case study to each of them. We will judge the pros and cons using two criteria:

• Functionality unlocked in SOLIDWORKS 2022.
• Opportunities to further improve the tools.

A. Shrink the FeatureManager with the New Coordinate Systems

Users who create a lot of reference geometry features will be the main beneficiaries of the new functionality.

It is typical, especially for power-users involved in the conceptual phase of a new design, to create multiple planes, axes and reference points early in the FeatureManager tree. The main goal is to reduce dependencies between the various sketches and features in the model, so that when needed they can be easily modified or even eliminated with minimal impact on the rest of entities in the model. Since reference geometry features have a minimal rebuilding “cost” they are usually used intensively in such a workflow.

In Figure 3, there is an example of a traditional reference “scaffolding” created in a part file, where the origin and the major planes are not in a usable location. The user requires “translating” the reference frame:

• 3” in the “Y”-direction
• -4” in the “Z”-direction

and to rotate it by -30˚ around the “Z”-axis.

Figure 3. Eight features are seven too many. I am getting a headache just by contemplating to work with such a “busy” graphic area.

In this example, the required reference geometry is composed of seven features:

Base Planes (1, 2 and 3) – usable for:

• Creating sketches.
• As references in sketch relations.
• As references for defining coordinate systems’ direction.
• As references for establishing feature direction in Patterns, Extrude-Boss, Extrude-Cut and Move Face.
• Caping cavities using Intersect.
• Splitting features.
• As references for mates.
• As Ground planes for facility layouts.

Ref Axis (1, 2 and 3) – usable:

• As references in sketch relations.
• As references for defining coordinate systems’ direction.
• As references for establishing feature direction in Patterns, Extrude-Boss, Extrude-Cut and Move Face.
• As references for mates.

A reference point named Locator – usable:

• As a reference in sketch relations.
• As a reference for defining location for coordinate systems.
• As a reference for mates.

Even though the user took the time to name each feature, there is still a lot of clutter in the FeatureManager tree, and especially in the graphics area. Considering that such a part could be the main reference in a project, a user can spend a lot of “quality time” with it. He or she would need to repeatedly:

• Find a specific reference geometry feature.
• Select it (for the use cases listed above).
• Control its visibility (hide/show).

Fortunately, in SOLIDWORKS 2022, all these features can be reduced to one – a coordinate system.

First, let’s define its position and orientation using numerical values.

Figure 4.

Then let’s compare the two parts side-by-side:

Figure 5. A reduction of 8 features in the FeatureManager tree.

The benefits are clear:

• No clutter in the graphics area.
• Easy visibility management (hide/show one item only).

Now let’s stress-test the functionality of the new coordinate system and propose future enhancements when needed.

Test #1: Selecting a Plane belonging to the Coordinate System in Part Mode

Figure 6. Context toolbar after a coordinate system plane was selected.

The context toolbar reveals that in part mode we should be able to:

• Create a 2D sketch on any of the three coordinate system planes.
• Orient the viewport normal to the coordinate system plane.
• Create an offset plane based on the selected plane.
• Measure from the plane.

Let’s test these four assumptions, as well (figures 8 to 10).

Figure 7. Usage as a sketch plane, Check.

Figure 8. Viewport orientation. Check.

Figure 9. Use in defining new planes. Check.

Figure 10. Measurement to another plane. Fail.

As shown above, currently (SOLIDWORKS 2022 PR1) when attempting to measure the angle between a coordinate system plane and another plane it intersects, the result is meaningless. There is no angle reported, only the distance between the coordinate system origin and the second plane.

We will report this limitation to SOLIDWORKS and hope to see it fixed soon.

Test #2: Selecting an Axis belonging to the Coordinate System in Part Mode

Figure 11. Context toolbar after a coordinate system axis was selected.

The context toolbar reveals that in part mode we should be able to:

• Orient the viewport normal to the selected axis.
• Measure from the axis.

Let’s test these four assumptions (figures 12 to 13).

Figure 12. Viewport orientation. Fail.

When an the Normal to is applied to a selected axis, the viewport is oriented based on the default triad and not normal to the coordinate system axis. Another opportunity for a future enhancement.

Figure 13. Measurement to plane. Fail.

Same behaviour is observed here, too. The Measure tool needs to be recoded to recognize the components of the coordinate system.

Conclusion – Shrink the FeatureManager Tree

For users who build complex models, this enhancement will be a game changer. SOLIDWORKS 2022 delivered a vastly improved tool that offers huge benefits:

• Drastically reduce the length of the FeatureManager tree.
• Declutter graphics area.
• Save time during conceptual phase.
• Huge time savings for revisions.
• Decrease the possible sources of errors.
• Eliminate the occurrence of dangling entities after revisions.

B. Freedom from the Tyranny of the Model Origin

One of the first lessons SOLIDWORKS users learn is to take advantage of the origin to locate sketches and features. You cannot change the origin; if you need to move the part, you can use the Move-Body feature, or attempt more convoluted workflows such as:

• Inserting a part in another part and re-positioning it.
• Create a coordinate system in the desired location for the new origin, save the file to Parasolid with that coordinate system as the origin (of course, losing all features in the process) and re-import it in a new part.

When users ask us the simple question “How do I change the origin?” we used to encourage them to accept the established paradigm.

But what if we were to model the part in regard to a coordinate system instead of the main origin?

In Figure 14, there are two SOLIDWORKS 2022 sessions shown side-by-side, each of them containing apparently similar models.

Figure 14. Freedom from the origin.

The difference is that in the model on the left, many of the sketches and features are related to the origin and/or the major planes. Editing these features to reposition or reorient the model is next to impossible.

The model on the right contains the exact same features. The only difference is that instead of referring the origin and the major planes, the sketches and features are referring to the planes of the coordinate system 1. Now, let’s see what happens if we modify the position and orientation of this coordinate system.

Figure 15. Simply edit the coordinate system definition.

Figure 16. The model has been re-positioned and re-oriented with ease.

The result is spectacular. This is what many users have been asking for a long time and now SOLIDWORKS has delivered.

Considerations for successfully using this technique

1. If the users foresee that the model might require re-orientation (rotations) then they should refrain from using Horizontal and Vertical sketch relations, since such relations are referring the default triad. Use instead Parallel or Perpendicular relations to the coordinate system planes
2. At this time, you cannot refer the origin of the coordinate system in sketch relations or dimensions. The workaround uses Coincident relations to the coordinate system sketch planes.

Conclusion – Freedom from the Origin

SOLIDWORKS finally found a valid answer to a question asked by many users. While users must be diligent in applying the right relations when creating sketches, this is not hard to do.

The result is spectacular and could drastically simplify or even eliminate cumbersome workflows used by many companies.

C. 3D Sketching Simplified in SOLIDWORKS 2022

Working with 3D Sketches can be time-consuming and cumbersome, mostly due to the need to create and manage a large number of sketch relations.

It is not uncommon for a 3D Sketch to have a larger number of centerlines and reference planes, than the actual number of useful entities (lines, arcs, circles).

Considering that just one coordinate system contains a reference point (its origin), three axis and three planes, the new functionality could be a game changer for users by drastically reducing the number of centerlines and 3DSketch planes needed.

Let’s stress-test this functionality. Using the same part shown in Figure 4, we added a 3D Sketch.

3D Sketch Test #1: Add Relations between a Line and a coordinate system Plane

Figure 17. Possible relations between a Line and a coordinate system plane.  Check.

As shown in Figure 17, there are some very handy relations that can be added and work as expected:

• Horizontal to the plane (which also means that the line is On Plane).
• Vertical to the plane (which also means that the line is On Plane).
• Normal to the plane.
• Perpendicular to the plane (similar to the previous relation).
• Parallel to the plane.
• On plane (coincident to the plane).

The other two relations that are shown as available in Figure 17, (Parallel YZ and Parallel ZX) unfortunately are being applied to the default triad directions, not to the coordinate system (Figure 18).

Figure 18. Parallel YZ and parallel ZX. Fail.

Again, we will report this unexpected behaviour to SOLIDWORKS.

3D Sketch Test #2: Add Relations between a Line and a Coordinate System Axis

Figure 19. Attempting to add relations between a line and a coordinate system axis. Fail.

When selecting a coordinate system axis and a line, we get the same icons as when selecting the plane. At this time, we recommend users refrain from applying such relations because they produce wrong results (example in Figure 20).

Figure 20. Unexpected result when trying to make the line parallel to the X-axis of the coordinate system.

3D Sketch Test #3: Add Relations between a Line and a Coordinate System Origin

When selecting a line and a coordinate system origin, there is no usable relation available (Figure 21). One would expect just a coincident relation to appear in the context toolbar, but currently that its not happening.

Figure 21. Relation between a line and coordinate system origin. Fail.

Conclusion – 3D Sketching and Coordinate Systems

The limitations related to referencing coordinate systems axes and origins will most likely be fixed in one of the upcoming service packs. Even if users would use only the existing functionality of applying relations to the three coordinate system planes, they could drastically reduce the complexity of their 3D Sketches, decluttering the graphics area and decreasing rebuild times.

D. Another Tool for Top-Down Modeling in SOLIDWORKS 2022

One of the main challenges that users encounter when performing top-down design is managing references.

When vertices, edges and faces that are referred to by other components are drastically modified or deleted, these references dangle, generating a lot of confusion and frustration. A huge amount of time is lost with such errors occurring every day.

Imagine how much easier the work could be if users would add one small step to their top-down workflow: create most of the relations between parts using coordinate systems.

Of course, not every external relation can be created using the new functionality, but many could.

Suggested Workflow

1. Edit the “child” part in the context of the assembly.
2. Add a coordinate system inside this part with a position and orientation defined by the entities from the assembly.
3. Open the part in its own window.
4. Add new features as needed in relation to the new coordinate system.

If the parent components are edited, the worst thing that could happen is for the coordinate system to lose some of its references. Fortunately, redefining it is very simple.

Conclusion – Another Tool for Top-Down Modeling

Top-down modeling should be performed by properly trained users. The success of this method lays mainly in managing the number and complexity of the references.

Ideally, the length of the chain of dependencies should be minimized (ideally a one-step dependency). Until now the ultimate dependency simplification could be achieved using a combination of sketches, planes and axes. Starting with SOLIDWORKS 2022, users add one more super-tool to their arsenal, a tool that combines seven other tools in one (origin, three axes and three planes).

E. A Potential Revolution in the SSP (Skeleton Sketch Part) Method

In essence, the SSP is one of the most solid methods that could be used for managing a huge number of parts and assemblies with zero relations between them.

In its purest form, the SSP creates assemblies with zero mates and no external relations between components, other than the relation between the base part and each component of the assembly (part or sub-assembly).

We are currently evaluating the potential to introduce the newly enhanced coordinate system feature in the SSP workflow and the preliminary results are very good.

The SSP is such a vast topic that it deserves its own series of articles. Stay tuned for that.

F. New Entities for Mating – 2022 Coordinate Systems

Coordinate systems have always had super-powers when used in mates. They act as origins, allowing the same freedom for defining only position, or also orientation.

SOLIDWORKS 2022 makes them much more powerful than the default origins. We can now mate to each of the three coordinate system planes and its three axes.

This part of the enhancement was perfectly implemented by SOLIDWORKS. While stress-testing it, we could not find any flaw. Take a look at the following examples:

Figure 22. Planar Face and coordinate system plane – Quick Mate toolbar.

Figure 23. Coincident Mate applied.

Figure 24. Cylindrical face and coordinate system plane – Quick Mate toolbar.

Figure 25. Distance mate applied between cylindrical face and coordinate system plane.

Figure 26.  Coordinate system axis and cylindrical face - Quick Mate toolbar.

Figure 27. Concentric mate.

Figure 28. Select the coordinate system points to replicate the old functionality for mating two coordinate systems.

Figure 29. Coincident mate between coordinate systems axes.

Figure 30. Parallel mate between coordinate systems planes.

Current limitation

Coordinate System Planes cannot be currently used in defining ground planes for facility layouts.

Conclusion – New Entities for Mating

Allowing users to mate to any of the seven components of a coordinate system unlocks a lot of opportunities for simplifying the mating scheme and saving time. The user now has the choice between eliminating three, four or all six degrees of freedom, using coordinate systems.

Final Conclusion

When a feature such as the coordinate system receives such a major update, it is expected that improvements will be added in multiple phases, over several releases. SOLIDWORKS 2022 simply unlocks functionality that users requested for a long time, making their life easier in all modeling environments:

• Sketch
• Part
• Assembly

Suggestions for Future Improvement

1. Allow users to apply colors to the coordinate systems. That would dramatically improve their visibility on the graphics area.

Figure 31. Colors will be a game-changer for managing the reference geometry in the graphics area.

2. Make dimensions used in defining coordinate systems visible, selectable and editable in the graphics area. That would drastically improve user speed when revising the model.

Imagine, if you could, simply double-clicking on the coordinate system and its dimensions would pop-up on the screen. Then double-click any of them to edit.

3. Allow the numerical values used in defining coordinate systems to be driven by equations, custom properties or design tables. Adding this functionality will further enable users to automate their design.

4. Allow coordinate system planes to be used in the definition of the intersect feature.

5. Allow the patterning of coordinate systems.

With the expectation that the new enhancement requests listed in this article will be implemented soon, we decided to wear the I Believe pin.

Let us know what other topics you would like to see covered in the I Believe in SOLIDWORKS 2022 Series.

Learn more about the new enhancements in SOLIDWORKS 2022 with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for Javelin Technologies - a Trimech company, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 31 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, once at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

Watching the elves, a.k.a. the VARs’ elite AEs, unwrap each gift seems magical—and in a sense, it is. They choose the perfect use case for each new feature and know where and how to click to make it look effortless. There is never any lag or crashes in such masterful demonstrations. Their enthusiasm is contagious and most users leave the event convinced they must upgrade to the new version immediately—if not sooner.

It is most enjoyable watching the faces of the SOLIDWORKS power users in the audience. Here are engineers and designers not easily impressed by canned demos. They are conflicted; on one hand, they want to believe in the promise of the gifts unwrapped by Santa’s elves. On the other hand, they are skeptical by nature and would like to see further proof that the enhancements will be useful.

Figure 1. Do you believe?

To get the power-user stamp of approval, an enhancement must meet these minimal requirements:

• Security. It should not introduce new bugs or regressions. If anything, the software should operate more securely than before.
• Ease of use. SOLIDWORKS users expect their software to be intuitive.
• Clear benefit. The new feature should eliminate limitations in functionality or increase productivity. Ideally both!
• Wide use. The more use cases in more industries, the better.
• Requested by users. Users get what they asked for.

In a series of articles, we will select from the enhancements introduced by SOLIDWORKS 2022 that meet the above criteria. We will unwrap each carefully and will analyze each aspect of the chosen enhancement in detail.

At the end of each article, we will conclude if the gift warrants a “I Believe” or “I Don’t Believe” pin.

The Enhanced Detailing Mode in SOLIDWORKS 2022

For this article, we chose the enhancement that most closely aligns with all five criteria.

Background

SOLIDWORKS allows users to build huge assemblies. Think plant layouts, observatories, mining and forestry machines, full assembly lines and other virtual models with tens of thousands of components. If working with huge assemblies can be a daunting task, producing parametric 2D drawings based on these assemblies is an order of magnitude harder.

Think about all the relations between a line on the drawing and the edge (or even more extreme, the silhouette edge) of the model. For detailing tasks, that line must know a ton of information and make it quickly available to the user. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Edge ID
• Is the edge visible or obscured?
• Faces intersecting on that edge IDs
• Vertices IDs
• Part ID
• All Nested Subassemblies IDs
• Component color
• Is the component visible or hidden?
• Is the component an envelope?
• BOM related data. At the minimum, Item number and Quantity
• If the edge is circular, we need to know the hole callout

Historically, these were made possible by having the assembly open at the same time as the drawing. When the user would attach a balloon, a note or a dimension to the edge, SOLIDWORKS would get the required data from the assembly and display it on the drawing.

The larger the assembly, the slower this interrogation process becomes. The solution to the problem was very simple in theory: simply inject all that information in the drawing file, to allow it to open on its own, without the assembly.

If you want to learn more about how power-users, AEs, SOLIDWORKS Tech Support and the SOLIDWORKS R&D Teams partnered to define and implement the functionality for the Detailing mode, read this article: A Potential Game Changer: No More Pain Detailing Large Drawings.

Figure 2. The Detailing mode was an idea submitted by users and voted by the SOLIDWORKS Community.

Detailing Mode in SOLIDWORKS 2020

The first release when Detailing mode became available was SOLIDWORKS 2020. The functionality was revolutionary, but limited to the most popular detailing tasks (mainly applying dimensions).

Figure 3. Detailing mode functionality in SOLIDWORKS 2020.

One of the most frustrating limitations in 2020 was the inability to create secondary views in this mode. After all, a detail, crop or broken view should get all its information from its parent. The edges are already there, they just need to be scaled and cropped.

Fortunately, some of these limitations were removed the following year (Figure 4).

