Introduced in 2017, Magnetic Mate enables users to easily snap components together to efficiently organize the equipment and optimize space. SOLIDWORKS 2018 brings continued development to these tools.
Parts and assemblies can be published as assets with appropriate connection points that allows for easy drag and drop mating.

Publishing assets for Magnetic mates is easy and straightforward. Just select a ground plane, enter an offset if required, then define a connection point and a direction to define the mate. The connection points are added through an underlying sketch. You also have the option to automatically create the Speed Pak configuration on the fly, and that’s it, your model is now ready to be snapped together with other assets in your layouts. Coming to the speed Pak, it is a super-lite weight configuration that helps to load assemblies much faster. This is very effective when working with large assemblies such as in plant layout.

There are some new enhancements to magnetic mates’ tool in 2018. First, we now support multiple ground planes. Just simply activate the ground plane you want to work on and when you assemble the components with publishing assets, they are snapped to that ground plane. “Tab key” rotates the components.

Locking a magnetic mate from being unsnapped has existed before but is much clearer now. The lock magnetic mate appears as soon as the components are snapped.

New keyboard shortcuts are now available to cycle through the snap points.

Choose ‘[‘to cycle through magnetic mate options on moving component and ‘]’ to cycle through available options on fixed component.

Now with ability to snap to multiple ground planes, easier access to lock magnetic mate, and connection points cycling, it is now much easier to build large assemblies.