Improved 3D PDF Dimensions and Annotations

One of my favorite enhancements is the improvement in the display of our dimensions and other annotations. These are now viewable in the 3D views and viewports, with no data loss. This also applies to 3D PDFs showing component dimensions, feature dimensions, and DimXpert annotations.

Modify Datum for Auto Dimension Schemes

It is very common to use the Auto Dimension Scheme when you’re starting your MBD project. This tool gives us plenty of options, including Plus and Minus or Geometric Tolerancing types. For this prismatic part, we can define the datum planes by model faces. For the primary Datum, we use these four top faces together as a group. The side and bottom faces of the model will round up the selection of the Secondary and Tertiary Datums.

Next, we need to identify the model features that we want to define the tolerancing of. We do this by selecting the faces of the cuts, extrusions, and other features. Once complete, SOLIDWORKS indicates which faces are adequately toleranced with green shading.

Now, we need to modify the part design to add a boss in the middle. Looking at our tolerance status after this change, SOLIDWORKS isn’t highlighting the new geometry in green like the rest of the model.

Now, in SOLIDWORKS MBD 2023, we can edit features of items like our previously created datums. This makes it easy to add the top face of this new extrusion to the existing group of faces that represent the Primary Datum.

SOLIDWORKS MBD Wedge Feature Support

Let’s look at the cut-out at the top edge of this part. Here, we have two opposing nonparallel faces. I have some great news for you. SOLIDWORKS MBD 2023 now supports wedge features! We can use wedge geometry to define a geometric tolerance or even create a wedge datum.

Added ISO Standard Symbols

It is well known that SOLIDWORKS has a massive library of symbols. In 2022, SOLIDWORKS added additional Tolerance symbols. Well, SOLIDWORKS MBD 2023 takes this to a whole new level. You can now apply ISO 14405-1:2016 standards-based symbols to dimensions and tolerances. You can easily add these symbols straight from the symbol library, or from the Tolerance Modifier section in the DimXpert Property Manager.

MBD Helps with “Hanging” Dimensions

Here is another excellent enhancement to SOLIDWORKS MBD 2023. This machined part contains holes in overhanging geometry. It is easy to define a locating dimension to call out the vertical position of this hole. Once placed, the annotation can be difficult to interpret due to the dimension’s extension line terminating out in space.

Now, in SOLIDWORKS 2023, we have a new setting that controls the display of the dimension in this situation. In the DimXpert section of our Document Properties, we have several Display Options.

Enabling this new option for “Connect Dimension Extension Lines to Model” can make this annotation much easier to understand.

I hope this part of the What’s New series gives you a better understanding of the new features and functions of SOLIDWORKS 2023. Please check back to the CATI Blog as the CATI Application Engineers will continue to break down many of the new items in SOLIDWORKS 2023. All these articles will be stored in the category of “SOLIDWORKS What’s New.”

Greg Buter
Application Engineer Manager
Computer Aided Technology

What is Design Innovation Month?

DESIGN INNOVATION MONTH 2022 – Live Events, Webinars, Virtual Showroom, Contests

Design Innovation Month is CATI’s “What’s New in 2023” event for SOLIDWORKS, 3DEXPERIENCE, and 3D Printing & 3D Scanning technology. This year we’re going back to the future to bring you in-person events, live and on-demand webinars, demonstrations, in-depth blog posts, and prizes! Best of all, it’s free of charge! Check the DI Month Hub for all the details and to sign up for your nearest live event.

For most of my designs, I choose to use the feature pattern as I have more options for future development. Things like configurations of the pattern, variable pattern, and nonstandard x-y directions are available in the feature pattern. There are times when I do need a pattern at the sketch level, but it has always been a little harder to work with sometimes. Let me show you some tricks for editing your sketch patterns in SOLIDWORKS.

Edit a Sketch Pattern in SOLIDWORKS

With a feature pattern, making those edits is straightforward. Simply right-click on the feature and edit.

From here, we can change the parameters of the feature.

If I want to edit the Sketch Pattern parameters, I must edit the sketch to start. But the issue is that getting back into the pattern dialog box is not as intuitive. Most people end up deleting the feature to do it over, as they do not know how to edit the pattern. They might also try double-clicking or right-clicking on the pattern relation to get only display/delete relations. The way to get back into the Sketch Pattern properties is to right-click on a patterned object or the seed, then “edit pattern” will show up on the menu.

From here you can edit the sketch pattern to change any of the properties.