Detailing Mode in SOLIDWORKS 2021

SOLIDWORKS R&D worked hard to remove these limitations, and the first enhancements were revealed in the 2021 release.

Figure 4.  Detailing mode functionality in SOLIDWORKS 2021.

Users were now able to add secondary views and also extract more information from the edges directly from the drawing file.

Figure 5. Can add secondary views with no assembly loaded.

Unfortunately, with improved functionality, more data needed to be written in the drawing file. If the drawing data was not optimized for this use, the saving operation took much longer than expected (hours versus seconds).

As Mark Johnson, the SOLIDWORKS User Success Engineering Director explained:

The way Detailing mode works is every edge is assigned a unique silhouette edgeID by SOLIDWORKS behind the scenes.  High Quality Hidden Lines Removed (HLR) drawing views already have these edge IDs, so drawings save performance for HLR drawings is the same in 2020/2021 and older versions.

These unique silhouette edgeIDs are not present for Shaded or Shaded with Edges.  As a result, upon save, these edgeIDs must be generated and assigned to all shaded with edges views across all sheets.

The result is the potential for a much slower save of an SLDDRW in 2020/2021 vs 2019 and older.

Figure 6.

In summary, if a drawing view could not be set as a high-quality view, the information related to model edges could not be efficiently written in the drawing file. That makes sense considering that in draft quality views the edges are computed based on the graphics-triangles extracted by tessellating the mathematical body data of the model. Imagine the sheer number of tiny triangles edges that must be stored for each single edge.

It is worth noting that if your drawings illustrate components with imported geometry errors, the drawing views will always be draft quality and the saving operation will suffer.

The problem was discovered very late and SOLIDWORKS R&D came up with a drastic solution: a System Setting that would enable users to decide if the data required for the Detailing mode will be saved or not in the drawing file.

Figure 7. This drastic decision will impact all drawings saved on this machine.

The solution was not ideal for many reasons:

• It applies to all drawings on that system, regardless of whether they are small or large, or if they have high quality or draft quality views.
• It could impact the consistency of the drawing files in a company. Imagine if one user has the setting checked and another unchecked. When the first user saves the drawing, the detailing data is saved. When the second user opens and saves the drawing, the data is scrubbed, or vice versa.

Again, the partnership between SOLIDWORKS Power users and the SOLIDWORKS Product Definition Team has borne fruit. You can read more about the 10 Life-Changing Enhancement Ideas for SOLIDWORKS Users submitted to the Top 10 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 Idea list in this article.

The above idea detailed the solution further. Quoting from the same article:

How to implement it:

This option should be a document level setting, allowing the user to decide whether to save the drawing with the Detailing data included or not.

To simplify the workflow, the Save dialog can also have a checkbox called Detailing Data to allow the user to make such decisions.

It might even be worth considering having a Large Drawing mode, similar to the Large Assembly mode, where the software can decide to save or not save Detailing data based on the rules related to the number of drawing views set to Shaded or Shaded with Edges, or related to other factors known to slow down the detailing process.

How else could the Detailing mode be improved? Turns out that trained users of large assemblies learned how to take advantage of the very efficient tools available in the Large Design Review mode to perform a large number of task involving huge assemblies. It is very easy to open a top-level assembly in seconds in order to access one or more of its subassemblies. Wouldn’t be great to be able to open the drawing of such a subassembly in Detailing mode directly from a Large Design Review window?

This is exactly what the SOLIDWORKS Community voted as the fourth idea in the 3DEXPERIENCE WORLD 2021 Top Ten List. It is interesting to note that 40 percent of the top 10 ideas were about enhancing large assemblies and drawings functionality.

Figure 8. Ideas related to Large Assemblies and Drawings are highlighted.

The other major limitation was related to the file version. Drawings saved in older versions could not be opened in Detailing mode in SOLIDWORKS 2020.

SOLIDWORKS’ Product Definition team proved one more time how much they are attuned to users’ desires, because they delivered on these ideas and more in SOLIDWORKS 2022.

Detailing Mode in SOLIDWORKS 2022

Security

Regarding security, saving Detailing mode data is now a Document Setting (figure 9).

Figure 9. Detailing mode data in SOLIDWORKS 2022.

This makes so much more sense. The users could now decide if a drawing is large enough to warrant saving the extra data required by the Detailing mode. Even more, Drawing Templates can now be used to start small drawings with the setting unchecked and large drawings with the setting check.

This is a game changer.

The decision users must make is a balancing act between file size and the opening speed. As long as the drawings are opened from fast solid-state drives (SSD), the file size is not that important, as the results of the following case study shows.

The test drawing in this exercise (Figure 10) is at the borderline for a large drawing, making it a perfect case study for this dilemma.

Figure 10.

As shown in Figure 11, there are 12 sheets, 81 visible drawing views out of which 20 are Section Views and Breakout Section Views. All drawing views are set to high quality.

Figure 11. Drawing statistics (performance evaluation).

After saving two versions of the drawing, one with the Save Detailing Data option checked and the other one unchecked, we compared the file size and the opening time in Resolved, Lightweight and Detailing modes.

Figure 12. Speed beats size!

The results are very interesting. The data required by the Detailing mode seems to take 57 percent of the file size, but SOLIDWORKS uses it to open the drawing nine times faster. In this case, the trade-off is worth making.

The other important thing for users is the performance when working with the file after the drawing is opened. Because the edges of a drawing that has Detailing mode data contain so much more information about the assembly, we noticed that the operating speed is much faster for such a drawing, even when is opened in Resolved mode. Things like dimensioning, ballooning and switching between sheets are done fast and with no lag, even if the drawing is huge and the assembly is opened in the background. When the drawing does not have this data saved in the file, there is much more lag in operation. When clicking on an edge, the software might need to ask the assembly for extra information, thus the delay.

For small parts and assemblies that take seconds to open in Resolved mode, there is no point in saving the Detailing mode data.

Improved Ease of Use

SOLIDWORKS 2022 introduced three other major enhancements related to the Detailing mode. One of them was voted for by users, as mentioned earlier in this article. The others came as a complete surprise to all of us:

• Ability to open in Detailing mode a drawing of the top-level assembly or one of its subassemblies when the top-level assembly is opened in Large Design Review mode.
• Ability to open in Detailing mode all drawings, regardless of their version.
• Ability to have standard views available from dragging from the View Palette to the drawing in Detailing mode.

Let’s examine these three enhancements.

Open Drawings in Detailing Mode from Assemblies Opened in Large Design Review Mode

Opening huge assemblies in Large Design Review mode is very fast. In SOLIDWORKS 2022, when the top-level assembly or a subassembly is selected in the FeatureManager tree with the right mouse button, a new icon becomes available: Open Drawing in Detailing mode.

Figure 13. Another productivity enhancer.

This is great for users who want to use the top-level assembly as a visual directory for finding any information. With this tool assemblies can be located fast, and their drawings opened quickly.

Note that we experienced the following limitations with this tool in the Pre-Release 1 version of SOLIDWORKS 2022:

• Could not find the Open in Detailing mode icon on the Left Mouse button context toolbar.
• Could not find the Open in Detailing mode icon when clicking (right or left mouse buttons) in the Graphics area (Figure 14).

Figure 14.

• Could not bulk-select multiple subassemblies in order to open all of their drawings simultaneously in Detailing mode. If you need this functionality, there are currently free add-ins available for download.

Figure 15. Cannot open multiple drawings.

Ability to Open All Drawings in Detailing Mode, Regardless of their Version

We tested this enhancement by opening a drawing saved in 2021, using Detailing mode 2022. The drawing opened almost instantaneously, but we received a warning that some functionality will not be available.

Figure 16. Limited functionality for Old File Versions.

That being said, the main detailing functions are readily available:

• Move/Hide/Delete/Align existing Drawing Views
• Add/Edit/Delete Dimensions
• Add/Edit/Delete Balloons
• Add/Edit/Delete Notes
• Insert General Tables
• Add/Edit/Delete Weld Symbols
• Add/Edit/Delete Surface Finish Symbols
• Add/Edit/Delete GTOL Symbols
• Insert Blocks

An unexpected limitation is the impossibility to add/edit/delete markups.

Ability to Drag Standard Views from the View Palette to the Drawing in Detailing Mode

This enhancement came as a surprise. Until now, if a user required the insertion of a model view, the assembly had to be loaded. In SOLIDWORKS 2022, standard views can be pre-emptively saved in the drawing file.

To do that, several steps need to be followed.

1. Create a new drawing.
2. Check the Include standard views in View Palette box inside Document Properties/Performance.

Figure 17. A new document setting.

3. In the View Palette, browse to the model that will be used by the drawing.

Figure 18. The View Palette needs to be populated.

4. Save the drawing.

To test the results, follow these steps:

1. Open the previously saved drawing in Detailing mode.
2. The standard views are visible in the View Palette.

Figure 19. The standard views are now available in Detailing mode.

Note: Compare the number of views shown in Figures 18 and 19. Notice how in Detailing mode only the standard views are saved.

3. Drag views from the View Palette to the drawing to create new model views. Be aware that you would not be able to add Projected or Section views.

Figure 20. Fast creation of Model Views.

From here, let’s add a detail view, a crop view and break the Right model view.

Figure 21. Secondary views.

Adding dimensions, notes, hole callouts, revision tables and even balloons is straightforward.

Figure 22.

We were pleasantly surprised to notice that the drawing edges are storing even the item number associated to the component.

Comparing the file size of the drawings shown in Figure 19 and Figure 22, we notice that the standard drawing views take 70 percent of the final drawing size.

Figure 23.

Additionally, a handy thing to notice in SOLIDWORKS 2022 is that Hole Tables can also be inserted in Detailing mode.

Figure 24.

Conclusion

It is clear that SOLIDWORKS continues the ambitious project it started in 2019 for significantly improving the performance of large drawings. The Detailing mode completely replaced the QuickView mode in 2022 and it is quickly borrowing more and more functionality from the Resolved mode.

This article discovered several minor limitations in functionality. Some of them could be fixed in one of the upcoming service packs. Others should be added on the list of enhancements planned for SOLIDWORKS 2023.

After extensively testing the new Detailing mode enhancements, we decided to wear the I Believe pin.

Let us know if you would like other articles from the I Believe in SOLIDWORKS 2022 Series.

Learn more about the new enhancements in SOLIDWORKS 2022 with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for Javelin Technologies - a Trimech company, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 31 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, once at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

Currently, most users believe that troubleshooting and fixing the causes for slow downs caused by imported geometry is not worth doing, thinking it to be a cumbersome task that would take too long. Not true.

Many times, users decide to import each STEP files as a multibody part, for one or more or these reasons:

• They may not have read Part 1 of this series and are not familiar with which system settings control the type of the output file (assembly or part). Thus, sometimes they will get parts, other times assemblies.
• Some users prefer having all the geometry located in one part file, to simplify the file management. That makes sense if the component is purchased and will be shown as one item in the BOM.
• Most users think that one multibody part file would open faster than an assembly containing the same geometry. As we will demonstrate in this article, that is not always true.

Factors Impacting Performance

Working with SOLIDWORKS part files containing imported geometry can be challenging if the model is not optimized. The vast majority of SOLIDWORKS users report experiencing:

Long opening time for assemblies (and their drawings) containing components with imported geometry.

Unexplained lag in operations for common activities such as:

• Rebuilds
• Frequent “graphics generation” activities
• Changing configurations
• Switching windows from assembly to component and back, or from drawing to model and back
• Adding/ editing mates
• Adding drawing views
• Adding/ editing dimensions in drawings
• Navigating between drawing sheets

Long time for saving assemblies.

Increase the time of saving drawing files with detailing mode data from seconds to hours.

Currently, most users believe that troubleshooting and fixing the causes for these slow downs is a daunting task that would take such a long time to perform that it is not worth doing. We agree that an untrained user can easily go down a rabbit hole trying to “fix” such problems, with little return to the time that was invested in it.

When optimizing multibody parts containing imported geometry, the key to success is to divide and conquer while observing the law of diminishing returns.

We will analyze the first two of the most important four slow-down factors, using real-life case studies. The last two factors will be covered in the next article of this series.

As shown in Table 1, for each factor we will cover:

• Diagnostic tools and techniques
• Optimization techniques
• Return on investment (time spend fixing the problem versus the initial performance impact)

Figure 1. Slowdown factors, diagnostic tools and solutions.

To extract the results reported in this article, we used a Dell Precision 5540 with an Intel Core i7-9850H CPU and 32 GB RAM. All files have been open from a local NVME SSD.

1.    Excessive Number of Face-Level Appearances

When importing a STEP file as a multibody part, the appearances that were applied to components or features in the authoring CAD software will usually be applied to faces in SOLIDWORKS.

Imagine that all fillet features in a complex part were colored yellow in CATIA. Saving this file as STEP will remove all features from the tree, preserving only the geometry. As a result, the yellow color will now be applied to individual faces.

If the number of colored faces is small (less than 1000), the impact on performance will be negligible. As more appearances are applied to faces, the slowdowns grow exponentially.

Case Study 1

For the first case study, we choose a part that has 14,076 face-level appearances (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Diagnostic Tools

Currently, in the part environment there is no easy way to determine how many faces have appearances attached to them. Fortunately, in the assembly environment, the Performance Evaluation tool has a dedicated section that could report all components that have more than 100 appearances applied to faces.

Diagnostic Process:

1. Start a new assembly.

2. Insert the part as a component of the assembly.

3. On the Evaluate tab click on Performance Evaluation (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Performance Evaluation.

4. Scroll down until you find the Appearance section.

5. Click on Show These Files (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Appearance Section on Performance Evaluation.

Optimization Techniques

Most of the time, the appearances are irrelevant for the use case of the part. There are two simple ways to remove them in bulk:

• Remove All Part Appearances tool (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Remove All Part Appearances.

• Remove All Display States (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Remove all display states.

As shown in Figure 7, the first technique takes longer to complete, but offers the advantage of preserving all non-active displays states.

Figure 7. Comparison of appearance removal techniques.

 Productivity Impact

To analyze the benefits of removing face-level appearances, we prepared the following file set:

• Original part file with 14,076 face-level appearances.
• Assembly containing only the original part file.
• Optimized part file with no face-level appearances.
• Assembly containing only the optimized part file.

The measurables are:

• Part file open time (Figure 8).
• Assembly file open time (Figure 8).
• Component load time (Figure 9 and 10), when the assembly is opened.

Figure 8. Using the "SW Open Time" Column in File Explorer.

Figure 9. Component load time using Performance Evaluation – original part with 14,076 face-level appearances.

Figure 10. Component load time using Performance Evaluation - no face-level appearances.

To better appreciate the benefits, we consolidated all the results in Figure 10 (all results are in seconds).

Conclusion

Many face-level appearances have a huge impact on performance. Fortunately, the diagnostic process is straightforward, the optimization technique is simple and the return on the time invested is huge.

2.    Large Number of Bodies

There are typically two reasons why importing a STEP file would generate a large number of bodies:

• The original file was an assembly that was imported as a multibody part. Read Part 1 of this series of articles for more information on how to control the import output.
• The import process was not able to preserve the topology of the original bodies and, as a result, some of the bodies were split into smaller surface bodies. Many times, these surface bodies have only one face.

Considering that, internally, SOLIDWORKS treats bodies in a multibody part as individual components, the performance starts to degrade as the number of bodies increases.

The surface bodies in particular impact the performance the most, since each face is computed and accounted twice (there are two sides for each face).

Case Study 2

The case study starts with the part that was optimized in the previous exercise. This part has no face-level appearances, but contains 5,834 bodies, the vast majority of which are surface bodies.

Figure 11.

Diagnostic Tools

In a large assembly, the best tool to identify parts that have a large number of bodies is Assembly Visualization by adding two columns for the Surface Body Count and Solid Body Count (Figure 12) to use as sorting criteria.

Start by using the Surface Body Count as the sorting criterion. Any component with more than 100 surface bodies should be further evaluated as a possible candidate for simplification.

In the second phase, sort by Solid Body Count and repeat the procedure.

Figure 12. Identifying parts with large number of bodies.

Optimization Techniques

There are three optimization techniques for user-controlled body reduction.

For the simplification process to be time-effective, most of the work should be performed directly in the graphics area. There should be minimal (or none) interaction with the FeatureManager Tree.

Important considerations for simplifying multibody parts:

1.  Most SOLIDWORKS Power-users, with extensive training and experience in advanced part modeling and surface modeling, are tempted to simplify multibody parts by using the Delete/Keep Body command.

While the Delete/Keep Body would remove the unwanted geometry, it will still retain the original information (imported features who generated the deleted bodies) in the file. Moreover, managing the deleted body set for future revisions is not straight-forward.

A better workflow involves suppressing or deleting the imported features directly. For an ultimate simplification, all the unwanted imported features are deleted from the tree, in effect simulating the import of a much simpler STEP file.

2.  For the simplification process to be time-effective, most of the work should be performed directly in the graphics area. There should be minimal (or none) interaction with the FeatureManager Tree.

