Last day of SW World
The highlight for today was the top 10 list for SW2011. These are things that have a higher likelihood of actually being implemented. Remember we did a Top 10 list here? I think that this year, SolidWorks did a great job with the Top 10 list. This is in part because of using the Brainstorm method of transparently collecting and voting on enhancement suggestions.
Anyway, here is the top 10:
10 simplify video card requirements9 exploded views for weldments8 option to dangle children instead of deleting7 graphical map of references6 allow more types of assembly features5 better utilize all processor cores4 on the fly equations and dialog boxes3 file compatibility between versions2 increase stability1 solidworks should cleanly uninstall itself
The ones in bold are ideas that were also part of this blog’s Top 10. I think the #1 spot is a bit odd. Why would uninstallation be a #1 request?!?
In addition to the Top 10 list, they also showed some features that will be found in SW2011. Some of my note taking was done quickly, so I may have missed some things:
- revolve up to surface, vertex, body
- defeature tool to remove stuff based on size- shows an imported body at the end
- appearance is customizable, lights, display manager, reflections
- rendered animation. with pv360.
- 2d planar simulation projected back to 3d model for symmetrical analysis
- dimension placement on drawing is cleaner and in the correct view staggered and spaced automatically
- dimensions in the hole table
- cut sweep and fillet in assembly
- welds in part or assembly - lightweight welds
- triad to position piping parts rotationally
- add gaps throughout the piping skid
- piping walkthrough with arrow and mouse
- etching feature for text on parts
- feature lock to avoid rebuilding features
In case you didn’t catch it, that last one says “Feature lock to avoid rebuilding features”. Yes, it does. In 2011. Ok. I’ll upgrade. That is another enhancement that this blog is going to take credit for. It came up here during the direct edit discussions.
Oh, yes, and they announced the location of SWW11 – San Antonio, TX. Sounds like fun. Still, it might be time to take a year off.
I must admit I chuckled when I saw the feature freeze Matt – amazing how something simple can be spun so well….rebuild time reduced from 60 seconds to 0.4! In any case we have VX to think for that one. I’ve always used their History encapsulate feature so it made sense for something similar in Solidworks.
As for the main top ten well I looked at it and thought that half were kind of obvious things that should be done anyway – hardly enhancements. Maybe I’m just too fussy?
What was surprising, given all the Monday news, was there was no announcement about CATIA interoperability. We’d be happy with just a dumb solids import at this stage. Maybe by the time beta comes around they will have had a change of heart.
One reason that I’d want a clean uninstall is when I finally remove old versions of the software (got rid of 2007 not to long ago), it’d be nice to make sure you don’t blow away any settings or have a number of files that linger around, but that don’t actually serve any purpose.
A way to address version compatibility is to have the software save the model in the oldest format possible. For example, if I extrude a cylinder and save it, there should be nothing 2010-specific in it. However, if I use new features or tools that didn’t exist in an earlier version, only then should it use a newer file format. An alert would be nice as well; something like, “This file will be saved in 20xx format and can not be opened by earlier versions of SolidWorks,” should suffice.
SolidWorks execs would not answer (ie, talked around it) when we in the CAD press asked repeatedly about V6, ParaSolids, et al. It got to the point where we would ask the questions knowing we wouldn’t get an answer, just to see what the spin would be this time around.
The top 10 looks pretty reasonable to me. I observe that the cloud did not make it to the list. Solidworks is clearly a user driven company.
I think #1 is the most important. After we rebuild our Solidworks models with another CAD software we might never want to get near Solidworks again.
Surfacing must not be important to many users. The same bugs are around year after year. I can usually find a way to get the shape but the path is torturous and rebulds can be unstable.
It must be just me… i’m very underwhelmed by both lists. VERY! THe wish list being the one with more meat. IS this all SWC can come up with??? WTF
Not an impressive list, IMO. Sure, I like #8 (option to dangle children) and #4 (on the fly equations) and #6 (more assy features) would be a welcome addition. We could debate whether SW should be working on #10 (graphics card req’s), but development efforts towards #5 (multi-threading) should be a given. Do we really need those two to make the top-10 list? By my read, only four of the items (9, 8, 6 and 4) are actual improvements in SW capabilities. Maybe someone could argue #7, as well. Has SW really gotten to the point that less than half of the user-driven wish list lies within the core functionality of the software? I would hope not.
HoffY, the top ten list was voted on by the users. Mine, for instance, was #4. Sure, a few are in the “please make the software run better” category but they were ALL voted on by the users.
Bill, well said… I’m reading your response as I’m typing mine and see that we pretty much see things the same way.
I am glad NOT to see anything on the list about multiple monitors, though.