Everything is still intact and editable, and most of all the Instances to Skip is just as useable as the feature pattern. I still prefer to use Feature Patterns, as I find that I have more control over all of my design. There are times that a sketch pattern is super useful in my designs and editing was always a challenge. But the goal of this post was to help bring awareness to the fact that sketch patterns are editable! Anthony Sandri goes into great detail on the performance side of patterns in another blog post, which is another reason to contemplate using Feature Patterns.

I gave up thinking that it was possible to edit a sketch pattern until recently. I hope this gives you some new information on how to handle them.

Craig Maurer
Elite Applications Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

Nobody wants to sit around and wait for their files to save. It’s a waste of time and we can probably speed it up with some tweaks. But what should we do to make this better? Well, you’ve probably used configurations or heard of them in the past, so we can clean those up. Additionally, we should look at our display settings in SOLIDWORKS. Ideally, the files are fine enough detail that we can easily know what we’re looking at but not so detailed that it bloats the file. With those as our backdrop, let’s look at a few best practices to help you maximize your save performance with SOLIDWORKS.

How Configurations Impact Save Performance

Configurations in SOLIDWORKS allow you to depict multiple versions of a model in a single file. They’re especially useful as simplifications with non-critical features or components removed. You can also use them as representations of distinct model states (e.g., extended vs. collapsed, pre- vs. post-machining). If you’re not careful, though, adding configurations to your model can worsen performance, particularly when saving the file.

When you save a model, SOLIDWORKS stores information related to the active configuration at a minimum. (It’s often more than just the active configuration, but I’ll get to that later.) Though there are other contributing factors, the size of the file tends to be driven by that active configuration’s feature data (the calculations required to build its feature tree) and display data (its graphical representation). So, the more complex the active configuration is, the larger the file will be and the longer it will take to save.

To prove this point—and to show some easy tricks to keep things running smoothly—let’s look at this engine head model. It has four configurations, differentiated only by the number of active features. To get a general sense of the complexity of each configuration, I’ve listed their feature and face counts below:

• Full: 112 features, 1272 faces
• Simplified: 68 features, 750 faces
• Rocker Box Fillet State: 59 features, 649 faces
• Spartan: 51 features, 349 faces

Influence of the Active Configuration on Save Performance

In order to see how the active configuration affects performance, I saved the engine head model in each configuration and recorded the resulting file size. When saving the model with the Full configuration active, the file size was around 3300 KB. This value jumps around as I save, but it was usually in that 3300 KB area. With the Simplified configuration active, the file size was close to 2000 KB. With Rocker Box Fillet State, it’s about 1750 KB. And finally, with Spartan, the size is only around 1250 KB.

Clearly, the active configuration impacts the file size. However, I had to be kind of careful to measure this correctly. Notice in each scenario that only one configuration—the active one—has a checkmark. The rest have dashes. Dashes indicate that SOLIDWORKS isn’t caching the feature data for those model configurations.

Any configurations with checkmarks, whether green or grey, are being remembered by the model, so to speak. The difference in color is just to differentiate the active (green) configuration from the inactive (grey). If you’re looking at your ConfigurationManager and see a bunch of checkmarks, you’re likely storing a lot more data in your file than you need.

Feature Data

Each time you save, SOLIDWORKS isn’t necessarily saving information related to the active configuration alone. It’s also saving feature data for the inactive configurations that have a checkmark. The more configurations you have checked, the larger the file will be, as you can see from the numbers in the image below. With all four configurations being cached, my file is more than twice the size as when I had the Full configuration on its own.

(I’m not entirely sure why the one with only the Full configuration came out to 250 KB higher this time than what I’d recorded for that situation in the last example. I started seeing 3550 KB consistently though, so something must’ve changed with the model behind the scenes in between my first testing and this one.)

Normally, when you change from one configuration to another, SOLIDWORKS will keep the feature data for the one you switched out of, meaning you’ll see the grey check next to it in the ConfigurationManager. This enables quicker toggling between configurations in the future, as it requires less effort from SOLIDWORKS to activate a cached configuration than one that’s been unloaded.

Unload a Cached Configuration

There are a few ways to unload a cached configuration. Editing a feature, whether you change any parameters or not, will typically cause the inactive configurations to lose their checks. The next time you activate one of those configurations, SOLIDWORKS will need to recalculate it to determine whether that feature edit had changed the model from the last time it was built.

If you right-click the top-level part name in the ConfigurationManager, there’s a category called Rebuild on Save Mark. The options in this flyout menu can be used to control how feature data is stored.