Ideally the workflow should be as simple as possible:

1. Select features directly from the graphics area.
2. Supress or delete them.

Most of the time, the users need to preserve a small number of imported features, thus the workflow above is not ideal. It would be better to:

1. Select features to be preserved directly from the graphics area.
2. Mark them for preservation.
3. Supress or delete everything else that is not marked.

At the time of writing this article, SOLIDWORKS 2021 has good Selection Filters to allow users to select entities from the graphics area, but none of them can select features in bulk.

Figure 13. There is no Filter for Features.

Because of that, it is important to learn how to use a combination of other tools to achieve the desired result. An example of such a workflow, combining tools that were designed for other purposes to achieve this goal, is the Appearance Selection Technique described below.

2.a. Appearance Selection Technique

Earlier in this article we demonstrated how appearances can be your enemies. This time, we will show you how to use them as friendly tools to quickly:

• Mark the features to be preserved.
• Automatically create selection sets of features.
• Suppress or delete everything else.

Step 1: In the graphics area, select a face belonging to an imported feature to be preserved.

Step 2: In the context toolbar select the Appearance tool.

Step 3: Select the Feature-level appearance (Figure 14).

Figure 14. Applying appearances at feature level.

Step 4: Select a color to temporarily “paint” the selected features. Think of it as a visual marker to make this process as simple and easy as possible. In this example, we applied the orange color as a marker.

Step 5: Continue to select one face for each of the features intended to be preserved. Make sure that the appearances are applied at the feature level (Figure 15).

Figure 15. Make sure the appearance is applied at the feature-level.

Step 6: In the Display Manager, select the orange appearance. Notice that all imported features that were painted orange are now selected (Figure 16).

Note that this is how we used a tool that was designed for a different purpose to serve us as a selection for a set of features.

Figure 16. Selecting the Orange appearance, selects all orange features.

We need to suppress or delete the rest of the features. Fortunately, there is an Invert Selection tool available.

Step 7: Right-click anywhere on the empty part of the graphics area and from the Right Mouse Button menu select Selection and then Invert Selection.

Figure 17. Invert selection.

At this point the rest of the features in the tree are selected, included the front, top and right plane and the origin. The good news is that you can still suppress or delete all of them in bulk, since the major planes and the origin will not be affected.

Figure 18. The unwanted features are selected.

Step 8: Right-click on the empty space of the graphics area and select:

• Suppress, if you want to keep the original imported features in the file. This option is great if you want to create two configurations: Original and Simplified.
• Delete, for the ultimate simplification.

Figure 19.

In this example, we will use the Delete option.

Step 9: Because the Major Planes and the Origin cannot be deleted, you will receive the warning shown in Figure 20.

Figure 20.

Step 10: Click OK and then Yes to All.

Figure 21.

Step 11: Feel free to delete the orange appearance.

Productivity Impact

This technique allowed us to quickly preserve the geometry of interest and remove anything that is not relevant for the use case of the part.

Figure 22. From 6,834 bodies to 7 in less than a minute.

Using the same measurables from the first case study, the results are presented in Figure 22.

Conclusion

Applying the law of diminishing returns, the conclusion is that we will get a good ROI when applying this technique for reducing the number of bodies.

It’s good to know that when applying colors to a large number of features using the Appearance command, you will experience a selection lag as more features are selected. At one point, the lag will be so pronounced that you will see the color being applied for a minute or more after your click.

When that happens, you can take advantage of the Paste Appearance tool:

Step 1: Apply the orange appearance to as many features as you can, before the lag becomes unacceptable.

Step 2: Exit the appearance command.

Step 3: On the graphics area, select an orange face and from the context toolbar select Copy Appearance.

Figure 23. Copy appearance.

Step 4: Select a new face that belongs to a feature you want to preserve.

Step 5: From the context toolbar select Paste Appearance.

Figure 24 - Paste Appearance.

Step 6: From the Appearance Target toolbar, select the Feature-level.

Figure 25. Make sure the appearance is applied to the feature-level.

Note that you can save even more clicks by pinning the Appearance Target toolbar and set it to feature-level. The first time you do that, an orange appearance is applied to the face you selected, so you will have to remove it before applying other appearances to features.

This works very well if you create a keyboard shortcut for the Paste Appearance command.

Figure 26. Save time using a keyboard shortcut.

2.b. Defeature Silhouette – Copy Geometry

An alternative tool is using Defeature Silhouette to achieve the same result. Unfortunately, at the time of this article, Defeature Silhouette is available only in the assembly environment. Because of that, a temporary assembly file needs to be created.

Step 1: Insert the multibody part into a temporary assembly.

Step 2: Start the Defeature command and choose the Silhouette option.

Step 3: Click the Next arrow.

Figure 27. Defeature Silhouette.

Step 4: Using the None (Copy Geometry) simplification method, select all the bodies you need preserving. Make sure you use the Body Selection field.

Step 5: Click Add Group.

Note that steps 4 and 5 can be used multiple times to create several groups. That could make selection management easier.

Figure 28. Make sure you select bodies, not components.

At this point, SOLIDWORKS will copy all the bodies you selected into a new part and will provide you with a preview of the result in a window on the right of the screen. Note that the two windows are linked, so any zooming or panning in one is replicating on the other.

Step 6: Once you are satisfied with the result, select the Next arrow.

Figure 29.

Step 7: At this point you have two relevant options:

• Save the result to a new part file and maintain a link to this assembly.
• Create a simplified configuration in this assembly.

In this case, we will choose the option to save to a new document without linking to the original.

Figure 30.

The geometry in the resulting file is similar to the one obtained by using the Appearance Selection Technique, but the defeatured file will be slower in operation. That is because the FeatureManager contains Defeatured features, which will require more processing than Imported Features.

Figure 31.

The other disadvantage to using Defeature Silhouette is that the Edges and Faces IDs are not preserved. So, if the original part was already used in mates or as an external reference, the mates and relations will lose their references.

2.c. Save Selected Faces to Parasolid

This technique should be used in situations where the STEP import resulted in many surface bodies (usually 1 face/body). In situations like that, it is very hard to select all the entities that need to be deleted; it is much easier to select the entities that should be saved.

In this case, we will select individual faces. To make the selection easier, let’s use the same technique of marking the required faces using the orange appearance.

Step 1: Apply one appearance to the faces to be preserved, using a similar technique as the one described in the Case Study 2.a. Make sure the appearances are applied at face-level.

Note that if needed, you can use the Copy/Paste Appearance commands as described earlier.

The Orange appearance will act as a selection set for these faces.

Figure 32. Apply an appearance to all faces to be preserved.

Step 2: In the Display Manager select the orange appearance. All orange faces will be selected.

Step 3: Use the Save As command and select Parasolid as the file type.

Step 4: Input a file name and select Save.

Figure 33. Save as Parasolid.

Step 5: On the next dialog box select Selected face(s) and click OK.

Figure 34.

Step 6: Import the Parasolid file. The result is a multibody part file containing only surface bodies.

Figure 35. Saving selected faces.

Note that this technique is great for extracting reference surfaces from complex imported parts. It is useful for designing tooling and fixtures.

Summary

In this article, we covered the first two factors that drastically impact SOLIDWORKS users’ performance when working with imported geometry.

In the next article in the Ultimate Guide of Working with STEP Files series, we will cover the last two major factors, which impact not only assembly performance, but especially drawings performance.

To learn more, check out the whitepaper Gain Competitive Advantage with Product Data Management.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for Javelin Technologies, a Trimech company, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 31 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, once at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

There is one thing CAD power-users have in common: They do not accept limitations in software functionality. Try to say to power-users: “You cannot do this,” and they will look at you like you are an alien.

As a training and process consultant, working with hundreds of engineers and designers every year, I learned one more thing SOLIDWORKS power-users have in common: they are so busy designing the amazing products that are improving our life, that they cannot spare a moment to improve their own.

As we focus on tailoring new methods for improving power-users’ productivity, each training session generates intense brainstorming events—harnessing the ingenuity and creativity of everyone involved. Not only do we design, try, validate and finetune new techniques to solve their challenges, but we also push the functionality of SOLIDWORKS to its limits. When that happens, there is always a user who comes up with a great idea for how the software should work better. I am sure SOLIDWORKS Product Definition Managers would love to be a fly on the wall in these moments.

Even though they have great ideas for enhancing SOLIDWORKS’ functionality, however, few users can find the time to submit these ideas to the CAD vendor by following the proper channels, as described in this article.

I hate to see great ideas go to waste, so I decided to collect as many as possible from my customers and submit them to the SOLIDWORKS Top Ten 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021. Since we already established that your time is precious, I will not go in details explaining how the Top Ten List 2021 (also knows as TTL21) is the surest way to maximize the chance that your enhancement requests will be implemented in the next releases of SOLIDWORKS. If you have time and are curious, please read these two articles to understand how the Top Ten Event came to be and everything about how the event was implemented this year.

Instead, I will attempt to save you the time by proposing a curated list of ten ideas for your voting considerations. The criteria for selecting these ideas are:

• Maximize the positive impact in productivity.
• Easy to implement from the developer’s perspective.
• Focused on large assembly and drawing workflows.

[Update 02/03/21: The voting is complete, now is the time to see the results. Don't miss the Top Ten List MeetUp at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 with Gian Paolo Bassi, the CEO of SOLIDWORKS and the SOLIDWORKS R&D and Product Development Teams.]

Step 1: Register on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform

This year, the SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List is hosted on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. If you do not have yet a user ID, you can register for free using this link.

Once your account is created, please login into the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform and follow the links below.

Without further ado, this is the list we curated for you:

1. ESCAPE Key should always stop the current process and revert to the state before it
2. Ability to Open a Subassembly in Large Design Review mode
3. Drawing Detailing Mode from Assembly Large Design Review Mode
4. Add Mark-ups to the Large Design Review Mode
5. Ability to see Snapshots and Mark-ups when a SOLIDWORKS file is opened in eDrawings
6. Manage Display States with Tables
7. BOM to Filter Visible Components
8. Make "Include Detailing Mode Data when saving" a Document Setting instead of a System Setting
9. Enhance the 3DInterconnect Robustness
10. Make Property Tabs - File Type Agnostic

How to Vote on an Idea

The voting process is very simple, just “like the idea” to record your vote (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Give a "Thumbs Up" to the ideas you would like to see implemented in the next releases of SOLIDWORKS.

For more in-depth information about the voting process, read this article.

Now, let’s explore these ideas in order to gauge their potential for improving your productivity.

#1 Escape Key Should Always Stop the Current Process and Revert to the State Before It

Description of the problem:

In SOLIDWORKS, the Escape key has many roles, depending on when it is being used. Its main function is to cancel an existing dialog box and return the user to the previous activity. For example, the user could close the PropertyManager dialog of a feature and return to the part environment without changing the settings of that feature.

For a reduced set of commands, the Escape key could terminate a process without loss of data. Unfortunately, that works in a small number of cases and is not always consistent.

For example, Escape will not interrupt a long computation process such as displaying a preview image of a feature. When the user knows that the preview will take tens of minutes, the only option to stop it is to crash the SOLIDWORKS session. That is not always possible due to loss of data since the last save. As a result, the user has a painful choice to make:

• Waste tens of minutes—or even hours—waiting for the preview to be computed and displayed.
• Crash SOLIDWORKS and potentially lose hours of work since the last save.

Figure 2.

Benefits after implementation:

• Save a significant amount of time. For some users, this could be measured in hours per week.
• Improve consistency in the user experience (UX). The Escape key in SOLIDWORKS would have similar behaviour to what it has in most Windows programs.

How to implement it:

Ideally, the software will always cache the current state in RAM before any new activity is initiated by the user. When the Escape key is pressed, the current process will stop and SOLIDWORKS will instantly return the model to the cached state.

#2 Ability to Open a Subassembly in Large Design Review mode

Description of the problem:

In SOLIDWORKS, the Large Design Review mode (LDR) is the best way to open humongous assemblies in seconds by loading only the graphics data saved in the assembly file. The experience is like opening the assembly in eDrawings.

In the last three releases of SOLIDWORKS, this functionality has been enhanced tremendously. Users can perform many activities in this mode:

1. Use the model as a Visual Directory to find and open components.
2. Hide, show or isolate components.
3. Generate graphics-only planar section views.
4. Measure.
5. Use a “Camera” to navigate through the assembly without hiding or sectioning.
6. Access the Performance Evaluation tool.
7. Set and use Snapshots to preserve the orientation, the Hide and Show state of components, and the Section View state.
8. Review different assembly configurations.
9. Selective Open the assembly for quick revisions or design validation studies
10. Edit Assembly in Large Design Review Mode to delete components, add components, edit component positions, add/delete/edit mates, and add linear and circular patterns.

One of the most common activities is the first one on the list: finding and opening components from the graphics area or from the FeatureManager tree.

Currently, from an assembly opened in LDR mode, you can open a subassembly in both resolved and lightweight modes, but not in LDR mode.

Figure 3. Current opening modes.

This limitation prevents users from performing very fast editing workflows, such as the one described below:

1. From the top-level assembly opened in LDR mode, select one or more subassemblies.
2. Press a button to open the selected subassemblies in LDR mode.
3. Edit a subassembly open in LDR mode.
4. Add and mate a new component.
5. Save the subassembly and update the LDR graphics data.
6. Return to the main assembly.
7. Edit the main assembly.
8. Save all files.

Benefits after implementation:

• This will enable users to save a huge amount of time when working with very large assemblies. In our tests, we were able to insert a large component into a large subassembly, mate it in position, then return to and update the top-level assembly in under five minutes, compared with 27 minutes using conventional techniques.

How to implement it:

To illustrate the results of this enhancement, we partnered with Artem Taturevych from XARIAL to implement this functionality using API. Please watch this video for a proof of concept for ideas #2 and #3:

Video 1. Open Subassembly in LDR mode from LDR and Open Drawing in Detailing mode from LDR.

#3 Drawing Detailing Mode from Assembly Large Design Review Mode

Description of the problem:

The introduction of the Detailing mode was a game changer for users of large drawings. If you are curious, you could read how this revolutionary enhancement was implemented in SOLIDWORKS in this article.

By not having the model loaded in the RAM, drawings open instantaneously in this mode. Operational speed is also maximized for:

Adding secondary views:

• Detail views
• Broken views
• Crop views
• Empty views

Reposition:

• Views
• Dimensions
• Annotations
• Tables

Add and edit:

• Dimensions
• Annotations
• Revision Tables
• General Tables

Print and Save to PDF, DXF, DWG and more

What is not currently possible is to open a drawing from an assembly opened in LDR mode.

Benefits after implementation:

Users will save a huge amount of time, as shown in Video 1. Moreover, the user can select multiple subassemblies from the top-level assembly opened in LDR mode and their drawings can be opened in seconds in Detailing mode.

Typical workflow:

1. Open Top-level assembly in LDR.
2. Select one or more subassemblies.
3. Press a button to open their drawings in Detailing mode.
4. Perform drawing activities as described above.
5. Save the drawing(s).
6. Return to the assembly opened in LDR.

How to implement it:

For a proof of concept, please watch Video 1 shown above.

#4 Add Mark-ups to the Large Design Review Mode

Description of the problem:

At many companies I work with, the checkers have tons of paper in front of them and a red pen. They manually redline everything and then send the sheets back to the SOLIDWORKS users. There is not an inch of space on anyone's desk not covered in paper.

Once these checkers see the new markup functionality for assemblies (SW2019) and drawings (SW2020), they get extremely excited. The checkers do not even need to learn how to use SOLIDWORKS, they just need to learn how to use markups. It’s a good opportunity to ask for and get a tablet or a touchscreen for hand-written markups.

Moreover, markups can now be added and edited in the Detailing mode for drawings, making them even more useful for users.

Figure 4. Markup created in Detailing mode.

Unfortunately, markups are not accessible in the Large Design Review mode for assemblies. Not only can markups not be created in LDR mode, but they are also not even visible.

Benefits after implementation:

Giving all users (checkers, managersand power-users) access to markups in Large Design Review mode would completely change the workflows for sharing information:

• During the checking process.
• Sharing information with members of the team.
• Sharing information with third parties, including customers or suppliers.
• Quickly documenting important information during design review meetings directly in the assembly file.

How to implement it:

SOLIDWORKS already proved that comments added to snapshots can be accessible in LDR mode. In addition, annotations can be added in eDrawings mode. Expanding this functionality for markups in LDR mode might not be an easy project, but the return on investment is huge.

#5 Ability to See Snapshots and Mark-Ups When a SOLIDWORKS File is Opened in eDrawings

Description of the problem:

Snapshots are fantastic for users who work with Large Assemblies, and they work especially well in the Large Design Review mode. With Snapshots, with one click users can access:

• Hide/show state of components.
• Section view state.
• Orientation.
• Comments.

As described above, there aren’t enough great things to say about markups. They save trees and hours of work for checkers, managers, users, manufacturing personnel and anyone else who requires information.

