In our continued dive in the new and enhanced, let’s dive into SOLIDWORKS 2022 Parts, Sheetmetal, and Sketching.
“An optimal product development process is one that allows the creation of better products in fewer steps. The SOLIDWORKS 2022 makes it possible, with efficient new workflows and powerful enhancements in assembly and part design, drawing detailing, simulation, and product data management. SOLIDWORKS even enables automatic assembly optimization without the need to change settings.” -SOLIDWORKS Website
SOLIDWORKS 2022 Parts
Hybrid Modeling
With SOLIDWORKS 2022 no longer do you need to choose. You can create hybrid solid or surface bodies utilizing mesh BREP geometry and standard BREP geometry. In previous releases, the two BREP types could not co-mingle
As well, directly alter imported mesh geometry with standard features like extrude and fillet. That’s a BOOM!
Part Modeling
You can now rotate a section view plane about a hole, axis, or cylindrical face (Very Cool!)
With Thickness Analysis new Resolution options allow you to specify a value, regardless of the model size. Select Low, Medium, or High, then adjust the suggestion Tesselation size.
When placing slots (Hole Wizard) press Tab to rotate the slot 90-degrees. Previously you could only drag to reposition the slots and dimension them end-to-end. Rotation needed to happen after feature creation.
Use the Stud Wizard, which works just like the Hole Wizard, to create external threaded features. As a bonus, you can use this wizard to add threads to existing circular studs. Use this as an alternative to the thread feature to reduce file size and complexity, yet create better-looking (cosmetic) threads.
A lethal combination… threads not only look better they are also easier to create! Depth is now measured from the original location regardless of changes made to the edge by downstream features. Also, cosmetic threads are owned by the latest feature whose faces share the common edge.
Note, to upgrade parts created pre-2022 right-click the FeatureManager part node and select Upgrade cosmetic thread feature.
Not something I’ve used much in the past, but might need to reevaluate, coordinate systems are now easier to define and select. How? Use numeric values (absolute or relative to the origin) to define the coordinates and rotation. As well, you can reference any component of the coordinate system (planes, axis, etc) in downstream features.
Parts Quick Hits
A few other part modeling enhancements
- Draft on both sides of parting lines at the same time.
- Mirror allows for the selection of two planes, meaning you can mirror about two planes at one time!
- Redo is now available with the Hole Wizard, Simple Hole, Linear Patterns, and Instand2D
- In a segmented mesh, you can replace a mesh BREP face with a topologically identical classic BREP face
Sketching
SOLIDWORKS 2022 Parts sketching only got a little bit of loving. When creating linear patterns you can select a line from the same sketch to use as the reference. Previously, lines from the same sketch were added to the patterned objects.
You can now also pattern text and use Copy Entities to copy the text.
Sheet Metal
With SOLIDWORKS 2022 Parts when creating an edge flange on a nonlinear edge, you can edit the sketch for the nonlinear edge flange.
With inscribed text or split line features, the text and split line now remain intact when you flatten, unfold, or fold the part. With conical bends, they only appear when the face is an analytical face.
What do you think?
We’ve looked at the UI. Dove into assemblies. Now explored the changes to parts. What are your favorite new features in SOLIDWORKS 2022?
Feature Image “Parts” by Ed
