I had to get up early to get to the San Francisco airport for my flight to Kansas City. This means I had to feed and walk my dog earlier in the morning. He didn’t complain. The morning air was crisp and refreshing. A couple of ducks were waddling down the middle of the road as if they owned it. My dog tried to run them off. He didn’t see the jack rabbit sprinting across a grass field in a nearby park a few minutes later. I’m still amazed that I get to see all this wildlife even though I live within of the vast Silicon Valley metropolis. I haven’t yet spotted any larger animals, like mountain lions. At times, the roving gangs of raccoons are the near second to that.
Anyway, I’m flying into Phoenix on my way to Kansas City. There aren’t many direct flights from the San Francisco bay area to the heart of America, despite the fact there are three international airports within driving distance of my home.
I’ll be reporting on my trip to the conference here and on twitter at hashtag #atec11. I’m sure that the ADDA will also be posting comments to hashtag #adda for their own updates.
If you happen to be at this conference, please don’t hesitate to introduce yourself to me.
If you are trying to color your models to make them look real, this is probably not for you. But – If you just want colors – any colors – fast – this is for you.
This SolidWorks macro automates assigning colors to Parts and Sub-Assemblies from within an Assembly.
Colors can be assigned at two levels:
1) Part Level
2) Assembly Level
There are two sources to generate various colors:
1) Random Color(s)
2) User Select Color(s)
There are three MAKE – modes:
1) All Selected Components the Same Color
2) All Selected Components have Various Colors
3) Various Colors – Except, Consecutive and Identical Components have the same color
Howdy,
I have to admit my original Balloon Note macro was quite quirky. It was the most complicated VBA project I’d done at the time, so I don’t feel too bad about it. I finally had a chance to try out the SolidWorks 2010 implementation – SO – I decided to rethink the whole thing. WOW – I really have to apologize, I’m surprised that old code worked at all. However, if you liked the general idea found in my original Balloon Note macro, I’m sure you’ll like this completely rebuilt version.
If you have no idea what I’m writing about:
Balloon Note is designed to add a Reference Note to an existing Item Balloon and Group them together automatically. It can add an automatically updating Quantity Text object. The result is similar to a function SolidWorks added in 2010, but, you can adjust the location of the text using the ALT + Select and drag method. The strange squiggle (QTY variable) in the text box represents the selected part quantity, until you apply the Reference Note location (Top, Right, Bottom or Left). Balloon Note uses your current document setting for the Note font height to create the Reference Note. The Links button uses a plain text file “BalloonNote_07.ini” located in the same directory as BalloonNote_07.swp to store your lists of links and symbols. The download includes two versions, BalloonNote_07.swp for SW 2007 (you could possibly change the Reference Libraries to your version) and BalloonNote.dll for SW 2010 x32.
What better way is there for me to show my appreciation to SolidWorks Legion readers than to give away free stuff! 3Dconnexion gives away new 3D mice from time to time to raise awareness of their products. This month, they have offered to give a SpacePilot PRO to the first place winner of the SolidWorks Legion April 2011 contest. In addition, they have offered to give a new SpaceNavigator to the second place winner. Of course, I’m running this contest to raise awareness of SolidWorks Legion.
SpaceNavigator
To enter the contest, send a Twitter Direct Message to @fcsuper with the following phrase “I want my 3D mouse” and include your first and last name. If @fcsuper is not currently following your Twitter account, leave a comment on this article (below) prior to April 24, 2011 to ask me to follow you. Otherwise, use the alternative entry method by sending an email to buzyperson@gmail.com with the “I want my 3D mouse” phrase and your name in the email subject. Limit is one entry per person. Only the first entry by an entrant is eligible. The deadline to entry is April 30, 2011 5:00PM Pacific Time. No entries will be accepted after that time. It is each entrant’s responsibility to ensure their own ability to use Twitter or email in order to entry this contest. Unfortunately, due to restrictions established by 3DConnexion, only residents of the United States of America are eligible to win.
Additional rules and conditions are as follows. I will use the free services of RANDOM.ORG to randomly list the entrants of the contest. The first person on the random list wins the first place; and the second person wins the second place. Winning placement is for this contest only. There is no value associated with winning placement. The prizes are offered by 3DConnexion to the first and second place winners as a matter of their own choice to do so. 3DConnexion is wholly responsible for the issuance of the prizes and their value. The winners of this contest will be notified at some time following the contest deadline. Notification will be in the same manner of their entry . Winners are responsible for their ability to receive such notification. Logitech and any representatives of SolidWorks Legion are not responsible for service interruption by Twitter, any ISPs, or any other service that may cause an entry or winning notification to not be received. Winners must respond to the notification with their mailing address (no P.O. Boxes) within 2 weeks from the time that the notification is sent. If a winner does not respond with the required information within the allotted time, regardless to the reason, they forfeit their winning place and associated prize. The winning place will then move to the next person on the random list. No person may win more than one prize. For example, if the first place winner forfeits, then the second person of the random list becomes the first place winner, and the next person after that becomes the second place winner. After the mailing address information from both winners is received, that information will be forwarded to a representative of 3DConnexion. Again, the prizes are being given directly from 3DConnexion and they are responsible for the items given as prizes, and for the shipment of the items to the winners. At no time will any representative of SolidWorks Legion be in possession of prizes nor responsible for any value of the prizes. No person that is currently a member of the SolidWorks Legion (has directly posted articles on this blog) is eligible to win. Dassault Systemes and Logitech employees and their families are also not eligible to win. Any attempt by any individual to game contest rules for unfair advantage or to act in a way that is not in the spirit of this contest will forfeit their entry and any other stakes in this contest. By entering this contest, the entrant agrees to hold any representative of SolidWorks Legion and Logitech free of any liability in any manner related to this contest. Also, the entrant agrees to accept and follow all contest rules and accept my decisions regarding this contest as final. Each person that enters this contest is responsible for their own ability to use the prize if they win. Chances of winning will be determined by the total number of entrants.
Some time ago, Melissa Appel of SolidWorks started a thread in the SolidWorks forum for “silly” drawing workarounds. This thread got a lot of attention. Well, she’s at it again. This time, she’s started a thread called “Show me what we can’t do in SolidWorks annotation formatting“.
There’s already a ton of suggestions that have been posted to this thread. There’s a mention or two of bugs. The notorious balloon quantity spacing issue is there. Several issues with GD&T callouts are on the list. Better control over breaks in extension lines, extension line termination and other dimensioning issues show up all over the thread. I even suggested the creation of a SelectionWizard so that users can set up the order precedence when they want to select from several overlapping objects in SolidWorks drawings (and where the selection filter is not desired or is ineffective).
There’s plenty of room for more input in the thread for others who have ideas for improvement with annotation formatting in SolidWorks. What’s been bugging you about SolidWorks annotation formatting limitations?
During an event at SolidWorks World 2011, Bertrand Sicot, new CEO of SolidWorks Corp, made a declaration that he would earn his CSWP status by SolidWorks World 2012 (February 13, 2012) . He recently posted on update on his progress on the SolidWorks Blog. I cannot do justice to Sicot’s own great words by restating them here, so I invite you to read his article without any further introduction.
