Will You Miss the Shape Feature in SolidWorks 2010?… The What?

by Josh on March 10, 2009 · View Comments

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solidworks-form-feature If you’ve upgraded to SolidWorks 2009 SP2.1, you might notice a message for an obscure feature that helps you make lil’ bumps on faces. The Shape feature. Turns out, this particular feature will not be available in SolidWorks 2010.

Yep, so now, you and that one guy in South Dakota who use it to make fake indentations on sheet metal parts are going to have to move on to another feature. What could it be?

Here’s the message you’ll see…

shape-solidworks-2010

So, the FreeForm Feature it is. A wonderful feature as a matter of fact, and it just so happens it’s in the same menu as the Shape Feature. (Insert, Features, FreeForm). It’s a great tool to work with that we’ll get into with a future post.

Right now, you’ll see this message when you attempt to create a Shape feature, or if you have an existing Shape Feature in the FeatureManager, you’ll see and warning icon.

Do you use this feature? Are you just preparing for the worst now!?

Tagged as: new features, solidworks 2010, solidworks enhancements, surfacing

{ 6 comments }

Rod_Uding March 10, 2009 at 10:15 am: Won't miss it because I never used it.
Josh M March 10, 2009 at 10:26 am: I figure that will be the typical response. It hasn't been the most useful feature for me either, but worked to get some quick bumpage going on. Check out the Freefrom feature man. It's a lot of fun.
Rod_Uding March 10, 2009 at 11:39 am: Did you need the bumpage for simply presentation needs or to create a dimpled surface? It seems to me that the freeform tool is more for commercial design than industrial/manufacturing.
Brian March 10, 2009 at 4:13 pm: There is/was a Shape feature???

LOL!
Josh M March 11, 2009 at 10:25 am: We used it to represent a 'bulge' in a piece of sheet-metal. It was simply the fastest way to show it at the time. The FreeForm Tool can be used for doing some wicked composite material pieces/forms. It's got me thinking a lot more about how we can use the tool in day-to-day engineering.
Josh M March 11, 2009 at 3:25 pm: We used it to represent a 'bulge' in a piece of sheet-metal. It was simply the fastest way to show it at the time. The FreeForm Tool can be used for doing some wicked composite material pieces/forms. It's got me thinking a lot more about how we can use the tool in day-to-day engineering.