If Dassault Systems wanted to make one point this SOLIDWORKS World, it was that the experience is everything. And SOLIDWORKS World 2016 was, like always, an experience. CEO of SOLIDWORKS, Gian Paolo Bassi kicked off the conference with an overview of the new industry that Dassault has its eye on – Architecture.
Big announcements from SOLIDWORKS include the upcoming release of SOLIDWORKS PCB, a collaboration with Altium, to bring together mechanical and electrical designs.
We cheered when we heard that SOLIDWORKS will be available online, accessible from all devices. In 2017, Xdrive will offer 5 GB storage for subscription customers on the 3DExperience platform. XDesign is a web-based product design tool that brings great design features and capabilities to your desktop, tablet, or mobile device.
Keynote speakers inspired us with their vision. Dr. Neil Gershenfied from MIT spoke of the future of an industry in which machines will be making machines. Hearing how his class was coming up with personalized products like the “Scream Bag” inspired the innovator in all of us. We heard from Tethys Engineering who is connecting students to the engineering and design industry. They will be helping to develop the next generation of engineers and we are excited to watch their progress!
The most inspiring keynote of the conference came from Peter Diamandis, author of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. “We are living in a magical times, when our dreams aren’t crazy,” he told us. “Opportunities once exclusive to kings, queens and captains of industry are now in your hands.” We agree with Diamandis that “we’re living in the most extraordinary time in human history” because of Moore’s law. “Faster, cheaper computational power is the bedrock for all if our innovative technology.”
Don’t forget about the fun! We hosted a happy hour event for our friends and customers at the aloft XYZ bar with guest speaker Drew Adams from Orbus. On Day 2 of SOLIDWORKS World, we also heard from Sam Khamis from BrewBot, a robot that brews beer with a unique approach that taps into the growing sharing economy.
And, of course, there was Star Wars. SOLIDWORKS used the Star Wars theme to discuss the top ten enhancement requests: #10 – Revert to eDrawings 2013 Engine and Interface for Desktops #9 – Automatic Fastener BOM for Large Assemblies #8 – Ability to Use End Points of Sketch Lines for Hole Wizard Holes #7 – Automate Explode Line Creation #6 – Enhance Fillet, Chamfer, and Other Functions for Multi-Body Parts #5 – Bounding Box Values for any Component #4 – Move Assembly Sketch to Component #3 – Use ALT to Temporarily Hide Face Under Cursor when Mating #2 – Ability to Export BOM Table with Thumbnail Images of Components #1 – Create a “Classic” mode GUI option in SOLIDWORKS 2016 that emulates SOLIDWORKS 2015
Want to learn how to use these new features and capabilities? SolidProfessor can help! New features and capabilities only help improve your design skills and productivity if you understand the best practices for utilizing them.
And next year SOLIDWORKS World will be just up the road from us in LOS ANGELES! See you in LA in 2017!