More importantly, you do not need to be a SOLIDWORKS power-user to use snapshots to navigate through the model and exchange information with markups. Anyone can be trained in minutes on how to open an assembly in LDR mode and take advantage of these tools.

Unfortunately, most employees from other departments do not have access to SOLIDWORKS. They will open models using the eDrawings software, which currently does not include functionality for accessing SOLIDWORKS snapshots and markups.

Benefits after implementation:

Giving all stakeholders access to snapshots and markups from eDrawings will be a game changer for the whole company. The need for paper-based communication will decrease significantly. Moreover, the SOLIDWORKS users will no longer be interrupted from their work by colleagues from other departments with questions that can have instant answers in existing snapshots and markups.

How to implement it:

eDrawings already allow access to complex information from the SOLIDWORKS part, assembly and drawing files. Unlocking the access to Snapshots should be similar to the current access to 3DViews.

Allowing access to Markups will probably be more difficult, since markups are in essence 2D sketches.

#6 Manage Display States with Tables

Description of the problem:

Imagine receiving a complex customer assembly model made of several components. Your role is to design the whole process for welding all the components together. That would involve the design of several cells, including robots, conveyors and all kind of other fixtures and machines.

For that, you would need to create a model of the customer part for each phase of the manufacturing process. As an example:

Phase 1: Show only parts A and B and their weld points (weld points are usually represented as spheres).

Phase 2: Show Parts A, B and C, and the weld points relevant for this phase.

…

Phase n: Show Parts A, B, C, D... n, and the weld points relevant for this phase.

…

To configure and manage such a complex variation, most users use configurations and design tables. This is all well and good until the higher-level assemblies need to use tens of copies of the same customer model with various configurations.

In that case, for each instance of the model in a unique configuration, SOLIDWORKS needs to load a dedicated set of body data. So, if the assembly requires 30 different configurations of the same model, it will load 30 different body sets. The performance degrades exponentially with the increased number of configurations.

This issue was more significant in earlier versions of SOLIDWORKS (before 2020). The software was unable to read body data stored in inactive configurations.

The solution? Use Display States instead of configurations. You could store each phase in a separate display state and simply hide all components not needed by each display state. Since multiple display states can share the same internal model, the problem is solved. If the higher assembly loads 30 different display states of the same model, in the same configuration, only one body data set would be loaded. The difference is huge.

Unfortunately, managing displays states is currently a manual process. This makes their use very cumbersome and might even prevent users for adopting them.

The solution is simple: allow display states managing with tables, similar to configuration management.

Benefits after implementation:

Once the display states table management is implemented, users will be able to take full advantage of the lighter information from display states. File sizes, open times and drawing view update time will decrease drastically (by a factor of 2 to 10 or more).

How to implement it:

Simply use the same tools that work well for configurations:

• A tool similar to Configure component tables.
• Design tables.

#7 BOM to Filter Visible Components

Description of the problem:

Imagine how much easier you could document drawing views if you could ask the BOM to hide all hidden components, and also give you the option to maintain the item numbers unchanged (simply hiding the rows of hidden components) or renumber the items.

This way, individual BOMs attached to specific drawing views would make an Assembly Process describing drawing a breeze.

Currently, users are forced to create separate configurations for each BOM (with all the consequences described in idea #6) or painstakingly hide BOM rows, which destroys the parametric paradigm behind the BOM.

This idea would work well with idea #6 - Display States Managed by Tables.

Benefits after implementation:

Implementing this simple idea will drastically reduce the complexity of models and drawings used for describing a process, as well as reducing the number of files and configurations required for that.

How to implement it:

Add a checkbox in the PropertyManager of a BOM table: Ignore hidden components.

#8 Make "Include Detailing Mode Data When Saving" a Document Setting Instead of a System Setting

Description of the problem:

As described in idea #3, the Detailing mode for drawings is a game changer. It works by saving more information in the drawing file, mostly related to existing edges and their IDs. That, unfortunately, creates two less desirable consequences:

1. Larger file sizes (all that independent info needs to be stored somewhere).
2. Long saving times for drawings that have shaded views or draft quality views.

Considering that 95 percent of SOLIDWORKS drawings are simple enough not to need the use of the Detailing mode, it is important to give the users the ability to decide how much information to save in the file.

Currently SOLIDWORKS 2020 and 2021 have implemented this user control as a System Option:

Figure 5. Save Detailing Mode Data.

This is less than ideal for two reasons:

1. It does not allow users to customize the amount of data saved per file. Ideally:

• Simple drawings should have this option unchecked.
• Complex drawings should have the option checked.

2. It potentially creates major problems for teams of users. One user, who has this system option unchecked, could open a large drawing, save it and erase the detailing data. Then, when a power-user needs to open the drawing in Detailing mode, it would be impossible.

After all, ensuring team-level consistency is critical.

Benefits after implementation:

Reduce saving times, increase consistency in the team and simplify file management.

How to implement it:

This option should be a document level setting, allowing the user to decide whether to save the drawing with the Detailing data included or not.

To simplify the workflow, the SAVE dialog can also have a checkbox called Detailing Data to allow the user to make such decisions.

It might even be worth considering having a Large Drawing Mode, similar to the Large Assembly Mode, where the software can decide to save or not save Detailing data based on the rules related to the number of drawing views set to Shaded or Shaded with Edges, or related to other factors known to slow down the detailing process.

#9 Enhance 3DInterconnect Robustness

Description of the problem:

We described the benefits of the new 3DInterconnect import engine in The Ultimate Guide to Working with STEP Files series of articles.

The limitations of this tool have been very well documented in the SOLIDWORKS Knowledgebase. Fixing these three SPRs would remove most of the issues reported by users:

• Current regression: SPR 1180136: Non-native file inserted in assembly as 3D Interconnect feature does not show refresh icon (symbol) in FeatureManager Tree when its geometry is changed.
• Current limitation: SPR 1072694: 3D Interconnect – Ability to maintain the downstream features (mates) in a SW file when the linked STEP file’s geometry is updated.
• Current regression: SPR 1187494: STEP – Export and Import – weldment part – changing the dimension of the structural member, the order of body will change once re-imported.

Benefits after implementation:

Huge time savings during revisions, reducing errors and improving productivity.

How to implement it:

Simply address the documented issues.

#10 Make Property Tabs File Type Agnostic

Currently, there are four different types of property tabs for:

• Part
• Assembly
• Weldment
• Drawings

There should be only one property tab, which would work for all document types. This will be easy to manage and much easier to use.

For example, in a top-level assembly, a Select all components command would be followed by applying a property value to all of them, regardless of whether they are sub-assemblies or parts.

2. If different components are already assigned different tabs, they cannot be selected together and processed by the property tab. This is a showstopper.

The ideal behavior is pre-selecting components, picking a certain tab template and applying it to all as needed. For example, if you have a property tab that controls only three properties, you should be able to select all components of the assembly, pick that tab and modify all those properties in bulk in 20 seconds. This is currently impossible.

Some of these issues were documented in: 

SPR 458546: "Selected documents refer to different templates. When selecting multiple documents, each one needs to refer to the same template file" when selecting multiple component combinations that were not originally chosen to apply the custom properties.

SPR 836530: Provide ability to change a property of multiple components at once, even if they use different custom property templates, but share a common property.

3. If SW would add a Cut List filter in the F5 filter box, it would unlock the functionality for Weldment Property Tabs. Imagine how easy would be to add, modify and manage cut list properties, directly from the graphics area. For example:

• Turn the cut-list filter on.
• Click on several faces belonging to various bodies.
• Get the Property Tab to show the cut list properties associated to the items that have faces selected.
• Edit the properties at will.

Benefits after implementation:

User productivity would increase by 30 to 50 percent when working with metadata in weldments and sheet-metal parts.

How to implement it:

Unify the Property Tab functionality.

Summary

This is a once-in-a-year opportunity for all of us to vote on the most significant ideas for improving the SOLIDWORKS software. This article offered a curated list of ideas, focused mostly on increasing productivity for large assembly and drawing users.

If you have time, do not stop here. Read the rest of the ideas and vote on all the ones you believe would improve your productivity and your quality of life. Then curate your own lists and send them to your friends and colleagues to vote for.

There is power in numbers!

Join in to see the results during the Top Ten List MeetUp at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021!

To learn more about SOLIDWORKS, check out the whitepaper Developing Better Products in the Cloud.

This article will examine the optimization tools and techniques available when a STEP file is imported as an assembly.

The previous articles in the Ultimate Guide to Working with STEP Files series covered these topics:

Part 1: The Battle of Two Import Engines – Quality and Speed:

• Selecting the Import Engine available in a standard installation of SOLIDWORKS: Traditional Import Engine (TIE) or 3D Interconnect (3DI).
• Import quality comparison between the two engines.
• Import speed comparison between the two engines.

Part 2: Working with Revised STEP Files:

• Robustness of Design Changes originating from STEP files (comparison between the two engines).
• Correct geometry updates.
• Maintaining edge and face IDs for preserving downstream references, including features related to the existing geometry and mates referring existing geometry (faces and edges).

Both articles contain benchmark data, identify bottlenecks and propose viable workarounds.

Part 3: Geometry Comparison for Revised STEP Files:

• Tools and techniques for identifying differences in geometry, location, and orientation between revised STEP files.

They also contain a list of SPRs you can vote on to significantly improve the functionality of the software.

The Impact of Imported Geometry on Large Assembly Performance

You may be reading this article because you have encountered serious slowdowns when inserting components with complex imported geometry in your assemblies.

Your vendors might send you STEP files of assemblies containing all the components, including little nuts, bolts and washers, required for a whole machine. What you need, however, is usually a simplified model containing more or less the following information:

• The space claim for interference detection, and as an envelope.
• Mounting holes.
• Inlet/Outlet Ports.
• Mass Properties.
• Metadata.
• Recognizable shape(s).

You most likely do not need:

• All internal components.
• All internal cavities.
• Labels (especially embossed text).
• Cosmetic threads.
• Cosmetic chamfers.
• A large number of bodies or components (especially surface bodies).

Slowdown Symptoms

When working with unoptimized imported geometry, users usually report two types of major slowdowns:

1. Longer opening times.
2. Operational slowdowns and lag after the assembly is opened. These include:
   • Lag when rebuilding assembly.
   • Assembly requires frequent rebuilds, even though the user has not modified the models.
   • Lag when selecting one or more entities in the graphics area of the assembly (edges, faces, planes, etc.).
   • Lag when selecting entities in the FeatureManager Tree.
   • Lag when dragging components in the assembly.
   • Lag when mating components.
   • Lag when changing display states.
   • Lag when changing configurations.
   • Lag when switching model windows (e.g. from assembly to a part, and back to the assembly).
   • Long saving time.

While long opening times are the ones easier to measure and report, the operational slowdowns are much more debilitating for the productivity – and your mental wellbeing. Having to wait seconds after every click can be much more frustrating than having to wait five minutes for an assembly to open.

I have witnessed extreme situations where users had to wait from 20 seconds up to one minute after every click on the screen. Adding one coincident mate between two faces took one minute or more. This is what led to the day of only 40 productive minutes, as previously mentioned.

A few years ago, the engineering team from Phil Mauer & Associates, manufacturers of material handling containers and tacking, had this experience. One of their racks (shown below), when on its own as a finished product, is a very “fast” assembly. It opens in seconds and there is no operational lag.

Figure 1. Not a large assembly.

Since all the racks designed by the Phil Mauer team are custom made for a specific product, the assembly starts with one or more instances of the customer model as the referenced component. Such models are received as STEP files with:

• 0.5 GB to more than 1 GB file size per part.
• 8,000 to 20,000 unique surface bodies per part.
• 60,000+ unique appearances per part.

If the referenced model is added to the assembly without being optimized first, the slowdown is so pronounced that the operational lag can be measured in minutes.

Figure 2. Adding one imported geometry component makes this a "Large Assembly."

Mike Taylor, the product development manager at Phil Mauer and Associates, describes the difference in productivity his team experienced after implementing optimization procedures for models originating from STEP files:

Figure 3.

Main Causes of Slowdown

There are multiple factors that could impact performance. They include:

• Number of appearances applied at face level.
• Topological errors.
• Number of graphics-triangles.
• Number of surface bodies.
• Number of solid bodies.
• Number of faces.
• Geometry complexity.

Note that some of these factors are related (e.g. geometry complexity and the number of graphics-triangles).

Import Geometry Optimization - Return on Investment

Even though they experience critical slowdowns when using unoptimized components with imported geometry, many SOLIDWORKS users feel overwhelmed at the perspective of performing geometry optimization or simplification. These excuses are not uncommon:

• “It would take too long.”
• “The model is too complicated to be simplified.”
• “There is no easy way to select what I want to keep and remove the rest.”

In this article, I will present several tools and techniques that could be incorporated in an optimization process. The sequence of using them is based on the rule of diminishing returns. This allows each user to decide how much time should be dedicated to optimizing imported geometry based on how much each component will be used in production.

For example, if a STEP file is used only once in an assembly, the user might spend only ten minutes to apply the first three steps of the simplification process and experience a 60 percent increase in efficiency.

In another case, the model originating from a STEP file will be saved in the Team Library of Parts and will become a base component in most assemblies. In this case it is worth spending a longer time optimizing it to experience a 90 percent increase in efficiency. The whole team would benefit from the work performed by one user.

Importing Options: Assembly Versus Part

As we demonstrated in Part 1: The Battle of Two Import Engines – Quality and Speed, a STEP file containing multiple bodies or multiple components can be imported:

• As a multibody part.
• As an assembly.

Case Study #1 – STEP File Imported as Assembly

While many users like how much easier the file management becomes when using multibody parts, there are certain situations where assemblies are better suited for performance:

• A larger arsenal of advanced selection tools to quickly select, including internal components, small components or components by view.
• Better defeature tools.
• SpeedPak tool.
• Advanced options for Save as Part.

The good is news is that some of these advanced tools can be used in a hybrid method that employs these steps:

1. Import as an assembly.
2. Select all internal components.
3. Delete or supress all internal components.
4. Select “small components” based on the user’s criteria.
5. Delete or supress small components.

At this point the simplification can continue by selecting one of these three options:

1. Save the resulted assembly as a part.
2. Defeature the resulted assembly.
3. SpeedPak the resulted assembly.

Step #1: Import as an Assembly

To facilitate importing as an assembly, we used the settings shown in Figures 4 and 5.

Figure 4. Select the 3D Interconnect import engine.

Figure 5. Import multiple bodies as parts.

Notice that we did not check the Automatically run Import Diagnostic (Healing) box, because for complex parts or assemblies it would take a long time to run without preliminary preparations.

The imported model is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Imported as assembly.

If you would like to perform a preliminary check to identify topological errors, we recommend using the Check tool. It is very fast and has excellent visual reporting.

Figure 7. Check tool.

Figure 8. Isolate each error for detail information.

At this point we will not heal any errors, to avoid working on components that are not required in the final model.

Step #2 - Select all Internal Components

From the Select dropdown, chose Select Internal Components.

Figure 9. Select internal components.

The definition of an internal component requires no contact with the “outside air.” Even a small hole that allows the “outside” to communicate with the component would disqualify it from being recognized as “internal.”

In this case, 184 components were recognized as internal. You can see them isolated in Figures 10 and 11.

Figure 10. Isolate with transparent option.

Figure 11. Isolate with hidden option.

Step #3: Delete or Suppress All Internal Components

At this time, the user has multiple options:

1. Delete all internal components.
2. Suppress all internal components.
3. Create a simplified configuration where all internal components are suppressed.

In our case study the internal components are suppressed.

Step #4: Select “Small Components” Based on User’s Criteria

From the Select dropdown, chose Select by Size.

Figure 12. Select by Size.

If you check on the dynamic selection box and move the slider or type a percentage size value, you can preview what will be selected. In this case, a five percent percentage factor quickly selects 150 small components that are not needed.

Figure 13.

The selected “small components” are isolated in Figure 14.

Figure 14.

Step #5: Delete or Suppress Small Components

At this time, the user has multiple options:

1. Delete all components identified as “small.”
2. Suppress all components identified as “small.”
3. Create a simplified configuration where all components identified as “small” are suppressed.

In our case study, the components identified as “small” are suppressed.

So far, in less than a minute we eliminated 334 out of 425 components, a reduction of 80 percent.

Figure 15.

The reduction in graphics-triangles, as reported by the Assembly Visualization tool, is 38 percent (from 1,108,833 to 687,267).

Figure 16.

Step #6 – Defeature

Let’s take advantage of the new functionality introduced by SOLIDWORKS 2021 and add a defeatured configuration to the assembly.

Select the defeature tool.

Figure 17.

Chose the silhouette option for the defeature and select the next arrow.

Figure 18.

Going forward, we will select a group of components and apply one of these simplification options:

• Bounding Box. Creates a cuboid bounding box.
• Cylinder. Creates a cylinder derived from the dimensions of a cuboid bounding box.
• Polygon Outline. Creates an extruded polygon that fits around the outline of the selected bodies and components.
• Tight Fit Outline. Creates an extruded body by using the outlines of the selected bodies and components.
• None (Copy Geometry). Creates an exact copy of the selected bodies and components.

