The 21st release of SolidWorks, SolidWorks 2013, was released last Monday and it looks to be an exciting release…  There are several new products that have been added along with many new enhancements.  There have also been improvements in the efficiency and speed of SolidWorks 2013.

The theme for SolidWorks 2013 is Respect Our Core Technology.  With powerful new products and design tools, faster model creation with more efficient 3-D models and 2-D drawings, improved performance and productivity and enhanced collaboration, SolidWorks 2013 is “3-D design simplified”.

According to SolidWorks CEO Bertrand Sicot, customer satisfaction has increased five points since 2007, from 89% to 94%.  SolidWorks is also continuing to invest in the VAR channel, and Sicot said that SolidWorks’ secret is in how it builds its community.

Sicot also alluded to the elusive SolidWorks V6 product announced back at SolidWorks world 2010; he announced a new complementary product to SolidWorks was coming in May of 2013 that will be targeted to conceptual mechanical design needs.

NEW PRODUCTS

There were several new products announced this year: SolidWorks Plastics, SolidWorks Electrical, and eDrawings Professional for iPad.

SolidWorks Plastics has two levels Professional and Premium. Professional is geared towards part designers and Premium is geared towards mold designers and makers.

There are three products in the SolidWorks electrical line:   a 2-D schematic product for electrical designers, there’s a 3-D package for interaction between 2-D schematic in the SolidWorks 3-D model, and there is a SolidWorks Electrical Professional package that includes both the 2-D in 3-D products and is geared towards professionals engage in the schematic design and the 3-D modeling.

eDrawings Professional for iPad was released a couple weeks ago, bringing sectioning, measurement, and markup capabilities to the platform.  It’s currently priced in the Apple App Store at $4.99 through the end of September.  After that it will be $9.99.

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

According to SolidWorks, the surface texture mapping frame rate for multiple primitive shapes is faster in 2013 versus 2012 using GPU buffering:

The RealView response time is improved in 2013 versus 2012:

The large assembly mode response time is much improved in 2013:

In drawings, the time it takes to update views is significantly reduced.  Multi-core CPUs are now utilized to update drawing views in parallel instead of sequentially:

And the time it takes to switch between configurations looks to be almost halved:

There are many new features (including Previous Release Capability) and improvements that I will be taking a look at over the next few weeks, so watch this space.

DISCLOSURE: DS SolidWorks Corp paid for my airfare, lodging, and some meals.