Compare Parts and Drawings Overview

SOLIDWORKS tools compare parts and drawings, and graphically show differences between two versions of a design, so the differences caused by an engineering change can be quickly understood. Specific comparison functionality includes the ability to:

• Find differences or verify that two parts or drawings are the same
• Compare features—Understand differences in two designs at the SOLIDWORKS feature level
• Compare documents—Compare two SOLIDWORKS documents from your computer, network, or SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM vault
• Compare configurations—Compare two configurations of a document
• Compare geometry—Understand overall differences in parts and assemblies
• Generate summary reports of comparisons with SOLIDWORKS Report Manager

Design for Manufacturability Overview

To ensure your product can be manufactured, SOLIDWORKS provides 3D tools to review your design early in the development process. It is much easier and less costly to correct issues found during the design stage than correcting them during manufacturing planning, or after your design is in production.

SOLIDWORKS capabilities to check for manufacturability include:

• DFMXpress —Compare your design to standardized manufacturing rules to assess if your design can be produced
• Compare parts and drawings for changes—Automatically compare designs to instantly understand differences
• CAD Check for Parts and Tooling —Quickly understand if your parts can be easily removed from mold, cast, or form tooling
• Sheet metal bending and flat pattern —Easily assess if your sheet metal parts can be developed from flat stock

CAD Check for Parts and Tooling Overview

SOLIDWORKS enables automatic checks for draft, undercut, and wall thickness issues in molded, cast, and forged parts and tooling. Parts and tooling checks help identify and resolve potential problems early in the part or tooling design process. CAD check for parts and tooling functionality includes:

• Draft Analysis—Determine if a part is drafted sufficiently considering the material selected for removal from the mold or forging tool
• Undercut Analysis—Determine if an undercut feature is present in a part so it can be understood and fixed, or removed (if undesired), or designed into the tooling so that the undercut feature can be produced
• Parting Line Analysis—Review the part line selection for the target direction of pull for plastic, cast, or forged parts
• Thickness Check—Automatically calculate and graphically display part thickness so the designer can focus on areas where molding problems are likely to occur
• Symmetry Check—Run symmetry checks that help streamline tooling construction by helping engineers select preliminary gating locations and common areas that can be manufactured together