Bottom 10 Features of SOLIDWORKS 2019

With every new release of SOLIDWORKS, there are hundreds of enhancements. Some are brand new tools, while others are improvements to the already powerful SOLIDWORKS toolset. Along with the new functionality, you’ll find a lot of improvements to both the system and modeling performance that will amount to huge time savings. Here are some of my personal favorites in SOLIDWORKS 2019, which offer compelling reasons for why you should upgrade sooner rather than later to this version.

1. Recent Documents

Viewing recent documents is an easy way to find something that was just opened, without having to remember what folder it’s in. However, up to now, we can only view sixteen documents, but not anymore! In SOLIDWORKS 2019 we can view up to 100 recent documents. The number can be set in Options and defaults to 50. In addition, the recent document screen now has quick filters, making it even easier to find what we’re looking for.

2. Breadcrumbs

For those of you who like to use breadcrumbs to quickly access model information, you’re probably in the habit of typing in “D” to bring them to the cursor. That’s a predefined keyboard shortcut that was introduced at the same time breadcrumbs were intended to save a lot of mouse travel. In SOLIDWORKS 2019 there’s an option that automatically brings breadcrumbs to the cursor so we don’t even have to type ”D” anymore.

3. System Options for Feature Manager

How many times have you clicked on something twice in the feature manager only to unintentionally get a rename box around the item? In SOLIDWORKS 2019 we can turn that behavior off. The option is found in System Options for the Feature Manager. If we want to rename, we can still select it and hit the F2 key.

4. Trim Entries

Often when trimming entities, geometry that was fully defined can become underdefined. There’s a new option in the SOLIDWORKS 2019 trim entities command that keeps the trimmed entities and makes them construction geometry or ignores construction geometry entirely, offering much more control of the trim tool.

5. Projected Curves

A huge time saver, and one of my favorite enhancements is to be able to project a sketch that has multiple closed contours onto a face. Previously we had to do one sketch at a time. Plus now we can also go in two directions.

6. Partial Chamfers & Fillets

In SOLIDWORKS 2019 we can control how far along an edge a chamfer or fillet runs.

7. Interference Detection for Mutibody Parts

We now have an interference detection command for multibody parts that checks for interference between bodies. This is a great tool for quickly checking the integrity of a multibody part.

8. Exploded Views

Exploded views are a great way to communicate how assemblies come apart and go together. A new rollback bar is available, and it works like the rollback bar in the feature manager. We can now easily roll up and down to review the sequence of explode steps.

9. Large Design Review

Using the large design review we can open sizable assemblies quickly, so we can interrogate a model or conduct design reviews. In SOLIDWORKS 2019 we have editing capabilities including inserting parts, deleting parts and access to mates.

10. Removed Section Views

This new type of view in SOLIDWORKS 2019 is a great way to show slices of a model at any location.

Want more information about SOLIDWORKS 2019 and available features? Check out our live launch recap!