Dassault Systèmes (DS) SolidWorks Corp. provided the 5,000-plus attendees at SolidWorks World 2011 in San Antonio, Texas, with a sneak peak into the new features users can expect in the next release of SolidWorks.

For SolidWorks 2012, the company has:
• Refined the functionalities its customers use most often to simplify and speed up their daily use of SolidWorks;
• Added new tools that extend current SolidWorks design capabilities, allow specification-driven design and fundamentally change the way users estimate and make design decisions related to the cost of manufacturing products; and
• Expanded support for collaboration and connectivity, allowing design teams to work on joint projects across the globe.

Below are the top 10 features SolidWorks users asked for in the next release of the software.
1. Angle mates that don't flip at random;
2. Better utilization of processor cores;
3. The option to dangle instead of deleting;
4. SolidWorks should cleanly uninstall itself;
5. Freeze features;
6. Enhanced equations input, and editing and linking;
7. Convert a solid body into a surface body without having to delete, offset or knit faces;
8. Make the ideas section (in the forum) available all year, not just for SolidWorks World;
9. File compatibility between versions; and
10. Pressing the escape key should immediately return control of the interface.

All of the new features of SolidWorks 2012 will be revealed this Fall.

www.solidworks.com