SOLIDWORKS took the wraps off their 2017 version today.  This is the 25th major release of the product.  (Had to count to make sure.)  There are quite a few enhancements as usual with over 90% of the updates being driven directly from user enhancement requests.  SOLIDWORKS has posted a Launch Page containing several videos highlighting the new features.  If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, you should.

I did beta test a little bit this year and was impressed with the stability of the product.  I didn’t log as many hours as I have in years past, but when I did, things seems to work really well.  A couple of my early favorites are 3D Interconnect, DimXpert/MBD upgrades, and some really nice additions to SOLIDWORKS PDM.

3D Interconnect allows you to open native CAD data from other systems (Creo, Inventor, CATIA V5, NX) into SOLIDWORKS without having to translate the file to a SOLIDWORKS format.  As the native CAD data is updated, those changes can be rolled into the SOLIDWORKS model.  This does look similar to something that PTC recently introduced in Creo 3.0.  (UPDATED 10-8-2016: PTC Creo does have something similar, but its an extra module called Creo Collaboration Extension.  Cost for that extension ranges from 3K-5K per type CAD format.)

As I get some time over the next few weeks I’ll dive into a few of the features for a little closer look.  In the meantime, you can register for a local reseller for a launch event near  you.  The corporate launch event is next week and can be streamed online.

More to come…