Even though it is tempting to create large groups of components, it is more practical to limit the number of components in a group, even though the same simplification method is applied to multiple groups. By using a modular approach, the user can experiment much more easily with various options.

Select the large prismatic components that can be represented as their bounding box and click Apply.

Figure 19.

Note that the Bounding Box and Cylinder are the only simplification options that accept surface bodies as input.

Also note that components selected as one group can be merged in one body if they have common faces.

Select the handles and simplify them as cylindrical bodies.

Figure 20.

Repeat using these two simplification methods for the components shown in Figures 21 to 23.

Figure 21.

Figure 22.

Figure 23.

Select the switches bodies, and chose Polygon Outline with Multiple Directions.

Figure 24.

Select the rest of the bodies and chose Polygon Outline based on the front plane direction.

Figure 25.

At any time, the processed bodies can be highlighted to ensure nothing of importance is ignored.

Figure 26.

At this time, the user can decide to:

• Keep each component as an individual body.
• Merge all components that are touching.

Figure 27.

For this case study, we decided not to merge the bodies.

Select the Next arrow.

Figure 28.

In the next screen, the user can choose to:

• Save the result as a new document, with an external reference to the original assembly or with no external references.
• Create a new configuration in the original assembly (SOLIDWORKS 2021 and newer), and either include the top-level reference geometry, or do not include the top-level reference geometry.
• Publish the result to 3D ContentCentral.
• Store the defeature settings for future use.

We wanted to take advantage of the new functionality for creating a defeature configuration.

Figure 29.

The result is a simplified model with mostly prismatic or cylindrical faces and no cavities.

Figure 30.

Comparing the three assemblies, it is clear that the simplification effort has paid dividends. One way to compare them is by inserting all three in a new assembly and using the assembly visualization tool.

Figure 31.

To calculate the loading time for each of the three subassemblies (including their components), we used the SW-Open time as a column criterion in the assembly visualization tool and saved the results to Excel using the indented option.

Figure 32.

A screen grab of the Excel spreadsheet reveals the time savings during the loading phase of the assembly.

Figure 33.

With the original assembly as a baseline:

• The simplified assembly loads 62 percent faster.
• The defeature assembly loads 83 percent faster.

Figure 34.

To compare the initial graphics generation time, we used the Performance Evaluation tool.

Figure 35. Generating graphics – Defeatured.

Figure 36. Generating graphics – Simplified.

Figure 37. Generating graphics – Original.

With the original assembly as a baseline:

• 34 percent time savings to generate the initial graphics data for the simplified assembly.
• 99 percent time savings to generate the initial graphics data for the defeatured assembly.

Figure 38.

Alternative Controlled Simplification Technique Using the Defeature Tool

In real life, it is very seldom that components are identified as internal; there is almost always a small opening that makes them communicate with the “outside.” Also, many of these components have topological errors, which generate surface bodies.

In this case, the users need a quick visual method to manually select the components that are required and eliminate the rest. The defeature tool works well in this case.

First, select the defeature tool.

Figure 39.

Chose the Silhouette option for the defeature, and select the Next arrow.

Figure 40.

Choose None (Copy Geometry) as the simplification method, and manually select all components that are required.

Figure 41.

Then, choose how the final result will be saved.

Figure 42. SOLIDWORKS 2020 saving options.

Using the options shown in Figure 42, the result is a multibody part containing 50 bodies.

Figure 43.

Alternative Controlled Simplification Technique Using Component Appearances

For some huge assemblies, the defeature tool is too slow in operation. Users can replicate the manual selection with a good visual feedback by applying component-level appearances to the components that must be preserved.

First, select a component and apply the appearance at the component level.

Figure 44.

In this case, we will use the yellow color to mark the components to be preserved.

Figure 45.

Continue to select all the components that are to be marked for preservation, then click OK.

Figure 46.

 In the display manager under the appearances tab, select the yellow color appearance.

Figure 47.

In this case, because we applied this appearance at the component level, the appearance acts as a selection set. All components that have this appearance are now selected. Remember that these are the components we need preserved. The rest can be deleted or suppressed.

Next, right-click on the graphics area and select Selection Tools, then Invert Selection.

Figure 48

The “undesired” components are automatically selected.

Delete or suppressed the selected components.

Figure 49.

User-controlled instant simplification is achieved, shown below.

Figure 50.

Conclusion

This article presented several tools and techniques for quickly simplifying models originating from STEP files that are imported as assemblies.

The main takeaway is that SOLIDWORKS has good tools for:

• Diagnosing the causes of slowdowns due to imported geometry.
• Quickly selecting components that are not required in a higher-level assembly based on various criteria, including whether they are internal, or by component size.
• Further simplifying geometry using the defeature tool.
• User-controlled manual simplification using component-level appearances.

Investing a few minutes upfront for optimizing the imported geometry could pay huge dividends in production.

In the next article, we will present the fastest and most effective imported geometry simplification techniques when the STEP file is imported as a multibody part, including tips and tricks for reducing the time needed to heal import errors.

To be continued in Part 5: Simplification Techniques for Complex Imported Geometry Imported as Multibody Parts

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant working for Javelin Technologies, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver, and an avid contributor to the SOLIDWORKS Community. He has presented 25 times at SOLIDWORKS World, once at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings organized by four different user groups in Canada and one in the United States. Alin is also very active on SOLIDWORKS forums, especially on the Surfacing, Mold Design, Sheet Metal, Assembly Modeling and Weldments sub-fora. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

The previous articles covered these topics:

Part 1: The Battle of Two Import Engines – Quality and Speed:

• Selecting the Import Engine available in a standard installation of SOLIDWORKS, between Traditional Import Engine (TIE) and 3D Interconnect (3DI).
• Import quality comparison between the two engines.
• Import speed comparison between the two engines.

Part 2: Working with Revised STEP Files:

• Robustness of design changes originating from STEP files (comparison between the two engines), including correct geometry updates and maintaining edge and face IDs for preserving downstream references such as features related to the existing geometry and mates referring existing geometry (faces and edges).

Both articles contain benchmark data, identify bottlenecks and propose viable workarounds.

They also contain a list of SPRs that you can vote on to significantly improve the functionality of the software.

As mentioned in the previous articles, the amount of time SOLIDWORKS users spend working with STEP files varies based on how tightly they are integrated in a supply chain using multiple CAD solutions.

As the design is being iterated, a third party (customer or vendor) will revise the model and send new STEP files for each revision. A critical step for the SOLIDWORKS user is identifying any changes between revisions regarding:

• Geometry
• Location
• Orientation
• Metadata

Matching the Tool and the Task

The type and quality of the information accompanying a revised STEP file determine which tools and techniques the SOLIDWORKS user would choose to identify the differences between revisions.

Based on our experience of working with hundreds of customers who work daily with revised imported geometry, the difference in productivity can be measured in hours when the correct technique is used. Even more important, by precisely identifying revision changes, the danger of manufacturing defective products is drastically reduced.

If you have good communication with the company who revised the file, they will tell you what the changes are, either verbally or:

• documented in the drawing revision block.
• as metadata in the STEP file.
• in writing in an email or other document.

Most of the time, SOLIDWORKS users get a revised STEP file, with no other information about what has changed, and are being told to just “Use it!”

Regardless if you are one of the lucky ones or not, it is still critical to confirm the changes. If you are lucky enough to receive the STEP file along with the corresponding 2D drawing in PDF format, it will most likely include a warning like the one shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The STEP file rules!

This means that no matter how much other information is included in the revision package, the onus is still on the SOLIDWORKS user to identify changes between the existing and the revised model.

The extra information is helpful to streamline the comparison process, allowing the user to select the optimal analysis tool for getting the job done (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Tools and Techniques for Comparing STEP Revisions.

It is important to point out that, while the tools listed in Figure 2 can be used individually, they are most effective when they are paired together in a multiphase approach, to streamline the comparison process.

The following case studies will demonstrate several ways to incorporate these tools in the comparison process.

Case Study #1: Large Assembly Revision (no other information from the vendor)

In this case, the only information we received from the vendor was the revised STEP file. We do not know what has changed.

To save time, we will start by using the first tool listed in Figure 2, the Mass Properties.

Step 1. Import both STEP files in SOLIDWORKS using TIE (to save time for the import operation).

Figure 3.

Step 2. Activate the Engine Rev. 1 window.

Step 3. Access Mass Properties and copy the results to the Clipboard.

Unfortunately, the results do not have an optimal format for pasting into Excel with numbers in individual cells. That being said, we still prefer using Excel for analyzing the differences.

Step 4. Paste the results in a new Excel document in Sheet1.

Step 5. Activate the Engine Rev. 2 window.

Step 6. Access Mass Properties and copy the results to the Clipboard.

Step 7. Paste the results in Sheet2 of the Excel file.

Step 8. Compare the values from the two sheets following the procedure listed below (with credit to Svetlana Cheusheva, who wrote How to Compare Two Excel Files for Differences).

Step 9. Open a third sheet and enter the following formula in cell A1:

=IF(Sheet1!A1 <> Sheet2!A1, "Sheet1:"&Sheet1!A1&" vs Sheet2:"&Sheet2!A1, "")

Step 10. Hold down the CTRL key and drag the fill handle to all cells you can see.

Step 11. As you can see in Figure 4, the formula compares two sheets, identifies cells with deferent values and displays the differences in the corresponding cells.

Figure 4.

How to Read the Report from Sheet3

The cells listed in Sheet3 highlight these differences in the Mass Properties report:

Figure 5.

Since the mass, volume and surface area are unchanged, we can trust that the number and geometry of all components of the assembly have not changed.

The changes in the center of mass position are enough to indicate that some components have shifted their position and/or orientation, but we do not know yet which components have changed and how.

From here we have several options to identify which components have moved. One of the techniques takes advantage of the fact that Mass Properties can exclude hidden components. That allows us to design a recursive workflow for identifying the changes.

Warning: Please be aware that this process can be time consuming (and boring). Attention to detail is critical.

Before starting this process, it is important to understand if the assembly structure has been preserved or not:

• If the component names and their distribution in subassemblies has not changed, we can use the FeatureManager tree for the next steps.
• If the component names and/or the assembly structure has changed, we will use Assembly Visualization for the next steps.

A preliminary step for comparing the assembly structure uses Performance Evaluation:

Step 12. Activate the Engine Rev. 1 window.

Step 13. Start the Performance Evaluation.

Step 14. Copy the highlighted data and paste it in Sheet1 of a new Excel spreadsheet.

Figure 6.

Step 15. Activate Engine Rev. 2 window.

Step 16. Start the performance evaluation.

Step 17. Copy the highlighted data and paste it in Sheet2 of the Excel spreadsheet.

Step 18. Repeat the technique demonstrated in Steps 8 to 11 to compare the data from the two sheets.

In this case, the data sets match. We have the same number of part and subassembly components and the same assembly depth.  Let’s dig deeper and compare the bill of materials.

Step 19. Activate the Engine Rev. 1 window.

Step 20. Insert an indented BOM with detailed numbering.

Figure 7.

When prompted, we recommend selecting the Notes Area for the placement of the BOM. That will make the BOM static on the screen, independent of the viewport manipulations.

Figure 8.

In this case, the BOM is huge. Asking a human operator to compare it with the one from the Engine Rev. 2 assembly would be counterproductive. Fortunately, we know now how easy is to compare the data from different Excel Sheets.

Step 21. Save the table to a new Excel Spreadsheet.

Figure 9.

Step 22. Activate Engine Rev. 2 window.

Step 23. Insert an indented BOM with detailed numbering.

Step 24. Save the table to a new Excel Spreadsheet.

Step 25. Copy the content of the second Excel file into Sheet2 of the first file.

Step 26. Repeat the technique demonstrated in Steps 8 to 11 to compare the data from the two sheets.

In our case, there are no differences between the two data sets. That confirms that the assembly structure has not changed.

So far, the investigations determined that:

• The assembly structure was preserved.
• No component has been removed or added.
• No geometry has been modified.
• The position and/or orientation of some components has changed.

Knowing this, we can confidently use the Feature Manager tree in the next steps. As an optional step, you can now delete or hide the BOMs from both documents.

Step 27. Activate Engine Rev. 1 window.

Step 28. Select the upper half of the tree (you do not have to be precise). Note the last component selected.

Step 29. Optional: Save a selection set.

Step 30. Hide the components selected.

Figure 10.

Step 31. Activate Mass Properties. Make sure that the Include hidden bodies/components box is unchecked.

Step 32. Save the results in Sheet1 of a new Excel Spreadsheet.

Step 33. Activate the Engine Rev. 2 window.

Step 34. Select the same components you selected in Engine Rev. 1.

Step 35. Optional: Save a selection set.

Step 36. Hide the components selected.

Step 37. Activate Mass Properties. Make sure that the Include hidden bodies/components box is unchecked.

Step 38. Save the results in Sheet2 of the Excel spreadsheet.

Step 39. Repeat the technique demonstrated in Steps 8 to 11 to compare the data from the two sheets.

In this case, there are differences between the two data sets.

The next steps involve further refining the data to be compared by successively hiding half the visible data and repeating steps 27 to 39.

After all this work, it became clear that the engine components were not essentially changed, just saved with the crankshaft (and all related components) in a new position.

Figure 11.

What if the assembly structure was changed or components renamed?

In this case, we can no longer use the FeatureManager Tree to select in bulk corresponding components simultaneously in both assemblies.

This is when Assembly Visualization comes to the rescue. You can read more about the use of this tool in the article The X-Ray Machine for SOLIDWORKS Assemblies.

Since the names and/or the positions in the tree do not match, Assembly Visualization allow us to order components based on Volume and Surface Area. Steps 1 to 11 demonstrated that the geometry has not changed, so these two measurables can be used to sort the components in the tree.

To save time, you can use templates as shown in the article mentioned above.

Step 40. Format your template as shown in Figure 12, with the volume as the primary sorting criterion and surface area as the secondary sorting criterion.

Figure 12.

The result is shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13.

At this point, the components are sorted in the same order in both assemblies. That makes the use of the two rollback bars (top and bottom) possible for repeating the recursive process described above.

Figure 14.

As mentioned earlier, this is a very laborious process, but it is one that provides guaranteed results.

The investigation in our case demonstrated that the components are identical, and no material change was performed. It was decided to continue the use of Engine Rev. 1 model in production.

Case Study #2 – Large Assembly Revision (no other information from the vendor)

In this case, the only information we received from the vendor was the revised STEP file. We do not know what has changed. The file received is named Engine Rev. 3. We will compare its model with the one from Engine Rev. 1

The preliminary phase remains the same. We will follow steps 1 to 11 from Case Study #1 to get a rough reading of what has changed.

This time it became clear that the mass, volume and surface area have changed, indicating changes in component geometry.

Figure 15.

Fortunately, this is much easier to troubleshoot using Assembly Visualization.

For that, let’s use the same Assembly Visualization template with columns for volume and surface area, in flat view.

In essence we will repeat Step 40 to extract the relevant data from the files.

Figure 16.

Step 41. Save the data from each file in Excel spreadsheets.

Figure 17.

Step 42. Select Parts Only and uncheck Exclude hidden components (unless you know that hidden components can be ignored).

Figure 18.

Step 43. After consolidating both files into two sheets of the same Excel spreadsheet, repeat the technique demonstrated in Steps 8 to 11 to compare the data from both sheets.

In this case, there is one difference between the two data sets in row 19.

Figure 19.

Step 44. A quick check of Sheet1 or Sheet2 reveals the changed part.

Figure 20.

Thus, using Assembly Visualization quickly revealed which component was changed.

Figure 21.

Now, let’s find out what differences are between the two revisions of this component.

As long as the parts are 3D Interconnect objects, we cannot open them in their own window. Unfortunately, the whole assembly needs to be unlinked from the STEP file.

Step 45. Dissolve the link between each of the assemblies and its STEP file.

Figure 22.

Notice how the 3DInterconnect icons disappeared from the FeatureManager tree:

Figure 23.

Let’s consider the comparison of these two parts a distinct case study.

Case Study #3 – Comparing Two Unibody Parts Using Manual Boolean Operations

Step 3.1. Open Housing Rev. 1 part file.

Step 3.2. Use the Insert Part command to insert the solid body of the Housing Rev. 3 part file in the existing part.

Figure 24.

Make sure the only box checked is Solid bodies.

Figure 25.

Some users may prefer to use a sequence of three Combine commands to understand the difference between the two parts:

1. Subtract Rev. 3 from Rev. 1 and study the result.
2. Subtract Rev. 1 from Rev. 3 and study the result.
3. Obtain the common space occupied by the two solid bodies and study the result.

Fortunately, for simple cases like this, the Intersect operation can provide the same results in one study.

Step 3.3. Start the Intersect operation.

Step 3.4. Press CTRL+A to select all available bodies.