The “Add Mark” options are used to apply a Rebuild on Save Mark to certain configurations. Attaching a Rebuild on Save Mark to a configuration forces SOLIDWORKS to rebuild it every time you save the file; in other words, the program will cache its feature data. This helps you ensure that certain configurations are up to date and can be quickly activated later. This also, though, increases the amount of information SOLIDWORKS saves with the document, so files will be bigger and saves will be slower.

You’ll see the Save floppy disk icon next to any configurations that have one of these marks applied to them.

The option at the bottom of the flyout menu, “Remove Mark and Purge Data for All Configurations,” gets rid of any Rebuild on Save Marks you’ve applied and unloads all of the cached data. The active configuration’s data will still be kept, but all inactive configurations will then show the grey dash icon.

There is also a way to automatically purge data from inactive configurations every time you save the document. This option is called “Purge cached configuration data,” found in the Performance category of System Options.

This setting will not impact configurations that have a Rebuild on Save Mark. Those configurations will still be rebuilt and their data will still be stored when you save the file. However, any configurations with a grey check will drop to a grey dash upon saving if this option is turned on.

So, there is a tradeoff between caching feature data and purging it. If the data is kept, it will be faster to switch between configurations within the design or within a higher-level assembly, but the file will be larger and take longer to save. It just comes down to what you care about most, whether it’s the in-model performance for activating configurations or the save time and file size.

How Display Data Helps Maximize Save Performance

In addition to feature data, you can also cache display data for your configurations. This is necessary for viewing tools like eDrawings or the SOLIDWORKS PDM Preview tab in Windows File Explorer. If the display data is stored with the file, then these programs will be able to open the model and know what it’s supposed to look like in 3D space.

Under Document Properties in the Image Quality category, there is an option called “Save tessellation data with part document.” When this is turned on, SOLIDWORKS saves the display data for the active configuration at least. This is another way that the active configuration influences the file size. I had this setting enabled during the testing described above.

It’s worth noting that this option is only relevant for part models. It’s grayed out for assemblies. Assemblies appear to automatically save the tessellation data for the active configuration so that it can always be presented in a viewing tool, even if the referenced part models have “Save tessellation” disabled.

Minimize Triangles to Maximize Save Performance

It is also important to mention that the Image Quality value on the slider impacts the file size if the tessellation data is being saved. The image below shows how the engine head responded to this parameter. Higher image quality means larger files and potentially longer save times. (It also could mean more time waiting for the part to rebuild, as I found earlier this year while working on an article for pattern performance.)

Again, turning on “Save tessellation” will only save the active configuration’s display data by default. If you then open the model in eDrawings, for instance, you’ll only be able to look at the active configuration; it won’t let you switch to any of the others because it doesn’t know what those configurations look like.

If you want to have access to other configurations as well, you can create a Display Data Mark for them. Similar to the Rebuild on Save Mark, you’ll see options related to this feature when right-clicking the top-level file name in the ConfigurationManager.

Any configurations with Display Data Marks will be available within eDrawings or other viewers along with the active configuration. (If it’s a part model, “Save tessellation” must be enabled.) These configurations will have a part or assembly icon with an eye in the ConfigurationManager.

If you want to remove your Display Data Marks and throw out saved display data, you can use the “Remove Mark and Purge Data for All Configurations” option. Again, this will only purge data from the inactive configurations. SOLIDWORKS saves the active configuration’s display data according to your Image Quality settings.

Another tradeoff. If you like to preview a part in viewing tools like eDrawings or with PDM in File Explorer, you’ll need to enable the “Save tessellation” setting and, optionally, add Display Data Marks for any configurations you want to always have access to. If you don’t care about viewing the model outside SOLIDWORKS though and want to cut down your file size and save time, you can disable “Save tessellation.” Because it’s a Document Property, you can adjust this option on a file-by-file basis. So, you can include the data when you need it and neglect it when you don’t.

Conclusion

So, configuration feature data and display data both have a significant effect on maximizing save performance. You can avoid some of these pitfalls by paying attention to the icons in the ConfigurationManager and minimizing the number of checkmarks. Also, make sure your system ignores the tessellation details used to generate the model graphically to minimize triangles. That being said, it’s important to recognize the consequences these changes might have, such as slowing down the switch from one configuration to another or preventing the usage of previewing tools like eDrawings.

Of course, if you are having persistent performance issues and want more in-depth analysis, give us a call.

