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Sets new standard for 3D mechanical design ease, power, and performance
SolidWorks Corporation today unveiled SolidWorks 2006, the newest and most powerful version of the #1 3D mechanical design software it has been shipping to the mainstream market for nearly a decade. SolidWorks 2006 features a host of new and unique capabilities to help designers and engineers bring better products more quickly to market, and to more easily transition from 2D to 3D design.
The software includes more than 200 customer-requested enhancements and significant innovations that break new ground in engineering efficiency. These innovations include fundamentally new approaches that allow design engineers to analyze and validate designs as they work.
Included in SolidWorks 2006 are a multitude of improvements that simplify, accelerate, and integrate design engineering work, including:
* an exponential increase in performance;
* new user productivity tools such as Smart Components;
* new features for consumer product, sheet metal, and machine designers, such as Mounting Bosses, Snap Hooks, and Vents;
* new mainstream design validation capabilities that put sophisticated analysis in the hands of designers;
* innovations that significantly ease the migration from 2D to 3D design, such as 3D Drawing View and Design Checker, as well as enhancements to the DWG Series (Editor, Gateway, Viewer); and
* enhancements in SolidWorks Office Premium that empower design engineers across the entire spectrum of their activities.
In fact, all of these improvements are present in SolidWorks Office Premium, the companys complete 3D product design solution, and they confirm SolidWorks as the #1 3D mechanical design software for the mainstream market.
?SolidWorks 2006 is a significant leap, said Kevin Batty, drawing office manager of Kirk Ella Tool Design in the UK. ?Not only does it include enhancements Ive suggested to SolidWorks, but it includes many more useful new capabilities I never imagined. SolidWorks has again improved its intuitive user interface, making it simple to learn the new functions that are offered. Everyone can be a power user on some level.
Performance
Users are continuously demanding more from their mechanical design software, and SolidWorks has again answered the call in SolidWorks 2006 with the most significant release ever in terms of performance. Based on an analysis of actual customer usage patterns, the company focused performance enhancements in two areas overall system architecture and common operations with particularly dramatic gains in large assembly and drawing processing.
On the architecture side, SolidWorks has optimized its Lightweight file structure to allow for fast processing at all times in a wide range of commands such as mating, components insertion, interference detection, and section view. With SolidWorks 2006, users can now continue to work in drawings without waiting for drawing views or system graphics to be recalculated, saving valuable design time.
The second set of performance improvements makes the most common commands in SolidWorks software interactive and instantaneous, regardless of how big the assembly might become. Now, designers and engineers can move swiftly from task to task without waiting.
Additionally, SolidWorks 2006 will support the recently released Windows XP Professional x64 Edition operating system with a soon-to-be-released service pack. A native 64-bit version of SolidWorks 2006 is expected to ship later this year, promising further performance gains.