Figure 26.

Four different regions are identified.

Step 3.5. Study the preview once the larger region is selected for exclusion. Notice the three smaller regions that represent differences between the two bodies.

Figure 27.

Step 3.6. Uncheck all regions, uncheck the Merge result and select OK. This way each region will create a separate solid body.

A quick analysis determines that Rev. 3 has bigger values for two of the chamfers and adds material to one of the pockets.

Figure 28.

Figure 29.

For an alternative solution, let’s use Compare Geometry.

Case Study #4 – Comparing Two Unibody Parts Using Compare Geometry

Compare Geometry can automate the comparison process, especially for parts that import with topological errors, resulting in many surface and solid bodies.

As per the SOLIDWORKS Help file, Compare Geometry , compares two parts (or two configurations of the same part) and identifies differences between two versions of the same part. Compare Geometry can perform both a volume comparison and face comparison.

For assemblies, you can compare geometry only in volumes, and for surface models you can compare geometry only in faces.

When you compare volumes, you can display volume common to both versions, and material you can add or remove from either version. Different colors highlight the variations between the reference and modified model in the graphics area.

You can save comparison volumes in the reference document, in the modified document or in both. You can then use Intersect to merge any combination of the added and removed volumes into the reference or modified model.

When you compare faces, you can display faces common to both versions, faces that have been modified between versions, and faces that are unique to the versions. The face types are highlighted in different colors. You can save the documents with colors highlighting the common, unique and modified faces.

As we will read later in the article, in order to see these colors, especially when they are assigned to internal faces, the model has to be pre-processed following a specific workflow.

Known Limitations of Compare Geometry

• Compare Geometry treats each solid as a single entity. It does not compare the features of the parts and cannot point out differences in feature parameters. This is not needed anyway for imported geometry.
• When comparing analytic faces (planes, cylinders, spheres and so on) the equations of the underlying surfaces are used. However, with spline faces, a discrete sampling technique is used to compare the equality of the underlying spline surfaces. Under certain circumstances, the comparison of spline faces may give inaccurate results.
• The volume difference computation for parts containing a large number of spline faces may occasionally fail. You can turn the volume comparison option off for parts containing a large number of spline faces.
• If the faces are sliver faces or have very small areas, the results for unique and modified faces may be incorrect.
• If FeatureWorks is installed on your machine and you open a part without parameterized features, the following occurs:

FeatureWorks displays a dialog box that asks if you want to proceed with feature recognition for the imported part. Click No.

If you click Yes, which starts feature recognition, do not click Run Comparison in the Compare Features Task Pane. Running the two simultaneously can have undesirable results.

• Compare Geometry requires that the two parts (or assemblies) are in the same position with respect to the origin. If one of the parts (or assemblies) has been moved, the results may be incorrect. Select Align parts to compare geometrically similar bodies located in different positions, relative to the origin.

To illustrate the functionality of the tool, let’s start with a simpler case, using the same files processed in Case Study #3.

Step 4.1. Open Housing Rev. 1 part file.

Step 4.2. Start Compare Geometry.

Step 4.3.Set the Compare Geometry Options. First set units and precision.

Figure 30.

Step 4.4. Select the Geometry tab.

Step 4.5. Select the General secondary tab. For simple parts like these, check all three boxes.

Figure 31.

Check documents before Compare Geometry verifies the geometry of both parts before starting the comparison. When selected, SOLIDWORKS Utilities runs the SOLIDWORKS Check function to find invalid surfaces and edges. If either part fails the check process, a dialog box appears that asks for confirmation to proceed with the comparison.

Perform face comparison calculates the number of unchanged, unique, and modified faces. The results are shown in the Compare Task Pane on the Compare Geometry result tab.

During face comparison, the Compare utility compares the position of vertex coordinates and some surface points of face pairs. Vertices or points that lie within a specified position tolerance are considered identical.

Perform volume comparison calculates the material removed or added, and common volume at the end of the comparison. The results are shown in the Compare Task Pane on the Compare Geometry result tab.

As we will demonstrate later in this article, for parts with complex geometry or a large number of surface bodies, do not perform the volume comparison. It will either fail or will take a huge amount of time.

Step 4.6. Select the Color secondary tab.

Figure 32.

Colors highlight the related model entities displayed in the graphics area. To modify the color used for items, select an item from the list, click Edit to open the Color palette, and set the color. Colors are applied to the models after the Compare utility has run.

Step 4.7. Optional: If you want to generate an automatic report, you can select what views to be included in the HTML file of the report.

Figure 33.

Step 4.8. Close the Settings dialog.

Step 4.9. Select the parts to be compared. Note that you can align them based on custom coordinate systems, if needed.

Step 4.10.  Run Comparison.

Figure 34.

Step 4.11.  Study the results. Select Volume comparison with the Material to Add and Material to Remove turned on.

Figure 35.

Material removed is material removed from the reference part (or assembly). Material added is material added to the reference part (or assembly).

Optionally, select Keep bodies on close in the Task Pane. Choose whether you want to save the comparison volume bodies with the reference document, with the modified document, or with both. When you close the Compare Task Pane, the document remains open so you can save it.

Step 4.12.  Study the results. Select Face comparison with the Unique Faces turned on.

Figure 36.

Note that only one type of face can be displayed at any time.

Step 4.13. Optionally, save the report. Note that in this case Volume comparison provides more relevant data.

Figure 37.

Step 4.14.  Name the file and select its location. The report can also be added to the Design Binder of the reference part.

Figure 38.

The report is shown in Figure 39.

Figure 39.

Case Study #5– Comparing Complex Multi-Body Parts Using Cut List Functionality

While Compare Geometry is very powerful, it is also very slow for parts with a large number of bodies and complex geometry.

Fortunately, the Cut List functionality allows users to quickly identify solid bodies with similar geometry.

In this case, we need to compare a revised model of a part containing 348 complex bodies originating from a STEP file.

Step 5.1. Open the original multibody part.

Step 5.2. Add a Weldments feature (in order to turn on the Cut List functionality).

Figure 40.

At this time, bodies with identical geometry are grouped together under a cut list item.

Figure 41.

Step 5.3. Make a note of the number of the last cut list item in the list. In our case, this is number 84.

Figure 42.

Step 5.4. Insert the solid bodies of the revised part file. Note that it does not need to be inserted in the origin.

At this point, all the unmodified bodies should be added to existing cut list items. New or modified bodies will be added to the end of the cut list.

Figure 43.

Step 5.5. Let’s isolate the new bodies.

Figure 44.

The result is shown in Figure 45.

Figure 45.

To identify the unique components from the original file, repeat the process by inserting the old file into the new one.

While this procedure does not show how much the parts have changed, it can be used as a fist step to identify the changed bodies. Once that is completed, the rest of the bodies can be deleted, and the changes can be found using either Boolean operations or the Compare Geometry Tool.

Case Study #6 – Comparing complex multi-body parts using Compare Geometry

When comparing complex multi-body parts, it is important to know that:

1. Volume comparison should be avoided during the first iteration of the comparison.
2. Unique internal faces will not be obscured by the other geometry once Compare Geometry is closed.

Fortunately, the second problem can be overcome using this procedure.

Step 6.1. Open a copy of each part file. The recommendation to make copies of the original files is related to the manipulation of the appearances needed during pre-processing. The copies will be used only for the comparison process.

Apply Steps 6.2. and 6.3. to both the original and the revised multibody part.

Step 6.2. Remove all appearances by deleting all display states.

Figure 46.

The result is almost instantaneous.

Step 6.3. Expand the Display Pane and make the part transparent.

Figure 47.

This way, when the Face Comparison process is completed and you exit the comparison, the modified faces will remain highlighted in the model.

Step 6.4. Run Face Comparison and close the tool.

Note that for very complex parts, you will not be able to quickly see the colored faces. Fortunately, they have a face-level appearance applied to them, which makes them easy to select from the Appearance Manager.

Figure 48. It is not easy to spot the modified faces after Compare Face is run.

Step 6.5. Select the face level appearance(s). That will select all faces listed under those colors.

Figure 48.

Step 6.6 Right click in the empty part of the graphics area and select Isolate.

Figure 49.

Step 6.7. The bodies containing the face level appearances are isolated, thus revealing the changes in the new revised file.

Figure 50.

Conclusion

This article demonstrated several powerful techniques for streamlining the task of comparing differences in geometry, location and orientation between models originating from STEP files.

The most important takeaway is learning how to match each technique with the type of files you need to compare. The fastest results are achieved by employing several techniques in a specific order, as demonstrated in the six case studies presented in this article.

Based on our experience of working with hundreds of customers who need to work with revised imported geometry, the difference in productivity can be measured in hours, when the correct technique is used. Even more important, by precisely identifying revision changes the danger of manufacturing defective products is drastically reduced.

To be continued in:

Article #4 – Simplification Techniques for using Complex Imported Geometry in Large Assemblies

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS and part design with the whitepaper Simulation-Driven Design Speeds System-Level Design and Transition to Manufacturing.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant working for Javelin Technologies, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver, and an avid contributor to the SOLIDWORKS Community. He has presented 25 times at SOLIDWORKS World, once at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings organized by four different user groups in Canada and one in the United States. Alin is also very active on SOLIDWORKS forums, especially on the Surfacing, Mold Design, Sheet Metal, Assembly Modeling and Weldments sub-fora. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

Most users will use the traditional engine by default. In the 10 percent of cases where they are not satisfied with the end-result, the 3D Interconnect engine can be used, and most of the time users will notice an improvement. For that small group of users with their specific type of STEP files, the 3D Interconnect works best.

A STEP file you receive from a vendor will work better with one engine than the other, depending on how that STEP file was created. For example, what was the original CAD software and what export settings were used? Usually a vendor will maintain a particular procedure for creating STEP files. Therefore, the settings for importing one STEP file from that vendor would most likely work for every STEP file from that vendor.

Table 1. Traditional Import Engine vs. 3D Interconnect.

Design Changes in a Multi-CAD World

The amount of time SOLIDWORKS users spend working with STEP files varies based on how tightly they are integrated in a supply chain with multiple CAD solutions.

Lucky users simply download a STEP file once, covert it to SOLIDWORKS, save it in the library and use it as-is for a long period at time.

Unlucky users receive multiple revisions of models as STEP files during the development phase of a design. For these users, it is critical to minimize the time spent:

• Identifying the changes between revisions, including Geometry, Topology, Location, Orientation, Number of bodies, Face and edge IDs and Metadata.
• Updating the geometry.
• Updating the mates of the component in all assemblies it is used.
• Updating the metadata and revision data in a PDM system.

Consider the following scenarios (from simple to complex):

1. Download the model of a fastener from a supplier’s website to integrate in your assembly.

• Once the model is converted, you can use it for a long time.
• No revisions are expected.
• This will be a one-time download and conversion exercise (with the proper use of a library system).

2. Receive a STEP file of a complete product from a customer, for manufacturing purposes.

• The model can be used as-is, no modifications are to be performed by the SOLIDWORKS user.
• The customer will revise the product and send new STEP files for each revision. The SOLIDWORKS user would need to check the differences between revisions.

3. Receive a STEP file of the concept of a product from a customer for development purposes.

• The model cannot be used as-is. The geometry would have to be modified by the SOLIDWORKS user.
• As the development progresses, the customer will revise the product and send new STEP files for each revision. The SOLIDWORKS user would need to check the differences between revisions.
• After receiving a revised STEP file, the SOLIDWORKS user would like to minimize the work performed in modifying the geometry. Ideally, the changes performed by the user in Revision x should be preserved in the model after the STEP file was changed in Revision x+1.

4. Receive STEP files of components to be inserted in your assembly from a supplier during the development phase of your product.

• The component will be inserted and mated in your assemblies.
• As the design is being iterated, the vendor will revise the model and send new STEP files for each revision. The SOLIDWORKS user would need to check the differences between revisions.
• After receiving a revised STEP file, the SOLIDWORKS user would like to have as many existing mates preserved, so no duplicate work would be required.

This article focuses on best practices for minimizing the time needed to update the geometry of components originated from revised STEP files and preserve or re-create their mates in assemblies. We will share with you:

• What works well.
• Work arounds for what does not work.
• SPR numbers to help you vote for fixing problems.

To accomplish this, we will study several case studies following the same steps, for each import engine (traditional import engine and 3D Interconnect), using SOLIDWORKS 2020 SP 4.0:

1. Revision 0 of a model is received from a third party as a STEP file.
2. The model is imported in SOLIDWORKS.
3. The model is inserted and mated as a component in an assembly.
4. All files are saved and closed.
5. Revision 1 of the same model is received as a STEP file.
6. We will study how easy it is to update the geometry in the component file.
7. We will study how easily the mates are updated in the assembly.

Case Study #1A–Unibody Part File Imported Using the Traditional Import Engine

Step 1: Import the file Gear, Cam – Rev.0.STEP using the traditional import engine (Figure 1). We were notified that the originating CAD file is not CATIA, therefore we did not check the B-Rep mapping box.

Figure 1. Importing using the traditional import engine.

The result is a part file containing one solid body, which imported without topological errors, as per the Import Diagnostic tool (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Step 2: The part contains a solid body related to the Imported1 feature (Figure 3). Notice that there are no external references attached to that feature.

Figure 3.

Step 3: Save the part as Gear, Cam.sldprt.

Step 4: Insert the part as a component in the CamShaft.sldasm.

Step 5: Apply three mates to locate the component in the assembly (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

At this time, the revision 0 of the assembly is completed. In the next design iteration, it was determined that the torque needs to be increased, therefore the vendor revised the gear and a new STEP file was sent.

Since the traditional import engine does not create external references between the SOLIDWORKS file and the STEP file, many SOLIDWORKS users would simply import the revised STEP file into a new SOLIDWORKS part and overwrite the original file. That would create a lot of manual work. Luckily, there is a better solution.

Instead, we will attempt to edit the Imported1 feature and point it to the revised STEP file.

Step 6: Edit the Imported1 feature (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Step 7: Select the Gear, Cam – Rev. 1. STEP file (Figure 6). Notice that the box Match faces and edges is checked. This setting ensures the propagation of the dependencies of the old faces and edges in the old body, such as sketches or features, to the new faces and edges in the new body.

Figure 6.

Step 8: Run the Import Diagnostic tool. Again, the result is a topologically  correct model.

Figure 7.

Step 9: Re-open the assembly CamShaft.sldasm.

Step 10: There are no errors. The IDs of the faces used as references in the mates have been preserved. This saves the user a lot of time, especially when the same part is used in multiple assemblies (Figure 8).

Figure 8.

Case Study #1B – Unibody Part File Imported Using 3D Interconnect

Step 1: Import the file Gear, Cam – Rev.0.STEP using 3D Interconnect (Figure 9).

Figure 9. Importing using 3D Interconnect.

Note: Once the Enable 3D Interconnect box is checked, the STEP file can be selected from the drop-down, to access extra settings (Figures 10 and 11).

Figure 10.

It is worth noting that with 3D Interconnect, extra settings become available regarding importing assemblies as multi-body parts (Figure 11).

Figure 11.

The result is a part file containing one solid body, which imported without topological errors, as per the Import Diagnostic tool (Figure 12).

Figure 12.

Step 2: The part contains a solid body related to a 3D Interconnect feature (Figure 13). Notice that there is an external reference attached to it. That should keep the link to the STEP file.

Figure 13.

Step 3: Save the part as Gear, Cam.sldprt.

Step 4: Insert the part as a component in the CamShaft.sldasm.

Step 5: Apply 3 mates to locate the component in the assembly (Figure 14).

Figure 14.

Step 6: Save and close all files.

At this time, the revision 0 of the assembly is completed. Like in the previous case study, in the next design iteration, it was determined that the torque needs to be increased, therefore the vendor revised the gear and a new STEP file was sent.

At this time, the SOLIDWORKS user has two options:

• To overwrite the old STEP file with the new one.
• To keep both files and update the link to the new STEP file.

Let’s try both.

Step 7: Replace the STEP file with the new one (same name, same location).

Step 8: Open the part file Gear, Cam.sldprt.

To our surprise, there is no indication on the part file that the STEP file was modified. Measuring key dimensions proves that the model was not updated yet (Figure 15).

Figure 15. We encountered a bug – the link to the STEP file does not work.

Problem #1:

This was unexpected. The external relation link does not seem to work as expected. The 3D Interconnect icon should have changed as per Figure 16. Then a simple Update Model command would have updated the geometry.

Figure 16.

We researched this issue and found out that SOLIDWORKS Technical Support is aware of the problem. It is recorded under “SPR 1180136: Non-native file inserted in assembly as 3D Interconnect feature does not show refresh icon (symbol) in FeatureManager Tree when its geometry is changed.”

At the time of writing this article, the status of this SPR was open. If you would like this fixed sooner, please vote on it.

Workaround #1

Step 9: Since the standard functionality is broken, let’s try the second option as a workaround: Edit the 3D Interconnect feature.

Figure 17. No indication that the link is out-of-date.

