What’s New in SOLIDWORKS R2025x FD01 – Design and Modeling
I’m excited to announce the latest update of SOLIDWORKS available now. This functional delivery (FD), R2025x FD01, includes the ability to automatically generate industry-standard drawings from your 3D models, a new Simplified Interface option so you can stay focused on your models, and much more.
Today, I want to introduce these new design and modeling enhancements for 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS and SOLIDWORKS with Cloud Services.
Let’s take a look at what’s new.
- 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Ultimate – access all the tools you need for concept to manufacture.
Based on your feedback on our 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Ultimate sales offer last release, we are now adding 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Ultimate as a permanent member to our product lineup. 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Ultimate includes a powerful set of connected, cloud-based tools, including intuitive and powerful 3D design tools, real-time collaboration, integrated project, lifecycle, release, and product structure management, simulation, life-like photorealistic rendering and immersive experiences, browser-based design tools, and more.
Last year, we introduced SOLIDWORKS Ultimate, and you can learn more about the capabilities in my blog here.
- Automatically Generate Drawings – create drawings with the click of a button.
Imagine spending more time on engineering and design work. A new capability lets you do just that, as you can automatically generate drawings for parts and assemblies that include views, formats, tables, and dimensions needed for manufacturing.
Say you have an assembly with three components. You can automatically generate the drawings for the assembly and components and clean them up as desired.
Think of the time savings as you no longer have to create drawings from scratch. This new feature will help you eliminate repetitive tasks associated with developing 2D drawings.
- Simplified User Interface – stay focused on your design.
Under View Workspace, you now have a new option called “Simplified Interface,” which presents the SOLIDWORKS window with an abridged user interface. The window includes basic user interface elements tailored to the type of document that you open. If you customize the Simplified Interface workspace for your needs and turn off Simplified Interface, SOLIDWORKS saves your customizations and will display them when you turn on Simplified Interface again.
- Configuration Tables for Drawings – more easily communicate product configurations.
Use Family Tables to display variations in part and assembly configurations or custom properties in a table in SOLIDWORKS drawings.
- Flattened option for BOM Table – instantly sum up the quantity of parts.
Before this update, the bill of materials (BOM) did not offer a way to get the total quantity for each component. You had to do this manually after creating the indented BOM and multiplying the child quantity with the parent quantity or via a macro. A new BOM type called ‘Flattened’ now enables you to create a BOM listing all the components used, along with the total quantity used throughout the main assembly and its sub-assemblies.
- Filter a BOM Based on Display States – easily create a BOM for components in a Display State.
You can now filter a BOM based on Display State, which allows you to quickly create a BOM for only those components that are visible in the Display State.
- Physical Product Creation on the Platform – quickly and easily create Physical Products with attributes.
The SOLIDWORKS New Document creation workflow has been improved so you can create Physical Products on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform directly. Similar to creating a SOLIDWORKS part, assembly, or drawing, you now have the option to create a Physical Product. In addition, you can fill in attributes such as project number, project name, manufactured/purchased part as part of the new workflow.
This is helpful as everyone on the platform can see the attributes you added to that part.
- Use Sketch Point as an End Point – enjoy more flexibility when modeling edge flanges.
When creating edge flanges for sheet metal parts, you can now define the length of the edge flange using a sketch point. In the Sheet Metal menu, go to Edge Flange, choose Up to Vertex under the Flange length, and pick a sketch point on the model that you previously created.
- Support DimXpert Dimensions with Library Features – save time from having to re-dimension features and ensure standardization.
You can now save DimXpert model-based definition dimensions to library feature parts in your Library with a new option to check “Include MBD Dimensions.” This enables you to reuse them when a library feature is applied to a model, saving time and promoting standardization over having to detail the feature after placement.
10. Prevent Unwanted Large Component Displacements – Help to keep you from making the wrong move.
Sometimes dragging components and adding or editing mates can cause unexpected large movements of components in 3D. This often isn’t even evident to the user until the assembly is rotated to a position that reveals the problem. You’ll now receive a warning when these situations occur so they can take immediate action.
That’s a glimpse of what’s new. To see these enhancements in action, check out the videos here on the 3DSwym community. (requires log-in)
To learn more about SOLIDWORKS 2025 see my last blog here. Also, if you’re attending 3DEXPERIENCE World taking place February 23-26 in Houston, Texas, catch me and my colleagues in these sessions.