Anthony Sandri
Application Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

Using Cosmetic Threads is a recommended best practice to represent threads in your models and minimize the impact on performance. They also let you easily annotate threads on a drawing. There are several ways to show them in SOLIDWORKS. They can be displayed on Toolbox fasteners; they can be shown on tapped holes created with the Hole Wizard feature; they can be manually applied using the Cosmetic Thread feature to any circular hole or boss; they can be generated when using the Stud Wizard feature.

But have you ever used one of these methods to create Cosmetic Threads and expected to see something like this?

Figure 1

And instead, you end up with this?

Figure 2

Or maybe even this?!

Figure 3

Display Them as Annotations

Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong. Figure 2 shows, by definition, a Cosmetic Thread. Basically, it is an annotation that represents the minor diameter of a thread on a boss feature or the major diameter of a thread on a hole.

Showing the minor or major diameter of the thread is useful when annotating threads using a hole callout on a 2D drawing.

Figure 4

So what’s the secret to displaying the major and minor diameters of the threads or a graphical representation of the threads in the model? All you need to do is change their visibility. Since Cosmetic Threads are an annotation, you control their visibility through the Annotations folder in the FeatureManager Design Tree.

Right-click on the Annotations folder and select Details.

Figure 5

In the “Annotation Properties” turn on the two options shown below and click Apply, then OK. You can also control the visibility of other annotation types from here.

Figure 6

You will also need to make sure that you enable Display Annotations. Right-click the Annotations folder again and turn on Display Annotations.

Figure 7

You should now be able to see all of your Cosmetic Threads in your model! If not, you may need to perform a forced rebuild (CTRL+Q) to regenerate the graphics.

Figure 8

If you would like to have the Cosmetic Threads and Shaded Cosmetic Threads visible for all new parts, the Annotation settings discussed above can be set and saved in your part templates.

Brian Morris
SOLIDWORKS Elite Application Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

When opening large assemblies and drawings, you will spend the most time waiting for the data in the referenced components to load. As this can be thousands of files for the largest assemblies, this can take a while. The following group of tools is designed to optimize your files and make this action as fast as possible.

PRODUCT DATA MANAGEMENT

Opening and saving your files over a network is slower than opening or saving files locally. Depending on your network and the network load at any given time, it can be MUCH slower. Even if documents are stored and maintained on a central server, it is still more efficient to copy those files locally, make your changes, and then copy those files back.

A solution like SOLIDWORKS PDM could save many hours in searching, opening, and working with large assembly and drawing files. With PDM, a vault can be ‘replicated’, and files can be checked out locally from any location. Engineers would have secure access to the files, workflows for SOLIDWORKS components and other document types, extensive search capabilities, and revision control. Engineers could also automate the creation of PDF’s and other documents that might be part of their everyday processes, like purchase requisitions or engineering change orders. A tool like PDM has many uses in improving our everyday performance issues. Below, you will see how this PDM interface looks. And feel free to contact CATI for a demonstration of this amazing tool.

TASK SCHEDULER (Convert to latest release)

With each new release of SOLIDWORKS, your models may need to be updated to prepare them for code changes in the latest release. This happens automatically when you open an older version file in a new version of SOLIDWORKS, but it can result in longer open times. The good news is that you only have to do this once per file. Conversion can be done as needed on an active project/model by opening and saving a file, OR, to save time, it can be done on entire data sets in an automated way using Task Scheduler or PDM software.

LIGHTWEIGHT COMPONENTS

You can improve the performance of large assemblies significantly by using Lightweight Components. You can load a part or an assembly with its active components Fully Resolved or Lightweight

• • SOLIDWORKS loads all model data into memory for Fully Resolved components.
  • SOLIDWORKS only loads a subset of the model data into memory for Lightweight components. SOLIDWORKS then loads the remaining model data as-needed basis.

Lightweight Components Appear with Feather

There are limitations to the functions you can perform while your components Lightweight. However, when you do need to make design changes, simply right click on the component, and select Fully Resolved. Or simply expand the part tree within the assembly, as seen below. You’ll notice that the first two items are lightweight, while the pin, whose tree has been expanded, is now resolved.

There are a number of options for making components Lightweight. A feather icon will appear on the component in the FeatureManager design tree to indicate that it is Lightweight.

• Select Lightweight under Mode in the Open dialogue window.
• RMB on a component in an assembly and select Lightweight from the shortcut menu.
• Set a system option to automatically open assemblies lightweight. You’ll find this setting under Tools > Options > System Options > Performance > Assembly Loading. Just check the box ‘Load Component Lightweight’.

