Carrying on with the motto of this release which was all about making it quicker and more user friendly and intuitive the mates area of SolidWorks 2010 got some work done to it.  There are only a couple changes but these changes are worth the price of admission in my honest opinion.  The changes were subtle but when you start using them I think you will agree with me as to how nice they are.

View Mates     

The mates in the FeatureManager tree and the View Mates tool has a new icon that you will probably notice right away.  The new icon is shown above (an arrow with a green hatch underneath).  You may be asking what in the world this icon means, right?  Well this is a quick way for you to tell which mates “ground” this component.  Have you ever had to relocate a component and not know which components held the component down and which ones where mates “grounding” other components?  Well in 2010 all you need to do is look for these icons and it will show you what is holding it down.

Replace Components

You will notice changes as soon as you activate the Replace Components command.  You will now be able to select from a list of part files that you have open similar to the way when you insert components into an assembly.

Once you select the component you wish to replace and the component to replace it with you will notice a couple of new items that will make it easier for you to do this.  A popup toolbar now appears as shown below.  From this toolbar you can:

• isolate the replacement part alone, show the replacement part with replacement parts, or show the entire assembly
• undo selections and operations
• delete mates
• skip mates
• toggle mate alignments

You will also see a view of the original component displayed in a popup window with the missing mate highlighted.

You can see both of these popups in the screenshot below.

Coordinate System Mates

If you mate using coordinate systems you will also see some new features.  In SolidWorks 2010 you will be able to create a coincident mate between a coordinate system and the origin, you will be able select coordinate systems and origins as reference entities and choose to align the axes, and also you can use SmartMates to create mates involving coordinate systems and origins.

All in all these new mates options are VERY nice and you will definitely like them once you are able to start using them.