Top Enhancements

The top enhancements for SOLIDWORKS® 2021 provide improvements to existing products and innovative new functionality.

Detailing Mode
  • Work with improved drawing creation performance
  • Take advantage of improvements to adding hole callouts, editing existing dimensions and annotations, and adding detail, break, and crop views
Assemblies
  • Export interference detection reports with images to Microsoft® Excel®
  • Use Change mate alignments on edit to warn you when mate changes result in errors that can be avoided by flipping the alignment of the edited mate
  • Automatically resolve lightweight components on expanding the FeatureManager® node
  • Save defeatured models as configurations, change between full and simplified versions, and mimic other configurations
  • Benefit from improvements for design tables, exploded views, mates, and mirror and pattern features
  • Open, save, and close assemblies with significant performance improvements
  • Use curve length in chain patterns along paths, not chord length
  • Detect and report circular references
Model Display
  • Work with improved performance of occlusion culling, silhouette edges and drawings, and quick configuration switches
User Interface
  • Pick colors for appearances from external applications
  • Search for tools on Shortcut Bars and Commands tabs in the Customize dialog box
  • Display translated feature names in the FeatureManager® design tree
Parts and Features
  • Use Redo for more than 60 features and tools in parts
  • Add edge flanges on nonplanar tangent edges in sheet metal parts and flatten complex flanges
  • Add and evaluate equations in file properties and cut list properties
  • Transfer part-level materials when you insert or mirror a part, derived component part, or mirrored component part
SOLIDWORKS Simulation
  • Use mesh diagnostics to identify, isolate, and prompt to fix poor-quality elements
  • Use faster and more robust meshing with accuracy bonding improvements
  • Access improved convergence through contact stabilization
  • Get faster contact simulation calculations
  • Automatically calculate and apply geometry correction terms for contact between curved surfaces
  • Ensure accuracy for bonding interactions to enable robust and fast meshing
  • Get a more accurate auto-selection of the equation solver with commensurate improvements in speed and memory usage
SOLIDWORKS Electrical
  • Use splines, lines, or other sketch entities to route harnesses in 3D
  • Use multiple wires or cables to pass through and arrange through clips
  • Join wires using splice component or splice without component
  • Access support for end terminations in Connector Tables, Interconnects, and the Accessories Library
  • Combine 3D representations and flattened areas in harness board drawings
  • Archive electrical projects automatically or by schedule
  • Generate PDF files of projects up to nine times faster depending on project size
  • Update engineering units for wires, cables, and electrical harness data using the Routing Library Manager (RLM)
  • Use the Terminal Types Manager to handle terminals and interconnections
  • Bring information on end terminations from SOLIDWORKS Electrical schematics into 3D for more complete documentation
  • Fit entire workflows, from schematic to 3D, for wires without end terminations
  • Leverage Microsoft Excel for electrical design automation with an add-in to streamline the process
SOLIDWORKS Plastics
  • Streamline the plastics simulation workflow with the redesigned PlasticsManager tree
  • Improve cooling results accuracy with enhanced baffling and bubbler modeling and meshing
  • Access more accurate and up-to-date plastics material data
SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation
  • Calculate free surface for tasks, including rotating equipment
SOLIDWORKS Inspection
  • Access quality control information directly from SOLIDWORKS parts containing 3D annotations
  • Leverage existing 3D CAD data to save time creating First Article Inspection reports
  • Expand drawingless manufacturing strategy for quality control
SOLIDWORKS MBD
  • Publish sheet metal bend tables as 3D PDF files
  • Define driving and driven locating dimensions as semantically correct datum targets
  • Take advantage of improved 3D PDF display quality
SOLIDWORKS CAM
  • Control changes by ensuring all necessary information stays current with design changes
  • Use cylindrical stock for milling operations
  • Specify drill peck amounts based on the drill diameter
SOLIDWORKS PDM
  • Use more consistent integration with Microsoft® Windows® File Explorer and better thumbnail support
  • Control custom column sets in a more flexible way
  • Reduce mistakes and improve efficiency when working with BOM settings
  • Save time when modifying bills of materials for use by other fields, such as manufacturing
  • Use icon selection for workflow states, and improved transitions to quickly determine the status of a particular file
  • Add files to the vault significantly faster
  • Access the Treehouse view in the Contains and Where Used tabs
  • Save time on Web2 by quickly browsing through data card properties and updating values with modern controls
  • Share file data with external users with more efficiency and control
  • Streamline project management with multiple projects connected to a common project manager or program
  • Use modeless windows to open multiple property card windows and switch between them for editing and data gathering
  • Automatically update project stage progress, resources, and deliverables from related task data at specified time intervals
3DEXPERIENCE Connector for SOLIDWORKS
  • Use the Derived Format Converter to create derived outputs for broader consumption and exact geometry to use in downstream design, simulation, and manufacturing applications
  • Use multiple sheets and markups on drawings, with improved drawings quality
  • Manage Open tools with similar options to SOLIDWORKS when opening data from the 3DEXPERIENCE® platform
  • Control configurations to save on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform
Access to Dassault Systèmes User Assistance requires 3DEXPERIENCE credentials.