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A Whole New Way of Looking at Things

After loading your first part file in 2001, you'll notice a little feature called animations. Whenever you switch views of the part or when you move something, you can actually see the object move. For example, when switching from the front view of a part to the right side view, the part actually spins on an axis to get to the right side. Another example is making a "mate" (a term used for defining where a part is in an assembly based on where other parts are located). The part literally spins around and moves into the position you want it to be in. People who are unfamiliar with seeing solid parts in design software will find the animation feature to be an invaluable asset. For those users who would rather skip the animations, you simply uncheck it in the options menu.

Looking into the Future

Along with the new animations feature, shaded previews have been added. Shaded previews give the user the ability to see what is going to happen when completing an action, like extruding a sketch to create a part with thickness <PICTURE A>. Before agreeing to accept a certain action, you are shown a solid, transparent preview of what is going to happen. You then can decide whether to continue on and complete the operation, or change the options given to get the desired result. This comes in very handy; especially when you're not sure what effect the action will have on your part.

Adding a Personal Touch

If you use some of the new programs out there to play music files or surf the net, you've probably heard of "skins". Now you can give that personal touch to SolidWorks 2001 too. Instead of looking at those same old bland looking backgrounds and buttons you see every day, switch to the brushed metal look. Still not new enough? How about using the peaceful cloud theme <PICTURE B>. By selecting pre-made schemes, or creating your own custom skin, you can customize your property manager background and pick buttons.

Cleaning Up The Dialogue Boxes

Remember how I was complaining about the dialogue boxes that appear when using SolidWorks 2000 commands? To fix this annoying problem many of the dialogue boxes have been moved into a side menu called the property manager. Most of the options for commands such as creating extrudes, cuts, sweeps, dimensions, offsets, and balloons have been moved here <PICTURE C>. Still, there are some dialogue boxes that exist, like the one for creating annotations (notes). It would be really nice if they could relocate this box too, or at least make it smaller to take up less viewing area. Still, the user interface has been cleaned up dramatically, and has a more casual feel to it.

 

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