Step 10: Since the STEP file has the same name, we will simply select OK.

Figure 18.

Step 11: The model is updated, as proved by the measured diameter.

Figure 19. The part was updated.

It is time to test how robust are the existing assembly mates for a model revised using 3D Interconnect.

Step 12: Open CamShaft.sldasm assembly. All mates are failing (Figure 20).

Figure 20.

Problem #2:

We researched this issue and learned that this is a known problem. To have this fixed sooner, please vote on “SPR 1072694: 3D Interconnect - Ability to maintain the downstream features (mates) in a SW file when the linked STEP file's geometry is updated.”

Workaround #2:

Instead of using faces and edges of the imported part as mate references, the user could create a set of reference entities inside the part to be used for mating purposes.

While those entities might lose reference when the part is updated with information from a revised STEP file, fixing them is simple and, more importantly, is only done once.

The main benefit of this workaround is that the mates will be preserved in all assemblies containing this part!

Preliminary Conclusions – Case Study 1 – Unibody Part

Conclusion #1 – Maintaining Links

The 3D Interconnect engine is supposed to eliminate the main limitation of the Traditional engine related to revisions of the STEP file, which is the absence of the link between the imported feature and the STEP file.

As we discovered in our study, currently there is a regression in the software (SOLIDWORKS 2020 SP4.0) that impacts this functionality. We provided a good workaround and also included the SPR number related to the problem. SOLIDWORKS users who are interested in having this problem fixed sooner, are encouraged to vote on the SPR.

Conclusion #2 – Maintaining Existing Mates

To our surprise, the Traditional Engine out performed 3D Interconnect in this area. We provided the SPR number related to the problem and encourage all users to vote on it.

Case Study #2A – Multibody Part File Imported Using theTraditional Import Engine

We are partnering with a customer in manufacturing a Movable Stair product. We expect the customer to send us multiple STEP files, one for each revision of the design.

For this case study we will focus only on geometry preservation, since we already know how mate preservation would happen with both engines (see Case Study #1).

Step 1:Import the file Stair_Fram_Rev0.STEP using the traditional import engine (Figure 21).

Figure 21.

The result is a part file containing 18 solid bodies. The Import Diagnostic tool did not identify any topological errors.

Figure 22.

Step 2: Save the part as Stair_Frame.SLDPRT.

We were informed by the customer that the design was revised. Two extra members were added to the weldment (Figure 23).

Figure 23.

Step 3: Edit one of the imported features, to read the revised STEP file.

Figure 24.

The result is unexpected. Instead of now having 20 solid bodies, we still have only 18—but one of them was replaced with a duplicate of another.

Figure 25.

Problem #3:

This is clearly not working as expected. We researched the problem and realized that SOLIDWORKS Technical Support was aware of it. They recorded it under “SPR 1187494 STEP - Export and Import - weldment part - changing the dimension of the structural member, the order of body will change once re-imported.”

Workaround #3:

Perform a manual replace of Imported Geometry as described in the following steps.

For users who work in a PDM system, it is important not to replace files, but rather to work with versions of the same file. This workaround was created for such users.

Step 4: Reload the file to undo step 3.

Step 5: Select all Imported features and move them to a new folder.

Figure 26.

Step 6: Name the folder “Rev. 0.”

Figure 27.

Step 7: From the Insert menu, select Features and Imported.

Figure 28.

Step 8: Select the new STEP file.

Figure 29.

Step 9: Select all new Imported features and move them to a new folder.

Step 10: Name the folder “Rev. 1.”

Step 11: Suppress the Rev.0 folder.

Figure 30.

The beauty of this workaround is that both revisions can be kept in the file. Configurations can be created. Some users would go even further and delete all the new duplicate features, leaving the old bodies untouched, so the mates would be preserved.

We will also use this technique as the basis for one of the solutions in the Comparison section of Article #3 in this series.

Case Study #2A – Multibody Part File Imported Using 3D Interconnect

Step 1: Import the file Stair_Fram_Rev0.STEP using 3D Interconnect (Figure 31).

Figure 31.

The result is a part file containing 18 solid bodies. The Import Diagnostic tool did not identify any topological errors.

Figure 32.

We were informed by the customer that the design was revised. Two extra members were added to the weldment (Figure 23).

Step 2: Edit the 3D Interconnect feature to point to the new STEP file.

Figure 33.

Figure 34.

The model updates correctly, as expected.

Figure 35.

Conclusion

Updating geometry correctly when STEP files are revised is a critical functionality for SOLIDWORKS users. In an ideal world, there will be two major expectations:

1. The geometry will update correctly.
2. The existing entities’ IDs will be preserved (face and edge IDs).

Currently the findings are mixed. For uni-body parts, the traditional import engine seems to be superior to 3D Interconnect. For multi-body parts, 3D Interconnect works better for the first condition (Table 2).

Table 2.

1. Current regression. Vote on SPR 1180136: Non-native file inserted in assembly as 3D Interconnect feature does not show refresh icon (symbol) in FeatureManager Tree when its geometry is changed.
2. Current limitation. Vote onSPR 1072694: 3D Interconnect - Ability to maintain the downstream features (mates) in a SW file when the linked STEP file's geometry is updated.
3. Current regression. Vote on SPR# 1187494 STEP - Export and Import - weldment part - changing the dimension of the structural member, the order of body will change once re-imported.

The good news is that we have good workarounds for all these problems. Try them and let us know how well they work for you.

To be continued in:

Article #3 – Comparing Geometry Changes between STEP Revisions

Article #4 – Simplification Techniques for using Complex Imported Geometry in Large Assemblies

To learn more about SOLIDWORKS, check out the whitepaper Design Through Analysis: Simulation-Driven Product Development Pays Business Dividends in Transition to Smart Manufacturing.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant working for Javelin Technologies, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver, and an avid contributor to the SOLIDWORKS Community. He has presented 25 times at SOLIDWORKS World, once at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings organized by four different user groups in Canada and one in the United States. Alin is also very active on SOLIDWORKS forums, especially on the Surfacing, Mold Design, Sheet Metal, Assembly Modeling and Weldments sub-fora. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

Figure 1. From Left to right: traditional engine, 3D Interconnect assembly, 3D Interconnect part.

Background: Working with Imported Geometry

In today’s multi-CAD world, the interoperability between various CAD solutions becomes increasingly important. For example, large concept assemblies could be started in CATIA or NX, then broken out into functional subassemblies that are easier to finalize in SOLIDWORKS. Similarly, PCB boards can be generated by Altium and used in SOLIDWORKS assemblies as components.

Figure 2. File Types available under the File Open dialog in SOLIDWORKS.

Even though the CAD industry made huge steps forward in ensuring interoperability (for example, 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, NX Synchronous Technology, or the fact that SOLIDWORKS can open almost any native file created by other CAD systems), the STEP file is still the most used vessel for moving data from one CAD system to the other.

In real life, end-users have no access to the original author of the neutral file, so they will have to use whatever file format they get.

There are multiple articles describing preferences for the neutral file types you should demand from your customer. In real life, many end-users have no access to the original author of the neutral file, so they will have to use whatever they get. This series of articles will focus on best practices to get the most from working with STEP files. That being said, many of the tools and techniques presented could apply to working with other file formats.

SOLIDWORKS recognized this trend in the industry, and in 2018 significantly improved the functionality for importing STEP files by giving users two separate STEP importing engines incorporated into the standard version of the software.

Typical Repetitive Workflows Involving Imported STEP Files

Depending on where your company is positioned in the supply chain, your role as a SOLIDWORKS user can include one or more of these repetitive activities:

1. Importing STEP files into SOLIDWORKS.
2. Performing Import Diagnostic procedures.
3. Healing topological errors.
4. Comparing the changes in geometry between two successive revisions of a STEP file.
5. Updating the SOLIDWORKS models based on the data from revised STEP files.
6. Repairing assembly mates due to loss of references (face, edge or vertex ID) involving models based on new data from revised STEP files.
7.  Repairing drawing detailing elements (dimensions, balloons, annotations) due to loss of references (face, edge or vertex ID) involving models based on new data from revised STEP files.

This series of articles will focus on suggesting options, best practices and workarounds for maximizing the quality of the imported geometry, while reducing the manual work required by the end-user, using only the standard functionality from inside SOLIDWORKS.

• Article #1 – The Battle of Two Import Engines – Quality and Speed (Traditional versus 3D Interconnect)
• Article #2 – Strategies to Preserve the Mates and Dimensions during Revisions
• Article #3 – Comparing Geometry Changes between STEP Revisions
• Article #4 – Simplification Techniques for using Complex Imported Geometry in Large Assemblies

One thing is clear – there is a lot of confusion.

Two Importing Engines Are Better Than One

Three years have passed since SOLIDWORKS added a second import engine for STEP files, and after talking to hundreds of users who have partnered with my team for consulting and mentoring sessions, it  became clear that there is a lot of confusion about three things:

• Using the optimal import engine for a specific application or workflow.
• Determining the pros and cons of each engine.
• Identifying ways to edit imported geometry created by the new engine.

This series of articles endeavours to answer these questions.

Conclusions… First

We know that many readers are jumping directly to the conclusions, so we decided to table them in the beginning. The rest of the article is supporting this information with case studies, benchmarks, best practices, tips and tricks.

Table 1. Traditional Import Engine vs 3D Interconnect.

Note about Revision Reliability: Strategies for increasing revision reliability will be covered in Article #3.

Chapter 0: Selecting the Import Engine

The default options for selecting the Import Engine (Traditional or 3D Interconnect) are located in the System Option/ Import /General (Figure 3).

Figure 3. System Settings for Imported Geometry.

If the Enable 3D Interconnect box is not checked, the Traditional Import Engine (TIE) will be used. If it is checked, the 3D Interconnect Engine (3DIE) will be used.

Since this setting applies to various file formats, it is important to see how it affects the importation of STEP files.

Notice that if the box is checked, the import options on the same page are greyed out. In this case, each type of file format would have its own options.

To access the STEP import options for 3DIE, from the File Format dropdown, select STEP/IGES/ACIS.

Figure 4.

The result is a second options page dedicated to importing STEP files (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Right away it becomes clear that by using 3DIE, a new Assembly Structure Mapping option becomes available, i.e. Import Assembly as multiple body part.

With 3DIE, the user can choose to:

• Import the model using the structure from inside the STEP file; an assembly will import as an assembly, and a multibody part will import as a multibody part.
• Import a multibody part as an assembly.
• Import an assembly as a multibody part.

To select the Traditional Import Engine (TIE), simply uncheck the Enable 3D Interconnect box (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Selecting the Traditional Import Engine (TIE).

Notice that in this case, the options for determining the Assembly Structure are limited. The only relevant checkbox is Import multiple bodies as parts.

With TIE, the user can choose to:

• Import the model using the structure from inside the STEP file; an assembly will import as an assembly, and a multibody part will import as a multibody part.
• Import a multibody part as an assembly.

With the Traditional Import Engine, a multibody part can be imported as an assembly, but there is no option for directly importing an assembly as a multibody part.

Good to know: The Import System Settings are not “really” set in stone. They are just the last settings used in an import operation. So, let’s not call these “default settings” so much as “the last used settings.”

The system setting can be overwritten during the File Open operation. If a STEP file is selected, the user can customize the Import settings as needed.

Once the STEP file import has started, the settings used last time overwrite the system setting.

Figure 7.

Figure 8.

Chapter 1: Import Quality

After performing multiple tests for comparing the quality of the topology and geometry imported from STEP files with TIE versus 3DIE, the conclusion is simple: each engine produces a different result. In some cases, the model obtained from TIE is superior to the one created by the 3DIE, other times the opposite is true.

Case Study #1 – Complex Assembly

In Figure 9, we imported the same STEP file containing an assembly using:

• TIE for the model on the left.
• 3DIE with the assembly option for the model in the center.
• 3DIE with the multibody part option for the model on the right.

Figure 9. From Left to right: Traditional Engine, 3D Interconnect Assembly, 3D Interconnect Part.

In this specific case, the model on the left exhibits more surface artifacts than the model in the center. The one on the right does not seem to have any visible problems.

It is worth mentioning that even though a model created by 3DIE might have topological errors, they will not be listed in the FeatureManager tree like they are for the TIE.

Case Study #2 – Unibody Part

We imported this STEP file using both engines.

With the TIE, the Import Diagnostic tool discovered (Figure 10):

• Two faces having General Geometry Problems.
• One Self-intersecting face.

Figure 10. Topological Errors using TIE.

Usually the Import Diagnostic tool can heal General Geometry Problems, and that was also true in this case study.

There is no automatic healing solution for Self-intersecting faces, so we had to delete the face and remodel it.

With 3DIE the number of faces reporting topological errors was larger (Figure 11).

• Four faces with the warning Vertex is not on curve.
• Five faces with the warning Unsimplified geometry.

Figure 11.

It is very important to know that topological errors for models imported using 3DIE cannot be fixed by the Import Diagnostic tool unless the 3D Interconnect features are dissolved, which means the link to the STEP file is broken.

Figure 12. Dissolving a 3D Interconnect Feature.

Figure 13. The link breakage is permanent.

After breaking the link, the Import Diagnostic tool was able to automatically heal all nine problems.

Figure 14. All fixed.

Another clue that each engine produces a different model is the difference in Volume and Surface Area between the two models. The differences are small, but not insignificant.

Figure 15. TIE (left), and 3DIE (right).

Case Study #3 - Complex Multibody Part (211 Solid Bodies, 4339 Surface Bodies in original STEP file)

The difference in model quality was astonishing (see Figure 16).

Figure 16.

Figure 17.

• TIE missed 135 more faces than the 3DIE.
• 3DIE was very successful in knitting 4130 more surface bodies than TIE and converting them to solid bodies.

Other cases were even more extreme. Below there are several behaviors we observed in practice, each covering a different STEP file:

• SOLIDWORKS would crash when using TIE, but would create a model when using 3DIE, for the same STEP file.
• A model would be created using TIE, while no geometry would appear using 3DIE.
• Components in an Assembly file would be moved from their position using 3DIE. They would appear in the correct location and orientation using TIE.
• More topological errors would appear in a model imported with TIE.
• More topological errors would appear in a model imported with 3DIE.

After multiple case studies, the only recommendation we can offer is to test using both engines when encountering problems. See which model has the best geometry and topology, and discard the other one.

Chapter 2: Import Speed

Two of the main complaints we heard from SOLIDWORKS users, especially from the ones who need to import complex STEP files in the automotive industry, are:

1. SOLIDWORKS crashes after spending hours trying to import a complex STEP file.
2. SOLIDWORKS takes a long time (hours) to import a complex STEP file.

The main reason for crashes is an insufficient amount of RAM in the workstation used for the import process. The whole data is stored only in the RAM during the process. No files are saved on the drive, even if the STEP file contains a huge assembly with many components that have many bodies.

In extreme cases, users who had 32 GB RAM installed experienced crashes. When opening the same STEP file on a workstation with 64 GB RAM, the import succeeded.

We recommend 64 GB RAM or more for importing large STEP files.

We performed multiple benchmarks timing the opening of various types of STEP files using both engines.

Case Study #4

Simple Part (Unibody)

Figure 18. Unibody Part - Import Speed.

Case Study #5

100% Solid Multibody Part (348 Solid Bodies, 0 Surface Bodies)

Figure 19. Solid Multibody Part - Import Speed.

Case Study #6

Complex Multibody Part (211 Solid Bodies, 4339 Surface Bodies)

Figure 20. Complex Multibody Part - Import Speed

Case Study #6

Simple Assembly (397 Components, 348 Solid Bodies, 0 Surface Bodies)

Figure 21. Simple Assembly - Import Speed.

Case Study #7

Complex Assembly (20 Components, 1224 Solid Bodies, 18975 Surface Bodies)

Figure 22. Complex Assembly - Import Speed.

Note that for Case study #7, we also took advantage of the 3D Interconnect functionality for importing assemblies as multibody parts. The opening time in this mode was 4,019 seconds.

This number is astonishingly low, considering how complex and time consuming the process is for saving an assembly originating from a STEP file as a multibody part:

1. Open the assembly from STEP.
2. Save the assembly file (extremely time consuming, especially for TIE).
3. Save the assembly file as a multibody part.

Conclusion for Part 1: The Battle of Two Import Engines – Quality and Speed (Traditional versus 3D Interconnect)

All these case studies made clear that two engines are better than one. If the geometry obtained from using TIE is unacceptable, try 3DIE—and vice versa.

For import speed, 3DIE seems to have the edge over TIE, but that would need to be placed in the context of revision workflows of the models. As you will see in the next articles in this series, the import speed is not everything, considering that most of the time it is only done once.

The resulting model, however, will be opened tens or hundreds of times as a component of a larger assembly. Without optimizing the imported geometry, the overall productivity when working with such assemblies would be impacted.

It is imperative that users have a clear vision about how the imported geometry will be used in their workflows and optimize it accordingly.

This will be one of the main topics to be covered in the following articles. Stay tuned.

