Dezignstuff SolidWorks Blog

The SolidWorks MotionManager is the new name for SolidWorks Animator. It was moved into the base product, and has received its own new chapter in the 2009 Bible. One of the things I did to learn the software was to order the book SolidWorks MotionManager 2008 from Rob Rodriguez.

The book is 192 pages, in color, printed on good quality paper with nice looking images. The book includes images of the SolidWorks interface. It comes with a CD that has all of the parts, assemblies, and finished animations used in the book. It is laid out for the most part like the training books. The training books are very popular, and are in general well written.

The book includes all of the basics, so if you are learning the animation functions for the first time, this is good news. If you already know a little about Animator, you might read until page 70 before you find any new information. So all of the basic strengths of the existing SolidWorks training materials are there. Like the training books, this book is also set up in a tutorial style.

There is an advanced section in the book, and several chapters that talk about functionality that is more than just basic. How to use multiple cameras in an animation, animating the cameras, and using the animation software along with simulation tools and so on. There is a lot of good info here.

On the downside, this book never mentions any sort of troubleshooting techniques, or how to diagnose problems, also typical of other documentation from SolidWorks. It keeps the techniques relatively simple, just showing you how to use the tools through simple tutorials. The assemblies are all ones that you may be familiar with from the SW training classes and other documentation.

It isn’t the fault of the book, but the terminology that you have to wade through is rather confusing. Especially when you realize that you have to start figuring in all of the gratuitous name changes in 2009. MotionManager, Motion, Basic Motion, Assembly Motion, Dynamic Assembly motion are all distinct “things” that you somehow need to be familiar with. The book defines terms, but didn’t make as big a deal of it as they might have. You can use the software without knowing what some of the terminology refers to, but some you have to know.

It is a little disheartening when in the opening pages of the book, you read ” MotionManager is such a robust and feature rich application that it is impractical to cover every minute detail and aspect of the software and still have the book be a reasonable length.” The book is only 192 pages, it could use more of that minute detail. The PhotoWorks book, which I found to be more helpful was over 500 pages.

I wish they had added some additional tutorials that showed useful techniques such as using assembly templates with animations already stored in them, how to rotate the view around the part axis rather than the screen axis, and some troubleshooting information, which is the stuff I need the most.

In general, if you are a new user and need basic to intermediate information, this book will be useful to you. If you have ever really used Animator for a project, you probably know 70% of what this book has to offer. For $60 it’s probably worth having in your office library.