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SolidWorks

Developed by	SolidWorks Corporation
Latest release	SolidWorks 2009 SP3.0
Operating system	Windows
Type	CAD software
Website	www.SolidWorks.com

SolidWorks is a 3D mechanical CAD (computer-aided design) program that runs on Microsoft Windows and was developed by SolidWorks Corporation - now a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes, S. A. (Vélizy, France). It is currently one of the most popular products in the 3D mechanical CAD market.^[1]

Contents 1 History 2 Market 3 The SolidWorks approach 4 Editions 4.1 Commercial Products 4.1.1 SolidWorks 4.1.2 SolidWorks Professional 4.1.3 SolidWorks Premium 4.2 Educational Products 4.2.1 SolidWorks Student Design Kit 4.2.2 SolidWorks Education Edition 4.2.3 SolidWorks Student Edition 4.3 Subscription Services 4.4 Version History 4.5 System Requirements 4.6 Computer Aided Manufacture products 4.7 Knowledge Based Engineering 4.8 Training Products 4.9 Other modules 4.9.1 COSMOSFloWorks 4.9.2 COSMOSFloXpress 4.9.3 COSMOSMotion 4.9.4 SimulationXpress 4.9.5 COSMOSWorks Designer 4.9.6 COSMOSWorks Professional and Advanced Professional 4.9.7 Indigo Renderer 4.9.8 PhotoWorks 4.9.9 Toolbox 4.9.10 Motion Study (previously called Animator) 4.9.11 FeatureWorks 4.9.12 ScanTo3D 4.9.13 API 5 File format 6 See also 7 References

[edit] History

SolidWorks was introduced in 1995 as a low-cost competitor to CAD programs such as Pro/ENGINEER, I-DEAS, Unigraphics, AutoCAD and CATIA. SolidWorks Corporation was founded in 1993 by Jon Hirschtick, with its headquarters at Concord, Massachusetts, and released its first product, SolidWorks 95, in 1995. In 1997 Dassault Systèmes, best known for its CATIA CAD software, acquired the company and currently owns 100% of its shares. SolidWorks was headed by John McEleney from 2001 to July, 2007, and is now headed by Jeff Ray.

[edit] Market

Solidworks is used by over 940,000 ^[2] product designers and mechanical engineers worldwide. Its user base ranges from individuals to large companies, and covers a very wide cross-section of manufacturing market segments. Commercial sales are made through an indirect channel, which includes dealers and partners throughout the world. Directly competitive products to SolidWorks include Pro/ENGINEER, Solid Edge, and Autodesk Inventor.

[edit] The SolidWorks approach

SolidWorks is a parasolid-based solid modeler, and utilizes a parametric feature-based approach to create models and assemblies.

Parameters refer to constraints whose values determine the shape or geometry of the model or assembly. Parameters can be either numeric parameters, such as line lengths or circle diameters, or geometric parameters, such as tangent, parallel, concentric, horizontal or vertical, etc. Numeric parameters can be associated with each other through the use of relations, which allows them to capture design intent.

Design intent is how the creator of the part wants it to respond to changes and updates. For example, you would want the hole at the top of a beverage can to stay at the top surface, regardless of the height or size of the can. SolidWorks allows you to specify that the hole is a feature on the top surface, and will then honor your design intent no matter what the height you later gave to the can.

Features refer to the building blocks of the part. They are the shapes and operations that construct the part. Shape-based features typically begin with a 2D or 3D sketch of shapes such as bosses, holes, slots, etc. This shape is then extruded or cut to add or remove material from the part. Operation-based features are not sketch-based, and include features such fillets, chamfers, shells, applying draft to the faces of a part, etc.

Building a model in SolidWorks usually starts with a 2D sketch (although 3D sketches are available for power users). The sketch consists of geometry such as points, lines, arcs, conics (with exception to hyperbola), and splines. Dimensions are added to the sketch to define the size and location of the geometry. Relations are used to define attributes such as tangency, parallelism, perpendicularity, and concentricity. The parametric nature of SolidWorks means that the dimensions and relations drive the geometry, not the other way around. The dimensions in the sketch can be controlled independently, or by relationships to other parameters inside or outside of the sketch.

SolidWorks pioneered the ability of a user to roll back through the history of the part in order to make changes, add additional features, or change to sequence in which operations are performed. Later feature-based solid modeling software also copied this idea.^{[citation needed]}

In an assembly, the analog to sketch relations are mates. Just as sketch relations define conditions such as tangency, parallelism, and concentricity with respect to sketch geometry, assembly mates define equivalent relations with respect to the individual parts or components, allowing the easy construction of assemblies. SolidWorks also includes additional advanced mating features such as gear and cam follower mates, which allow modeled gear assemblies to accurately reproduce the rotational movement of an actual gear train.

