This year. A particularly useful enhancement allows us to save SolidWorks files in a native format from a previous release of SolidWorks up to two years. Simply select Save As and browse the type pulldown menu. In here we can select to save the parts in the 2022 or 23 format. It's important to point out that if we were to save this part in a 2022 format, then this wouldn't work with any 23 or 24 new features used in the creation of our designs. That said, it still is an incredibly useful option when dealing with other SolidWorks users who may be a year or two behind in releases. when using the cut reveal feature. You can take advantage of a new option. We can now flip the side to cut just like we can when using the cut Extrude tool. This allows more flexibility when using sketch features by retaining the inner portion of a sketch and discarding the region outside of the sketch. new in 2024. We are now able to create cylindrical bounding boxes alongside rectangular ones. These are super useful with bodies, including cylindrical geometry such as rotational, circular or turned parts. Using this helpful new enhancement, we're able to take our new design and calculate the bar stock that would be required for manufacture. There are lots of different ways that we can apply our dimensions to our sketches to ultimately control them. But normally you have to at least first initiate the smart dimension command. Well. In 2024, we can now toggle a system option to allow us to preview the dimension whenever you select an entity. From here, you can simply use the manipulators for instant 2D or just simply double click the value to change it. this year? A really nice enhancement has been made to the whole wizard. When we go into the whole wizard and explore the positions tab, we are greeted with an option to use an existing 2D sketch that already resides in the part. These sketches can be used to position an automat quickly, create the holes at all end points, vertices and points. The sketch options specify the geometry used to automatically create the instances. The two options are create instances on sketch geometry, which is enabled by default. This will position holes at all end points, vertices and points of the sketch geometry. The other option does exactly the same, but for construction geometry you can also skip whole instances making it super quick to eliminate unwanted copies. Helpfully, if we were to delete a hole was a feature, we can choose to retain the original hole position sketch At first being able to make a multi body part from an assembly might not be seen as that important. We already have the ability to utilize save as part and even have assembly features that we can use. However, these have their limitations. For example, assembly features are relatively limited in the types of features you can actually use, and most are specifically for material removal. The other method of saving an assembly as a part works fine, but you don't have any control over what's imported or how. You also don't maintain a link to the original assembly, which means if that assembly changes, your part is out of date. In this demonstration we want to create some fill it bead and actually apply material to it to get a physical weight. But that is not a feature supported in an assembly. By using make multi body part, the parts are inserted as bodies into an environment where you can remove all adds material. Make multi body part gives the user control over what is imported and maintains a link to the parent assembly. Additionally, you can import the assembly, axes, planes and even coordinate systems as well as the material of the bodies. In this particular example, by simply selecting the faces that we want to be welded together in our new part, the Weld V tool will create solid geometry to replicate the beat itself, and because it creates a solid body, we can see them in the cut list folder and can apply the correct material to them, allowing for an accurate weight for our assembly. in SolidWorks 2022. A great new tool called the Stud Wizard. It was introduced this time saving tool quickly turned cylindrical bodies into fully customizable stud features. Not only does it add the appearance of thread, but it also plays the correct PMI or product manufacturing information to the feature too. A nice improvement has been made this year by allowing you to apply the feature to Shaft that has the same diameter as the thread itself. In early releases, the thread diameter had to be smaller than the shaft, which made the workflow a little bit more involved. Now for me, this is my favorite enhancement this year. In fact, possibly for a couple of years, we can now create symmetric linear patterns just by taking a box, no more selecting an additional direction, no more copying of dimensions or instance numbers and no more taking the pattern seed only toggle box. Here we are using a component from the Bowhead assembly to show how easy it is to take a seed and then pattern it in two directions at once. But with symmetry we'll first select the feature or features that we want to be our seed. In this case, the weight reducing pockets that we've removed from the part will then select the direction of the pattern, followed by the desired spacing and instance numbers finally will select the new option to include symmetry by selecting this option. SolidWorks creates a symmetrical pattern, but simply using direction. One parameters when designing parts for molding. It's often useful to have physical geometry to represent any shut off surfaces. For example, here we want to capture the surfaces that would be required as a part of the tool design as these triangular cutouts pass all the way through this part. Previously, this would have been pretty difficult, but new in 2024, we're able to do this easily with a new option within Antrim surface. Firstly, we'll create a copy of the front surface of this part by setting the offset to zero within the copy surface command. Nothing new so far. However, this year a new option to exclude the parent surface has been added to the tool, meaning that we can now create just those shut off surfaces that we require with ease.