LIGHTWEIGHT MODE WITH LARGE ASSEMBLY SETTINGS

Lightweight Mode with the Large Assembly Settings is a collection of system settings that improves the performance of assemblies. You can turn on Lightweight Mode at any time, or SOLIDWORKS can activate it automatically when you cross a set threshold for the number of components. When using this mode, SOLIDWORKS loads components as lightweight by default, as well as other various performance options. You’ll find this option under Tools > Options > System Options > Assemblies > Opening a Large Assembly and Large Assembly Settings.

LARGE DESIGN REVIEW

SOLIDWORKS has a great tool called Large Design Review for quickly accessing massive assemblies on moderate hardware. Large Design Review allows users to open assemblies almost instantly while still allowing them plenty of interactivity. All of the familiar view manipulation tools are available. You can zoom, pan, and rotate as if you are working on a single part. You can hide and show different items for a more granular focus. Window selection tools are available as well as the Isolate command to gain better clarity on specific areas.

You can quickly create Walk-Throughs and Snapshots to gain a thorough understanding of a large design. These tools allow you to quickly navigate to various areas of the assembly.  And finally, the Measure tool is also available in Large Design Review mode to gain a dimensional understanding of a design such as clearances. Now, although you can open components in their own window for editing, there are some assembly editing capabilities in Large Design Review mode as well.  Please follow this link to take a deeper look into Large Design Review, including the Edit Assembly mode, which was introduced in SOLIDWORKS 2019.

Whether it’s for design reviews or just to locate and edit specific components, Large Design Review Mode enables you to quickly access massive assemblies with minimal overhead or hardware. Simply select Large Design Review from Mode in the Open Dialogue window. You can also set a threshold for the number of components that triggers Large Design Review Mode after clearing the threshold. You can find this option under Tools > Options > System Options > Assemblies > Opening a Large Assembly.

So, if you are having issues with large assembly performance, try these SOLIDWORKS tools. You may not use all of them, but any that you can take advantage of, the better your performance. And stay tuned for my next post, part 5 of my ‘Improving Large Assembly Performance’ series, where I continue talking about the different tools that SOLIDWORKS has to offer for large assembly performance issues.

Regards.

Ken LaVictor
Sr. Applications Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

Detailing Multiple Bodies

With the cut-list I can still balloon to the bodies to point at their location just like a bill of material.

The next step is breaking out each body into its own view. To do this, copy the view and reselect it to get the option to “Select Bodies”.

Select one body, and say ok.

From here we can re-orientate our view to face forward and project the other sides as necessary. Of course, we should add some dimensions and put on a balloon. The balloon for the view is still linked to the original cut list, so the item number will work correctly. If you would like to reorder the cut list, the balloon will update.

Repeat the procedure for the bodies that need extra detailing work. This should simplify the workflow as I don’t have to break out each body to their own part file and reassemble it into an assembly for a bill of material. I have now accomplished that from my cut list using “Select Bodies”. There are of course reasons to do that, but in this case, once each section is secured together, it becomes “One Part”. I can pick it up any body and move it around as one solid unit and each stack will be a different part with varying heights. It is up to the design team how they would like to define “A Part”, and I leave that choice up to you.

Craig Maurer
Elite Applications Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

More specifically, we are going to use this Path Length Dimension as a reference dimension in an equation.

Here is the design request that we received. Pretty impressive graphics design work!

To accomplish this task, we will utilize the Hole Wizard feature and create a Curve Driven Pattern to get our complete array of holes. That sounds easy enough; but what if the part geometry changes? Will we need to edit the pattern to add more holes?

To fully capture this design intent, we want the quantity of these equally spaced holes to be driven by our part size. We will accomplish this by using an equation to define the quantity of holes, relating it to a Path Length Dimension value.

Let’s look deeper into the steps to accomplish this task.

Creating a sketch on the flange of the part, and using the Offset Entities command, gives us the curve to drive our pattern. Using this Path Length Dimension tool is simple. Selecting all these sketch segments and it quickly creates the driven dimension that is the entire length of those segments.

Going into the equation editor makes it easy to create Global Variables. We are going to create a new global variable named “Path_Length” and link it the Path Length reference dimension we just created. Linking a Global Variable to this dimension will make it easier for us to use it in our equation.

Next, we need to exit this sketch and go create our hole. Using the hole wizard for an M2 screw, and placing it on the midpoint of the left line segment, works great.

