It’s official. SOLIDWORKS 2024 is here. The latest release of everyone's favourite CAD software comes with yet another batch of useful enhancements. As engineers and designers, we need efficient, intuitive and collaborative software to help us innovate and design sustainably. SOLIDWORKS 2024 provides us with an effective platform to engineer and design more efficiently than ever. Over the past few decades, we've watched SOLIDWORKS evolve and grow, and with the latest integration with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, it's fair to say that we're witnessing an exciting new phase in design and engineering. So what's new? Let's check out the ten best enhancements coming to SOLIDWORKS 2024. year, SOLIDWORKS 2023 brought us the fantastic automatic mate repair tool - a huge time saver. And this year that tool now extends to patterns. When we open this rear wheel assembly, we get an error prompt as our pattern has lost its reference that defines the direction for the wheel spokes. Now we have the option to use auto repair when we select the pattern feature from the feature manager tree. Simply select the auto repair button from the menu and SOLIDWORKS solves the issue for us, allowing us to immediately move forward with our design. We didn't think it was possible, but Smart Dimensions have got even smarter. This design requires four holes around this opening and the updates to dimensions and the Hole wizard are going to help us do this even more quickly. Now, clicking on any sketch entities reveals an instant preview of a possible dimension. By clicking on that preview dimension, we can enter a value and update the dimension, and this works for all types of dimensions, including angle dimensions. And if you don’t want to see a preview, then you can just click off anywhere else on the screen. So this great new feature doesn't get in the way of your regular sketching workflow. We've also got a new option within the Hole Wizard to utilize an existing sketch and we gain the ability to create instances on sketch points or construction geometry locations. These options can be easily toggled on and off as SOLIDWORKS 2024 helps you maximize your efficiency. Have you ever suffered from dangling dimensions? Don't worry, we're not going to pry into your medical history... When we switch configurations in this drawing view, we lose the reference, but it's not a problem. Because reattaching dangling dimension references is now easier than ever. The red X identifies that a reference entity is missing and now you can reattach dimensions directly to model edges in a drawing view, minimizing any rework and allowing you to get on with more important tasks. At number seven, we've got a brand new feature for SOLIDWORKS 2024 in sheet metal, and it’s the ability to create sketch-based stamps. The Stamp tool takes a sketch and pushes it into the model, much like a forming tool. We can add a stamp to this baseplate and easily control these parameters. The tool comes with a complete set of controls to make sure it can be customised to your needs, as well as being easily removed after stamping. The new stamp tool is a powerful addition to the fabricator’s toolset, and any closed-contour sketch can be used to create stamps. In many situations, the Stamp tool can be used instead of forming tools, which will save a lot of time and effort for lots of people. You can now share your 3D designs with anyone directly from SOLIDWORKS. Getting real time feedback and iterating on your work is now as easy as sharing a link. The SOLIDWORKS Cloud Services removes the friction associated with traditional design sharing and collaboration tools. The Lifecycle & Collaboration toolbar allows us to share any SOLIDWORKS file in a format of our choosing, and upload it directly to our 3DDrive for sharing. And the best part about this is that you can share the files with anyone. They don't need to have licenses of SOLIDWORKS or the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. The recipient will get an email with a link to the shared files for them to review, and these files can be opened in any web browser on any device for viewing and commenting. This update is sure to help you speed up your design reviews and any approval processes with built in navigation, measuring and markup tools. So remove the need for email attachments, installed viewers and uncontrolled file access, as the SOLIDWORKS Cloud services allow you to share your designs with anyone - right from SOLIDWORKS. We've got another great enhancement sliding into number five! The already powerful sheet metal tools in SOLIDWORKS now get even better with additional functionality coming to the rip tool. Hollow or thin-walled cylindrical and conical sheet metal parts can now be designed even more easily by the inclusion of rips through one simple command. With controls for adjusting the gap size position, angle and offset, this will really speed up creating flat developed patterns from your cylindrical and conical sheet metal designs. Just missing out on the top three is a hot contender for top spot. You'll be forgiven for expecting this one to take the title of top enhancement as this has been a regularly requested enhancement for several years. With the SOLIDWORKS subscription, SOLIDWORKS 2024 can now save part, assembly, and drawing files as previous versions up to two years old. Save single files in the normal way with the ‘Save As’ dialog, or package multiple files through Pack & Go. Just make sure that the parts don't have any future version features that the older versions of SOLIDWORKS can't recreate. This enhancement will reduce the need to save files in a neutral format and makes it easier to share and consult with suppliers and contractors, if you're not using the SOLIDWORKS Cloud Services. Data translation can now be seamless when communicating with SOLIDWORKS users using older builds of the software. And speaking of data translation, working with STEP files has been streamlined with the introduction of filters. This will give you a preview of what's contained within the STEP file where you can select which components you want to import into SOLIDWORKS. So if you have a large STEP file of an assembly, but you only need to work on certain parts, then you can enable a filter prior to opening the file, saving you a great deal of time on many of your projects. In 2024, you can create complex patterns even faster. The new symmetric option in the Linear Pattern tool lets you patterns seed features, faces and bodies in the opposite direction in just one click, without having to enter the same dimensions again and again. This is a logical step in the right direction and a massive time saver so you can get your designs done and take your products to market even faster. Advance your career and enhance your SOLIDWORKS skills with our training courses led by our expert engineers, and explore our website to discover the innovations that real designers and engineers are creating in SOLIDWORKS. But now it's time to reveal the number one top enhancement coming to SOLIDWORKS 2024... Assemblies can now be converted into multi body parts within a single intelligent feature. Who needs to faff about with the Save Bodies command anymore when you can simply convert the assembly into a part? And now in SOLIDWORKS 2024, we can save this sub-assembly out to a part really easily, enabling accurate calculations of interferences and weight further downstream. This allows all of the data from the assembly to be carried over to the part file and directly linked back to the master assembly. So with complete associativity between the multibody part and the parent assembly, this enhancement helps make sure we stay up to date with any design changes that might take place in the future. And that awesome addition rounds of our list of the top ten enhancements in SOLIDWORKS 2024. We’ll bring you more in-depth tutorials on some of these new features, so you'll know exactly how to get the best out of them. Disagree with our rankings? Well, let us know if we've missed any enhancements that you think deserve a place in the top ten. And over the next few weeks we'll be bringing you all the updates to the wider SOLIDWORKS portfolio, including Visualize, PDM, and Simulation. So make sure you check back regularly for more SOLIDWORKS news, tutorials, and manufacturing solutions for your business.