Finally, drawings can be created either from parts or assemblies. Views are automatically generated from the solid model, and notes, dimensions and tolerances can then be easily added to the drawing as needed. The drawing module includes most paper sizes and standards (ANSI, ISO, DIN, GOST, JIS, BSI and GB).

[edit] Editions

SolidWorks CAD software is available in 3 commercial editions and 3 educational editions.

[edit] Commercial Products

• SolidWorks Standard
• SolidWorks Professional
• SolidWorks Premium

[edit] SolidWorks

The SolidWorks core product includes tools for 3D modeling, assembly, drawing, sheetmetal, weldments, and freeform surfacing. It can import numerous file types from other 2D and 3D CAD programs. It also has an API for custom programming in Visual Basic and C. Also included is an entry level finite element analysis program called SolidWorks SimulationXpress (formerly known as CosmosXpress).

[edit] SolidWorks Professional

The SolidWorks Professional bundle includes the SolidWorks core product plus several add-in programs. These include:

• Animator (Create AVI animations of a model in motion)
• Design Checker (Checks notes, dimensions and other settings in drawings to make sure they adhere to company standards)
• eDrawings Professional (Adds markup and measuring capabilities to the free eDrawings viewer)
• FeatureWorks (Adds editable features to "dumb" imported geometry)
• PDMWorks Workgroup (A workgroup level document management program to manage SolidWorks files as well as other file types)
• PhotoWorks (Realistic Photo rendering)
• Task Scheduler (Schedule SolidWorks to bulk print, import/export files, and create eDrawings)
• Toolbox (A collection of common fasteners and hardware, Screws, Nuts, Washers, etc.)
• Utilities (Additional tools for selecting features and comparing features and geometry)
• 3D Instant Website (Publishing an HTML document of SolidWorks documents, uses eDrawings for viewing)

[edit] SolidWorks Premium

The SolidWorks Premium bundle includes the SolidWorks core product and Professional add-ins plus the following:

• CosmosWorks Designer (Finite Element Analysis)
• CosmosMotion (Motion analysis)
• Routing (Piping, Tubing, plus Wiring and Harness layout)
• ScanTo3D (Utility for converting scanned data into solid models)
• TolAnalyst (GD&T Tolerance analyse tool)
• CircuitWorks (a bi-directional IDF and PADS file interface)

[edit] Educational Products

• SolidWorks Student Design Kit
• SolidWorks Education Edition
• SolidWorks Student Edition

[edit] SolidWorks Student Design Kit

The SolidWorks Student Design Kit is a limited-term trial version of the SolidWorks Education Edition. It does not include all of the features that the licensed edition does.

[edit] SolidWorks Education Edition

The SolidWorks Education Edition is a licensed version of SolidWorks. It is intended to educate students in grade schools, middle schools, high schools, vocational schools, colleges, and universities. It also includes SimulationXpress The educational edition is always 1 year behind the industry edition. When you print drawings from the EDU edition, there is a watermark which says "SolidWorks Student License - Academic Use Only."

[edit] SolidWorks Student Edition

The SolidWorks Student Edition is intended for individual student use outside of the class. It includes all of the same features as the SolidWorks Education Edition.

[edit] Subscription Services

SolidWorks has an initial purchase price with an option to buy a yearly subscription service termed "maintenance". The subscription service entitles you to service packs, new versions, comprehensive hotline support, access to the customer website which contains helpful information, an online knowledge base, enhancement request form, and discussion forums.

[edit] Version History

Past Versions

• SolidWorks 95
• SolidWorks 96
• SolidWorks 97
• SolidWorks 97 Plus
• SolidWorks 98
• SolidWorks 98 Plus
• SolidWorks 99
• SolidWorks 2000
• SolidWorks 2001
• SolidWorks 2001 Plus
• SolidWorks 2003
• SolidWorks 2004
• SolidWorks 2005
• SolidWorks 2006 (Native Windows x86-64 version was released from SP4.0 onwards
• SolidWorks 2007 (A Beta version for Vista exists with limited support.)
• SolidWorks 2008: Includes full support for Vista x86. Out in October, 2007. SP3.1 includes native Vista x64 support

Current Version:

• SolidWorks 2009: Released September, 2008. Includes native Vista x86 and x64 support

Future Editions:

• SolidWorks 2010: Due out in Late 2009.

SolidWorks allows for the seamless integration of third-party modules. Some of these modules are small and introduce a minor feature, such as generating a special shaped hole, while others are entire Computer Aided Manufacture products in their own right that use SolidWorks as a "convenient" graphical platform.

These products can apply for different levels of partner status with the SolidWorks company, to give the advantage of being promoted through the established SolidWorks sales channels. See Partner Products

[edit] System Requirements

The system requirements^[3] for SolidWorks depend partially upon which packages^[4] or modules are installed in each customer's machine. An oversimplification would be to say that one should have a PC with an Intel Core2 Duo, 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 20GB HD, Windows XP SP2 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 SP2. The supported graphics cards^[5] is a topic beyond the scope of this article.