Next, we use the Curve Driven Pattern command to create the additional holes. We set the option for Equal Spacing. In the Quantity parameter, we can hit the “=” key to enter an equation. In this case, the quantity is equal to the global variable “Path_Length” divided by 9.

Editing the initial sketch of this part and adjusting its size will make it easy to see how the design intent, “several evenly spaced holes” was captured and maintained through future geometry modifications. Here are two different versions to verify that we were successful.

A bigger and wider version of the part still has several evenly spaced holes around the outer flange.

A taller version of the part also still has several evenly space holes around the outer flange.

Hopefully this example sparks some ideas for where you might be able to take advantage of the Path Length Dimension, Variables, and Equations in your SOLIDWORKS designs.

Greg Buter
Managing Application Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

Are you waiting hours just to get to work on a slow SOLIDWORKS assembly?  Once it finally is open, does it move slower than a sloth stuck in the mud?

This is a common problem with large, complex assemblies.  The fact is, it doesn’t have to be.  There are standard practices that will reduce these issues and take your 1-hour open time to 1 minute.

Take the quiz below to see how well YOU know these slow SOLIDWORKS Assembly Best Practices.

[gravityform id=”3″ title=”true”]

SOLIDWORKS has a number of settings that allow us to get as much out of our performance as possible. For assemblies, the following recommendations will improve the time needed to “paint” the display during updates and also improve your ability to zoom, pan, and rotate assemblies. Many of these are automatically set for you when you turn on Large Assembly Mode.

• USE PERFORMANCE SETTINGS – Under Tools, Options, System Options, Performance, there are settings that are directly related to improving performance.
  • Clear the checkbox next to ‘Verification on Rebuild (Enable Advanced Body Checking)’ in order to shorten rebuild times. Verification on Rebuild Controls the level of error checking when you create or modify features. For most applications, the default setting (cleared) is adequate and results in a faster rebuild of the model.
  • Place a check next to ‘Load Components Lightweight’. Doing so loads a subset of information of that component into SOLIDWORKS and allows for a much faster load time. Lightweight components are then resolved once you expand the part tree or by selecting ‘Set to Resolved’ from the short cut menu.
  • Uncheck ‘Use Shaded Preview’. This option maintains the shaded preview while you rotate, pan, zoom, and set standard views, and it will affect performance.
  • Slide the ‘Level of Detail’ slider to ‘Off’ or ‘Less’. This option sets the detail level during dynamic view operations.
  • Check the box next to ‘Enhanced Graphics Performance’. With the right graphics card, this option drastically improves the graphical performance. This option affects rotate, pan, and zoom for parts and assemblies, and the display of drawings that have shaded or draft quality views. Contact CATI support if you have any questions on graphics cards.

• SUSPEND AUTOMATIC REBUILD – The ‘Suspend Automatic Rebuild’ option is available in Tools, Options, System Options, Assemblies. It applies only to in-context features. With the option enabled, in-context parts will show a rebuild light instead of automatically rebuilding, allowing you to make multiple changes and then updating just once. Similarly, the system option ‘Do not rebuild when switching to assembly window’ (Large assembly settings option) lets you skip the rebuilding of a large assembly after editing a component in a separate window.

• LOWER IMAGE QUALITY – In SolidWorks, you can adjust the quality options for the image display. You can change this setting by going to Tools, Options, Document Properties, Image Quality and then slide the ‘Shaded and Draft Quality HLR/HLV Resolution’ slider towards ‘Low’. You can do the same thing with ‘Wireframe and High Quality HLR/HLV Resolution’.  For part files, clear the checkbox next to ‘Save Tessellation with Part Document’. This option saves display information, and, when cleared, file size is reduced. Note: the model will not be displayed when the file is opened in view-only mode, the SolidWorks Viewer, or eDrawings. The display data will have to be regenerated when the file is opened again in SolidWorks.

• CHANGE DISPLAY SETTINGS – Under Tools, Options, System Options, Display, there are settings that are directly related to the display of our geometry. By disabling some of these settings, we can improve performance.
  • Uncheck ‘Highlight all edges of features selected in graphics view’.
  • Uncheck ‘Dynamic highlight from graphics view’.
  • Set Anti-aliasing to ‘None’ (but only if graphics card does not support it).
  • Uncheck ‘Dynamic highlight’. This display option is found under ‘Tools, Options, System Options, FeatureManager’.
  • Use Shaded mode instead of Shaded with edges. HLR Edges are ‘expensive’ (See picture below). This option is found on the View toolbar.