To be continued in:

Article #2 – Strategies to Preserve the Mates and Dimensions during Revisions

Article #3 – Comparing Geometry Changes between STEP Revisions

Article #4 – Simplification Techniques for using Complex Imported Geometry in Large Assemblies

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS in the whitepaper Design Through Analysis: Simulation-Driven Product Development Pays Business Dividends in Transition to Smart Manufacturing.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for Javelin Technologies, Alin Vargatu is a problem hunter and solver, and an avid contributor to the SOLIDWORKS Community. He has presented 25 times at SOLIDWORKS World, once at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings organized by four different user groups in Canada and one in the United States. Alin is also very active on SOLIDWORKS forums, especially on the Surfacing, Mold Design, Sheet Metal, Assembly Modeling and Weldments sub-fora. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

For designers and engineers, CAD software such as SOLIDWORKS is their tool. Power users get in the “flow,” thinking only of the next step in the design process, and barely paying attention to how their hands are manipulating the mouse or the keyboard. The hands have been trained and know how to find the next icon in the flow, while the brain is already thinking five steps ahead to the final shape.

People are most productive when they are in the flow. The moment the flow gets interrupted, however, productivity plummets. For more information on this topic, please read this article on Jim Elliot’s Mainframe blog.

People are most productive when they are “in the flow.”

Many thanks to Scott Hamilton from Dell who distilled the findings of all these research studies on the effect of interruptions on productivity into a very simple chart (Figure 1).

The chart shows that interruption of even one second has a grave impact on productivity.

The Spinning Blue Circle of Frustration

How many times, while being immersed in the blue area of Figure 2 where you are experiencing your highest productivity using SOLIDWORKS, have you been interrupted?

Not only does interruption pause your work, but it plays havoc with your focus. You are in the middle of a revision and just finished editing a feature, are ready to move the next one—but now you must wait for the model to rebuild.

• How long? You don’t know.
• Do you have time for a coffee? You don’t know.
• What were you planning to do before the interruption? You don’t remember.

Slowdown Symptoms

For most users, the slow-down symptoms are always the same:

• Waiting for files to Open or Save.
• Waiting for the model to Rebuild or Update.
• Operational slowdown after the file has been opened, such as lag between clicks.

While the symptoms are the same, the causes vary wildly. Pinpointing the cause of the slowdown is critical for removing the roadblock and improving productivity. 

Performance Evaluation Tool

SOLIDWORKS has always has good diagnostic tools, which were significantly enhanced in the last three releases.

This article will focus on the use of the Performance Evaluation tool to troubleshoot slowdowns in parts and Assemblies. We will cover the use of this tool for troubleshooting slowdowns in Drawings in a future article.

The Performance Evaluation Tool can be accessed several ways:

Command Manager – Evaluation Tab

Tools Toolbar

Tools Menu

Command Search

Performance Evaluation in the Part Environment

There are multiple factors that can make your performance suffer when working in the part environment:

• Factors affecting the opening time.
• Factors affecting the rebuild time.
• Factors affecting the graphics generation time.

At this time (SOLIDWORKS 2020) the Performance Evaluation tool at part level can help troubleshooting the factors affecting the rebuild time.

Case Study – Part Level Performance

1. Download the file shown in Figure 7 (requires SOLIDWORKS 2020).
2. Perform a force rebuild by holding down the “CTRL” key and pressing “Q.”
3. You will notice that the rebuild time is long. As long as the blue circle keeps spinning, you cannot control SOLIDWORKS.

4. Start the Performance Evaluation tool (Figure 8).

Be aware that the total rebuild time will depend heavily on the hardware specs of your machine, especially the speed of the primary CPU core.

Analyzing the report, it becomes clear that waiting for almost one third of a minute for a complete rebuild is frustrating. The impact on performance becomes even more acute if this part would have multiple configurations related to overall dimensions defining the first feature in the FeatureManager tree.

The FeatureManager tree and the information showed in Figure 8 are critical for identifying ways to significantly reduce the rebuild time:

• The author built the model with conventional solid modeling features like Base-Extrude and Cut-Extrude.
• Once the shape was defined, the model was converted to Sheet Metal using the Insert Bends command.
• The Performance Evaluation report lists the Process-Bends1 as the most time-consuming feature in this model. This feature is a by-product of the Insert Bends command.

Features that create complex geometry should be located at the end of the tree.

Further examining the FeatureManager tree, it becomes clear that the author of this model has not followed all the best practices of modeling. One of the most important modeling principles states that features which create complex geometry should be located at the end of the tree. That is because the rebuild process is sequential. Each step/feature needs to be computed before the next gets created. When new features need to modify complex geometry, each step takes longer to compute.

Knowing this principle, the solution is simple. The features which create the biggest number of faces and edges are the two linear patterns: LPattern1 and, especially, LPattern2.

Let’s move LPattern2 to the end of the tree and measure the improvement in the rebuild time.

The overall rebuild time is now 2.41 seconds, which is only 13% of the original. That is 8 times faster than the original!

Could this number be reduced further? Let’s move as many features creating cuts after the Process-Bens1 as we can. The improvement is marginal, 2.00 second. That is 9 times faster than the original.

Note that in addition to reporting rebuild times in seconds as a percentage of the overall rebuild time, the Performance Evaluation at the part level provides useful information about the number of Features, Solid Bodies and Surface Bodies.

Performance Evaluation in the Assembly Environment

When troubleshooting assembly performance, it is critical to understand how SOLIDWORKS processes information during the opening and rebuild operations. Figure 12 describes the major steps of these processes.

Similar to the factors affecting performance in the part environment, it is important to identify the following factors when working with assemblies:

• Factors affecting the opening phase.
• Factors affecting the rebuild phase, which is composed of the modified components update phase, mating scheme computing phase (includes the computation of top level mates, and mates inside flexible subassemblies) and in-context features rebuild phase (which includes the computation of Top-Level Assembly Patterns, Assembly Features and In-context features inside components).
• Factors affecting the graphics generation phase.

Currently, in SOLIDWORKS 2020, the following data is reported in the Performance Evaluation in the Assembly Environment:

Open Performance:

• Open Summary
• Details of the Open Document File:
• Previous Version References
• Modified on Open

Display Performance:

• Graphics Triangles
• Shaded Image Quality for parts with Very High and Medium High image quality settings.
• Display Speed
• Appearance
• Components Far from Origin

Rebuild Performance:

• Mate
• Assembly Rebuild Report, including Full rebuild time, Assembly rebuild pass(es) and Component(s) rebuild (Rebuild assembly features)
• Generating Graphics

Settings Performance:

• Verification on Rebuild
• Large Assembly Settings

Statistics:

• Parts
• Subassemblies
• Components
• Assembly

Let’s see how to use all this information to improve performance, using a real-life case study.

Please use the file set located in this zip file if you want to follow the next steps (requires SOLIDWORKS 2020 or newer).

1. Open the Full_Grill_Assembly document in the Default configuration.
2. Start the Performance Evaluation Tool.

1.      Open Performance

1.1.            Open Summary

The Open Summary contains a list of messages that appear during assembly opening:

• Dismissed warning
• Dismissed errors
• Components that could not be found or opened
• Other information

Note that in our case no such messages appeared, so this section is not present in our report.

1.2.            Detail of the Open Document File

Reports the amount of time it took to load the data for each component in the RAM, reported in seconds. Note that components that took less than 0.1 second to load are not listed.

Components can be opened directly from this list, by using the open button highlighted in Figure 14. This is a great shortcut for focusing on the components that contribute the most to the slowdown in the opening phase.

For the whole list of components, select Show These Files (Figure 15).

The result is a list containing all files, which is much easier to manipulate (Figure 16).

The list can be saved or copied in the memory. For long lists, the content can be pasted into Excel, to take advantage of advanced sorting tools.

This list is very useful if multiple files need to be opened simultaneously. Simply CTRL+Select all of them and click Open, Figure 17.

All selected files are opened, as seen in Figure 18.

1.3.            Previous Version References

When SOLIDWORKS loads components saved in older versions, it needs to perform a time-consuming convert-to-new-version operation. Moreover, as we demonstrated earlier this year, the slowdown becomes critical when the old component has multiple configurations. For more information in this regard, please read the article Large Assemblies Open Faster Than Ever in SOLIDWORKS 2020.

In this case, 35 documents are saved in an older format. It is typical that library parts are saved in read-only folders. If that happens it might be a good idea to provide the list of these components to your CAD Admin, to be upgraded to the current version.

For that, select Show These Files (Figure 20).

It is worth noticing that this list (Figure 21 and 22) adds an extra button – Isolate Components – compared to the one shown in Figure 17.

1.4.             Modified On Open

This is a very important tool for identifying “dirty components.” i.e. the ones which cannot be fully rebuilt. If you save the assembly and then re-open, any component listed here should be analyzed to understand why it requires an update during opening of the top-level assembly.

Click Show These Files, then select all and click Isolate to show the components that have been modified on open.

At this point, let’s save the assembly and re-open it to see if any component still gets modified during opening.

After opening the saved assembly, three subassemblies are still getting modified:

It is not in the scope of this article to cover the troubleshooting process for “dirty components.” If you encounter such situations, use this link for more information.

In this case the culprit was the presence of the old format of cosmetic threads in various components of the assembly. The solution was simple: Upgrade all the cosmetic threads in bulk.

2.      Display Performance

2.1.            Graphics Triangles

The number of Graphics Triangles directly impacts the time needed for the last phase of the open/ rebuild process, which is the computation of the Graphics Data.

SOLIDWORKS reports all components with more than 10,000 graphics triangles. If one component has multiple instances, the reported number is the total of their graphics triangles.

If the user wants to open one or more files at the same time, the techniques listed in the previous steps apply.

2.2.            Shaded Image Quality

The Image Quality setting in each document has a direct influence on the number of graphics triangles. There are multiple ways to control this number, some of which are covered in the article #TASK, The Best Macro Batch Processor for SOLIDWORKS.

In our assembly, there are two parts with medium high image quality setting and 13 parts with very high image quality setting.

Parts with very high image quality have the slider set at 80% or greater. Parts with medium-high image quality have the slider set at 60% - 80%.

The same controls as before are available (Figure 31).

Note that the Tessellation Number varies between 1 and 176, being directly proportional with the position of the slider from Figure 29.

2.3.            Appearance

Especially for files with imported geometry, many appearances could be applied at face level. When that number is above 1,000, the performance is greatly impacted, especially in phases 1, 2 and 5 (loading components, updating components and calculating graphics data).

In our case, one file has 11,156 appearances.

Upon opening the part, it becomes clear that thousands of faces have appearances assigned (Figure 34).

There are two ways to remove these appearances in bulk:

1. Remove All Part Appearances (Figure 35).
2. Delete All Display States (Figure 36).

Let’s remove all appearances, save all files and re-open the assembly to notice the improvement in opening performance.

Comparing to the result from Figure 13 (1.91 second) with the one shown in Figure 37 (1.23 second), we reduced the opening time by 34%, just by reducing the number of appearances at face level in one part.

3.      Rebuild Performance

3.1.            Mate

The number of mates that are computed at the top-level assembly is high for such a small assembly. There is a lot of potential for reducing it by restructuring the assembly in sub-assemblies.

3.2.            Assembly Rebuild Report

This is a great tool for understanding what components and features are modified when the assembly rebuilds.

It is also the only way to obtain the amount of time required for computing the graphics data.

Looks like our efforts in the previous steps ensured that we have a “clean” assembly. That means no component and future rebuild or mate re-calculations are required when the top-level assembly gets rebuilt.

4.      Settings Performance

4.1.            Verification on Rebuild

The Verification on Rebuild controls the level of checks that SOLIDWORKS applies when new faces are created during the part rebuild process.

If the Verification on Rebuild box is:

• Checked – each new face is checked for topological validity against all the existing faces in the part. For complex parts, this can increase the rebuild time by a factor of 0.3 to more than 10.
• Unchecked – each new face is checked for topological validity against the faces with which shares edges or vertices.

In our case, this setting is on, so unless we open the assembly in Large Assembly Mode, our performance will degrade.

4.2.            Large Assembly Settings

It informs the user if the current assembly meets the threshold established in System Settings for automated opening in Large Assembly Mode.

It is worth noting that the Large Assembly Mode can be set to uncheck the Verification on Rebuild automatically, when that threshold is met.

5.      Statistics

This information is very valuable for applying best practices in regard to:

• Structuring the assembly for improving mating performance
• Troubleshooting cases of slow-down due to improper structured flexible assemblies (this will be the topic of a future article).

Last but not least, at the bottom of the Performance Evaluation window there are five very useful buttons.

The first one is a shortcut for opening the Assembly Visualization tool which was covered in detail in the article The X-Ray Machine for SOLIDWORKS Assemblies.

Summary

The Performance Evaluation is an excellent tool for troubleshooting parts and assemblies performance. A future article will cover the use of this tool for troubleshooting drawings performance.

For a more in-depth information on how to use this tool, please watch this video.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the whitepaper Simulation-Driven Product Development Pays Dividends in Transition to Smart Manufacturing.

There are few things that engineers and designers dislike more than performing clerical tasks, especially data entry. They‘d rather spend their time designing, modeling and performing validation studies.

What they hate even more than data entry is having to manually enter the same data more than once—in multiple places. Not only is it a boring operation, but every engineer knows that duplicating data entry is not only costly, but also inherently dangerous:

• It’s a significant waste of engineering time.
• There is the potential for there to be contradicting data after revisions are made (if any data record is not updated), which could cause uncertainty in production and purchasing, or even for the wrong product to be ordered, manufactured or delivered.

Fortunately, modern parametric CAD platforms like SOLIDWORKS have all the tools needed for enabling users to enter any data only once, in one place, and have it referenced by stakeholders in multiple places. Stakeholders could include but are not limited to:

• Designers
• Engineers
• Checkers
• Managers
• Purchasers
• Sales professionals
• Marketing professionals
• Programmers
• Manufacturing personnel
• Installers
• Dealers
• Suppliers
• Customers

Custom Properties in SOLIDWORKS

Have you ever wondered how many different ways SOLIDWORKS users can enter, modify or read data in SOLIDWORKS? Let’s work together to find out!

For the scope of this article, we are focusing on the functionality available in SOLIDWORKS Standard license. We assume that readers have experience in creating, editing and reading custom properties, and are looking for tips and tricks for improving their productivity.

1.      Traditional File Properties Menu

The file properties menu is the most popular and probably the least efficient way to enter or read custom properties. Note that it can be accessed with a single click from the standard toolbar (Figure 1).

Pros:

• Very popular
• Straightforward
• Access to both Custom properties (file specific) and Configuration Specific properties

Cons:

• Cumbersome; requires multiple clicks to achieve anything
• Information overload: all properties are listed
• Data cannot be sorted

Tip #1: Copy and paste multiple properties from one file to another:

1. Select the rows you need copied
2. Press CTRL+C
3. Switch to a different file or a different configuration
4. Open the file properties dialog box
5. Select on row
6. Press CTRL+V

2.      Property Tabs

The property tab is one of the most efficient tools for inputting, editing and reading custom properties, especially in assemblies.

Pros:

• One-click access
• Instant probing of properties belonging to components selected in the graphics area or FeatureManager design tree
• Customizable interface
• Fosters consistency in a team of SOLIDWORKS users
• Allows for creation of property tabs for: Parts, Assemblies, Drawings and Weldments
• Multiple ways to configure the interface: Text fields, Drop-down lists, Number fields and Decisions (including Checkboxes Yes/No, Radio buttons up to 10 different options, Conditional lists with parent/child relationships using radio buttons, checkboxes or lists)
• Can read data from external files: Text files, Excel spreadsheets
• Allows for bulk data entry for multiple components
• Allows for probing (reading) data from multiple components
• Allows for read-only fields (great for companies mandating that all data be input only in PDM data cards)
• Allows pre-extended or collapsed or group boxes

Cons:

• There is no universal tab that could work for both part and subassembly files; as a result, when selecting components of different types, the following error shown in Figure 4 is displayed:

• When components have data that was previously input via property tabs using different templates—if they are selected simultaneously—the following error shown in Figure 5 is displayed:

• Since there is no filter for selecting Cut-List items from the graphics area, using a Weldment-level property tab is cumbersome.

Best practice:

Property tabs should be set up by a CAD admin, or a poweruser and shared by the whole team.

Tip #2: Use Saved Advanced Selection for preselecting in bulk part or subassembly components before using the property tab to edit data in bulk on all selected files:

1. Select the drop-down arrow next to the Select icon (to reduce mouse travel, you can use the Shortcut toolbar, also knows as S-key toolbar.
2. Take advantage of the fact that: Part extensions contain the string sldprt; and Assembly extensions contain the string sldasm.
3. See Figure 6.

Add the saved Search to Favorites. Optionally, Export the search for the benefit of the whole engineering team (shown in Figure 7):

• Select the search(es)
• Click on “Export Search…”

New menu items become available in the Select drop-down menu.