V6 is what I’m looking to see. I was going to go this year but decided against it due to the lack of sessions that interested me. Although I found it interesting that there are two Catia specific sessions being run. Seems out of place at a SolidWorks convention.

I decided to check again and there seems to be more sessions that I would have attended but still not enough to get me there this year. The Catia sessions are still there, I don’t remember seeing them the last two years.

My one and only interest is in V6, and just what the hell it is going to mean for conceptual designers everywhere.

So far I am using Adobe Illustrator + SpaceClaim to be able to quickly and easily mock up designs that are able to convey the design intent for others to then develop more thoroughly. However I often come up against limitations in SpaceClaim, particularly with regards to the robustness of modelling complex mechanisms and organic surfacing.

I will certainly be keeping SpaceClaim in my toolbox as it has a number of excellent features I would miss dearly however I am keen to adopt either Autodesk Fusion 360, or Solidworks V6 as my main tool of choice for ‘conceptual’ modelling. It all really depends on what is revealed at SWW. I would be very surprised if by this time next year I am not using one of these two products as my main modelling tool.

It really will be very interesting to see if Solidworks has something truly revolutionary to bring to the masses or as unfortunately I suspect more likely simply a paired down version of the software that was demoed nearly 3 years ago now.

At the moment it looks like Solidworks were the one’s who first publicly commented on the potential of modelling in the cloud but unless they come out next week with something that truly knocks our socks off then it looks to me as though Autodesk will be the ones to take the prize. They also have a much clearer funnel for the products to capture people from a younger age:

Start off with: 123D + Sketchbook Pro

Move up to: Fusion360 + Sketchbook Designer

Finally graduate to: Autodesk Inventor

How does Solidworks compete with that?

I would find a more controllable 2d spline revolutionary. Trim surfaces that do not flip on their own, terribly exciting. Tangency constraints that knew the difference between a cusp and round would be fantastic. A reliable thicken surface would be wonderful. Automatic relations that snapped to the more sensible item would be nice. Fix some bugs and make me happy.

I´m looking to see V6 (cloud and desktop version), whats new in SW 2014, SolidWorks Live Building (but really LIVE), replacement for Autodesk T-Splines (http://www.npowersoftware.com/PowerSurfacingSWoverview.html) and acquisition of Luxology Modo

Long time reader from the other world IV …anyways I’m planning on attending this years SWXW and would like to know which general session is the must see this year? Reason is I can only take 1 day to go (coming from Tampa) with my current schedule.

Awesome…would you be available for a meet and greet?

I’m concerned about the vagaries of CatiaLite and cloud-based platforms, and interested to see any elaboration on this announced-long-ago direction.

Improvement to surfacing tools is also something I’d like to see.

@ Tony
(little off topic)

It seems to me that many industrial designers use Rhino 3D for conceptual design, it has a very complete toolset and can import most CAD formats.

Matt, I’m looking for SW to be re-written so that it takes advantage of multi cores.