• USE PLAIN BACKGROUND APPEARANCE – Under Tools, Options, System Options, Colors, place a dot next to ‘Plain’

• DISABLE REALVIEW GRAPHICS – RealView gives models a realistic and dynamic representation in real time all without the need to render. If your graphics card is RealView-compatible, RealView is enabled by default. To help with performance, turn off this functionality. In the ‘View’ toolbar at the top of the graphics area, click on ‘View Settings’ and turn off ‘RealView Graphics’. To further improve performance, turn off Shadows in Shaded Mode, Ambient Occlusion, and Perspective mode.

• DISABLE OPTION ‘SAVE AUTO-RECOVER INFO EVERY’ – This option Activates auto-recover and defines the number of minutes that elapse before an auto-recover file is created for an open document. If crashing is not an issue, OR, you are using a data management tool, then uncheck this option to prevent SolidWorks from pausing to save every so often. Backup/Recover settings are located under Tools, Options, System Options, Backup/Recover

• DISABLE NEWS FEEDS – Clear ‘Show Latest Technical Alerts and News in Welcome Dialog’ under Tools, Options, System Options, General.

• DISABLE FILE SEARCH AND DISSECTION – SolidWorks has some automatic search and dissection tools for locating and breaking down our components (See Help to learn more about Dissection). When working with large assemblies, these tasks just take up resources. So, under Tools, Options, System Options, Search, clear the checkbox next to ‘Search While Typing’, clear the checkbox next to ‘Include 3D Content Central Results’, place a dot next to ‘Index only when computer is idle’, and clear the checkbox next to ‘Schedule dissection daily to automatically dissect files in search paths’.

• TURN OFF ADD-INS – From Tools, Add-ins, uncheck any tools you currently are not using.

So, if you are having issues with large assembly performance, try these SOLIDWORKS settings.  You may not use all of them, but any that you can take advantage of, the better your performance.  And then stay tuned for my next post, part 4 of my ‘Improving Large Assembly Performance’ series.

Regards.

Ken LaVictor
Sr. Applications Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

Storage Device

Ever since the birth of computers, users have needed to store their data. The concept of a “hard drive” dates back to 1957 with the IBM. Today we have many options for storing our SOLIDWORKS data. HDD (Mechanical hard drives), SSD (solid state drives), and NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) are the types of Drives we find today.

The largest difference in performance for us in testing was changing from a mechanical hard drive to a SSD or a NVMe drive. That change resulted in at least a 15% increase in speed for all of our standard tests. Now looking at the image below, you will see results of a read and write test for an SSD on the left and NVMe drive on the right. Depending on the model, a NVMe drive is theoretically 10x faster than a standard SSD drive. So, why doesn’t SOLIDWORKS CAD perform faster with a faster NVMe drive? Answer; SOLIDWORKS files are small enough that when SSD were introduced, the storage device was no longer a bottle neck for performance.

If you are purchasing a new machine, we recommend using a NVMe drive as your primary drive. Because of the amazing speed of the NVMe, Windows and other programs will load much faster. If you are upgrading an older machine, consult with the owner’s manual to see if your motherboard has an available M.2 slot for an NVMe drive. If it does not, replacing an older HDD with an SSD is highly recommended.

Note about storage.

SOLIDWORKS will always perform better if the data is saved to your local storage on the machine. In benchmarks ran across a network to a server for storage the time complete was slower by 25 to 40 % slower depending on the size of the assembly involved.

Video Card

One of the hardest areas to understand and define performance is in video cards. The video game industry focuses mostly on Frame Per Second (FPS). As SOLIDWORKS is a commercial CAD we can use FPS as a measure, but it is usually not what increases our quality of life as a designer. Responsiveness of the mouse commands, stability of inserting parts into assemblies and creating drawings views, are what make users more productive. This means purchasing a machine with a dedicated professional graphics card.

Nvidia

Looking at the current line up from Nvidia we recommend staying at a minimum of a 2000 level model of their Quadro line for professional cards. The GeForce line of cards are not certified traditionally by SOLIDWORKS as their drivers are not geared for 3D CAD.

As of June 1^st, 2022, we recommend:

Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000

Nvidia Quadro RTX A2000 through A4000

AMD

AMD has been doing a very good job putting out video cards over the last few years to compete with Nvidia. We recommend using the Radeon Pro series of cards and to not consider the Radeon RX line up, as their driver as well are geared more for gaming like the Nvidia GeForce line of cards.

