For whatever reason, SolidWorks employees working on beta cannot hear you when you tell them about bugs that exist in previous versions. It’s as if its “somebody else’s job” – a sure sign of corporate bureaucracy gone amok. I find this to be one of the most off-putting aspects of the beta program. Especially when bugs reported last year aren’t fixed this year, and they don’t want to hear about it.
Read more on SolidWorks 2011: Interface bugs from previous versions…
I think if you were to skip a release (in addition to 2008) in the last 10 years, SW2011 one would be the one to skip. But not for the reason you might be expecting. This release doesn’t suck, but at the same time, there is little to recommend it. To me, this is is an uneventful release. This is both good and bad news. It’s good news because they didn’t play alphabet soup with the interface again (aside from standardizing some icons, which is a good thing). It’s bad news if you were hoping for some real modeling enhancements like Conic sketch elements and Freeze the feature tree.
Read more on SolidWorks 2011: 3 Favorites, no, 4…
SolidWorks 2011 is being announced. It’s not ready to install, it’s not ready to ship, it’s just being announced. It is currently in beta 3. Next come a couple of pre-release versions, and then SP0.0 some time in October probably. If you’re the kind that has to wait for a set of disks to arrive, tack on another several weeks for that. I haven’t installed from disks in quite a while now, which is one of the nicer things they’ve done from the administration side of things.
Read more on SolidWorks 2011: What’s New…
This was a model that I did 7 years ago for a well-known housewares company. They received concepts from an artist, where the concepts were 3 views in AutoCAD format. There were 8 items per line, and 7 or 8 lines in total. They contracted me to model these concepts in 3D and work with the product managers to create variations, drawings and renderings. We even conferenced in the Chinese to see how they wanted to manufacture the parts. This is a wall mounted towel rack.
Read more on Master Model Part 2: 2D reference data and bodies…
Ok, this is going to be fun. Enough of you have expressed interest in this that I guess we have to do it. Master Model, Skeleton, Layout, Assembly Sketch, Top Down, Insert Part, Save Bodies, or whatever you want to call any of the various techniques involved to drive assembly models from sketch or part data are extremely powerful, and did not originate with SolidWorks. These are techniques that have been around the CAD modeling world for decades. The techniques are typically used for large very complex designs, but can also be brought down to the level of SolidWorks users, for every day industrial or consumer products.
Read more on Master Model Part 1: Overview…
I’m doing some modeling for an upcoming writing project. I just need some additional and new models for demonstration purposes. One of the models I’m working on is a dump truck. It contains a lot of welded steel structural shapes and plate. I’m building it from a master model sketch placed in a part, and then that master model sketch part is placed into each of the individual parts going in the truck model, and all of the parts are put back together into an assembly. There are a lot of ways to manage a job like this, this is just one of them. I’m not convinced it is the best way, but it is the way I am doing this model. I like to try a lot of different techniques just for comparison sake.
Read more on Adventures in Everyday Modeling…
Selections in Solidworks generally could be another entire blog post, but here I just want to treat the SelectionManager, shown to the left. You activate the SelectionManager though the right mouse button (RMB) menu when the Boundary (and loft and sweep) PropertyManager is active. You use the SelectionManager to select a complete curve, even if the curve is made up of many elements, including curve features, 2D or 3d sketches, and edges of either solid or surface faces. The SelectionManager makes the selection within the feature, and the selection cannot be reused outside of the feature. This replaced another technique a few years ago that was substantially the same thing called Smart Selection or something like that. I am a big proponent of a “portable” selection – something that can be saved and reused between features. Similar to a Composite Curve, but just a selection set, not a real curve. Some selections can be difficult to create, and losing a selection if SolidWorks fails to create a feature is a frustrating and needless loss.
Read more on Boundary Surface Part 6: SelectionManager…
Part from Chapter 15 of the Surfacing book
I wrote the surfacing book on 2008. When 2009 came out, it fubared this part. It’s hard to say why, but there are several features that suddenly miss their references in 2009, or some features that have everything set up correctly, but simply don’t work. So I rebuilt some parts. Just a reminder that your data is definitely not safe from one version to the next.
Read more on Surfacing Bible repairs…
You love ‘em, you hate ‘em, connectors. Connectors are one of the best available tools to control Lofts and Boundary surfaces. Really. I’m serious. Sure, there are some problems with connectors, but overall, I don’t think there is anything, and I mean anything that gives you this much power managing surfaces. If you don’t learn anything else from this series on Boundary Surface, you need to learn about connectors.
Read more on Boundary Surface Part 5: Connectors…
What is being influenced? The U-V grid in the direction parallel to the curves you are changing the setting for is being influenced (driven) by the curves in one of several ways.
Curve Influence is something I don’t understand very well, but I’ll explain it as best I can, and maybe then you can explain it to me. To me, CAD is all about predictable tools reacting in predictable ways. If you can’t look at the input and predict the result, then you don’t understand the tool. You’re trying to get a shape from inside your head to inside the computer, so you aren’t relying on random shape generators. You want to create something specific. You need tools that you can rely on to work with a definable set of rules. Just in case you’re trying to understand my frustration with this set of advanced options, that is where I am coming from.
Read more on Boundary Surface Part 4: Curve Influence…
The Boundary Surface has a lot of options. I always ask for a lot of options, and I guess this is just a case of ”be careful of what you ask for because you just may get it”. The interface also changes depending on what you have selected. I know there are people who think this is clever, but I for one mainly find it confusing. It means that you have to meet some preconditions in order to even see an option. For example, the Tangent Influence and Tangent Length settings are not available until you have set a Tangent Type of something other than None. Also, the Curves Influence options are not available until you have both Dir1 & 2 curves selected. Draft is not displayed until you have a curve selected, but in some situations is simply grayed out. Some of these options are labeled explicitly and some only with tooltips.
Read more on Boundary Surface part 3: Tangent Influence…
Click to Enlarge
This simple example shows a lot of power in the Boundary surface feature, and a lot of what makes it so attractive to me. First, notice that the two sketches cross in an X shape. You can’t do that with Loft or Sweep. Ok, you can create sketches like that with a loft, but part of the GC (guide curve) is not used to create a surface. In case you were wondering, this is very nice. It makes it more convenient to place sketch planes. You don’t have to place them at the end of one sketch entity or curve.
Read more on Boundary Surface Part 2: Simple Examples…
Recently I was asked by a reader to write about the boundary surface. This along with a lot of other stuff is covered in the surfacing book, but it’s not a bad thing to cover it again. The boundary surface has become my first choice for shape creation.
Read more on Boundary Surface Part 1: Overview…
Here you go. Can’t get enough social media? Got a Facebook account? Privacy really isn’t your bag? Got that exhibitionist bent, and gotta show your skillz? Got lots of time on your hands waiting for CAD-in-the-cloud to arrive? Well, it turns out that Dassault has just the thing for you. Now you can post your CAD models to Facebook via 3dvia. Read the press release here.
Read more on Dassault: One click publishing of models to Facebook…
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Ok, let’s just say that maybe you aren’t on Facebook playing Billions, or maybe you’re not busy uninstalling your software and selling your hardware on eBay so you can live on the cloud. What is left?
Read more on Do something productive while you’re waiting for the Cloud to arrive……
For whatever reason, SolidWorks employees working on beta cannot hear you when you tell them about bugs that exist in previous versions. It’s as if its “somebody else’s job” – a sure sign of corporate bureaucracy gone amok. I find this to be one of the most off-putting aspects of the beta program. Especially when bugs reported last year aren’t fixed this year, and they don’t want to hear about it.
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