[edit] Computer Aided Manufacture products

• SolidCAM
• CAMWorks
• Edgecam

[edit] Knowledge Based Engineering

• DriveWorks
• Rulestream

[edit] Training Products

• Inspirtech.com - Video based training website
• i GET IT - Online training (video and text courseware) website

[edit] Other modules

[edit] COSMOSFloWorks

COSMOSFloWorks is a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) product for SolidWorks users. It is embedded inside SolidWorks and can perform fluid flow and heat transfer analysis for all types of fluids (liquids, gases, Non Newtonian fluids, Compressible liquids).

The solver uses Navier-Stokes (NS) equations to compute flow characteristics in both Single Reference Frames (SRF) and Multiple Reference Frames (MRF).

[edit] COSMOSFloXpress

COSMOSFloXpress is a free, limited-scope version of COSMOSFloWorks now included in every seat of SolidWorks, starting in 2008. It can handle only internal flows with one inlet and one outlet, of either air or water. Only velocity traces are given as results, no heat transfers are calculated. It should be considered an initial validation tool only, for the casual FEA user.

[edit] COSMOSMotion

COSMOSMotion is a SolidWorks module for multi-body kinematic simulation of mechanisms. It can handle complex component collisions, accept formula for motion laws and supply reaction values to COSMOSWorks for further FEA analysis. It is included in the SolidWorks Premium license.

[edit] SimulationXpress

COSMOSXpress is a feature designed to perform a limited range of linear static analysis of part geometry. Geometry is limited to a single solid body and the choices for creating boundary conditions are limited (fixed only) which can affect the applicability of the results to the actual problem being solved. Results are limited to a graphical representation of Von Mises stress and deformed shape although actual displacements are not available. SimulationXpress is included in every basic SolidWorks license, and should be considered a first-pass check to see where a design can be improved.

[edit] COSMOSWorks Designer

COSMOSWorks Designer is a module providing a richer set of tools for linear static FEA. COSMOSWorks Designer can deal with parts and assemblies using solid, shell and (starting from release 2007) beam elements.

It provides a fully associative environment to perform FEA studies inside SolidWorks, with several features for pre-processing as well as for post-processing and a very rich set of connectors and boundary conditions, like virtual bolts, bearings, spot welding, links and pins.

A tool for designing multiple batch calculations (Design Scenario) is also provided.

COSMOSWorks Designer can handle locally non-linear contact and includes a partial support for geometric non-linear analysis (large displacement). It is included in the SolidWorks Premium license.

[edit] COSMOSWorks Professional and Advanced Professional

COSMOSWorks license upgrades including a larger set of solvers.

COSMOSWorks Professional:

• Buckling
• Frequency
• Thermal
• Fatigue
• "Drop test"
• Shape optimization

COSMOSWorks Advanced Professional:

• all of the above, plus:
• Composite analysis
• Seismic
• Post-dynamics
• Complete non-linear analysis

[edit] Indigo Renderer

A third-party photorealistic renderer with a plugin for Solidworks. Produces highly realistic results.

[edit] PhotoWorks

PhotoWorks is a raytrace renderer built into SolidWorks, powered by Mental Ray

[edit] Toolbox

SolidWorks Toolbox is a library of predefined fasteners, gears, cams, pins and other accessories, based on information found in Machinery's Handbook. The library is database driven and this database can be modified. Also user defined standard parts can be created and added to the Toolbox for later use in other projects.

SolidWorks Toolbox allows for "drag and drop" insertion of fasteners into assemblies. It also is integrated with SolidWorks "SmartFastener" technology to allow the automatic population of hole features with the appropriate fasteners.

[edit] Motion Study (previously called Animator)

SolidWorks Animator has the capability of exploding assemblies and animates the way components explode, join.

It relies on standard SolidWorks kinematics, but can also accept motion simulation results from COSMOSMotion, as well as a thorough manipulation by the user.

It can also produce video output and supports rendered animations using PhotoWorks.

[edit] FeatureWorks

This module recognizes different design features (fillets, cut-extrudes, extrudes) on imported models. The underlying methods for the recognition of different features in the dumb solid are mainly identified as Feature Recognition technologies in the CAD/CAM industry.

[edit] ScanTo3D

Module to perform Reverse engineering, starting from point-cloud or STL/VRML files, as well as using 3D scanning. Included in SolidWorks Premium, starting from release 2007.

[edit] API

SolidWorks also includes an Application Programming Interface (API) for macro and third party development.

[edit] File format

SolidWorks files use the Microsoft Structured storage file format. This means that there are various files embedded within each SLDDRW, SLDPRT, SLDASM file, including preview bitmaps and metadata sub-files. Various third-party tools (see Structured storage) can be used to extract these sub-files, although the subfiles in many cases use proprietary binary file formats.

[edit] See also

• Associative engine
• Comparison of CAD Software

[edit] References