As of June 1^st, 2022, we recommend:

Radeon Pro W5700

Radeon Pro W6600 through W6800

RAM

SOLIDWORKS is a RAM-based CAD system. That means that every file you open is loaded into the Random Access Memory. Files are modified while in the RAM, then written back to a storage device upon save operation. Question, “ how much ram do I need?

The answer is straight forward. You need enough RAM to prevent your system from using swap space.  When there isn’t enough RAM, it will utilize the Windows virtual memory (also referred to swap space), where the system will save information and calculations to the local drive. If the SOLIDWORKS file requires swap space to be used, performance of SOLIDWORKS will degrade quickly.

After developing a RAM consumption test for SOLIDWORKS, we found that the number of components in a design did not cause more RAM to be consumed. The important variable is the number of unique components in the design. To find out how many unique components are in your design you can go the Evaluate Tab in SOLIDWORKS and run Performance Evaluation.

The data above shows the results of taking an assembly and patterning it 40 times. As you go from left to right one more instance would be given new file names resulting in a unique memory address for that file. With the 26^th iteration we had gone from 200 to 5400 unique components, at this point we hand consumed all 32 gigabytes of RAM in the system. This RAM vs unique components also correlated with the six other models we had been testing.

For most SOLIDWORKS users, 32 Gb of RAM is more than sufficient. If your designs consistently have than 5000 unique components, then consider going with 64 Gb of RAM. Also, the question of ECC (error correction control) RAM, “Do I need that as a SOLIDWORKS user?” Our answer is no, take that extra money saved and spend it on a faster CPU.

CPU

The CPU (central processing unit) of the computer is the most important decision you will make when it comes to your computer purchase. Much of the SOLIDWORKS instructions that calculated on the CPU are serial in nature. This makes it difficult to take advantage of CPU with a larger amount of processor cores. Currently SOLIDWORKS will leverage fours cores. Other processes like SOLIDWORKS Simulation, SOLIDWORKS Flow, and SOLIDWORKS Plastic will leverage as many cores as CPU has available.

Most CPUs will have two operating speeds you want to know about. First the base clock speed, which is typical speed that process would run under very light loads. The second is the boost speed this is usually the maximum speed that CPU can run. To increase the speed of the CPU, more power is administered to cores increasing their theoretical speed. There is no escaping the laws of physics, the more power/energy is added to a system, the temperatures will increase. This increase in temperature can cause CPUs in laptops to struggle to maintain its maximum potential speed do to something called thermal throttling.

As an example, we tested the Lenovo P14s Gen 2 laptop, much of the time the laptop under heavy SOLIDWORKS loads ran at the proposed 4.4 GHz maximum speed. But when facing difficult simulation studies thermal throttling came into play and reduced the clock speed to 4.2 GHz to not compromise the CPU. Therefore, most high-performance machines are desktop platforms as they will have a better cooling solution to maintain a higher speed for longer.

AMD and Intel are the leaders in the laptop and desktop CPU marketplace. Each vendor has their strengths. Intel has been primarily focused on faster clock speed, where AMD has been focused on a higher core count CPU unit.

SOLIDWORKS CAD Only

If you are only doing SOLIDWORKS CAD, we recommended Intel i7 or i9 with the highest boost speed that you can afford. As of June 1^st 2022 most new computers on the market can break that 5GHz boost speed, which is recommended. “Should I buy a Xeon, our vendor recommends it?” Simple answer is no. Most motherboards for Xeon processors will require ECC RAM, which increased the price point of the machine you are purchasing. With our years of historical data on CPU Speed, for every increase in clock speed by a Gigahertz will increase SOLIDWORKS performance by 25%.

SOLIDWORKS Simulation and Beyond

Many programs can leverage multi-thread, meaning the calculations can easily be split up into pieces and easily reassembled post-calculation. SOLIDWORKS Simulation, Flow and Plastics are just a few programs that will leverage a CPU with more than 4 cores. If much of your workloads fall under this category, we strongly recommend you look at something like the Lenovo P620 with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO between 24 to 64 cores. It has a slower clock speed ranging from 4.2-4.5 GHz but the number of cores with performance many times faster than a lower core count machine.

Quick run down, what to look for.

SOLIDWORKS CAD only PC

SOLIDWORKS Simulation and Beyond

We hope this primer was helpful in your next hardware purchase. If you have any questions feel free to contact us.

Bob McGaughey, CSWE
Senior Applications Engineering
Computer Aided Technology