Category: News

Quantity and Balloons in SolidWorks 2010

Adding quantities to balloons is something that many of us do when making assembly drawings in SolidWorks.  This is a very manual and sloppy process which involves adding carefully placed text next to each balloon that points to a part with multiple instances.  Some people use split balloons, but still manually edit each one for the desired affected.

Tobin Sparks and BalloonNote

Along came Tobin Sparks.  Tobin was just starting out in the world of macro and API within SolidWorks.  Tobin was a quick study, learning from the likes of handleman (expert API guy) on Eng-Tips and myself (macro hack).  Tobin saw a need and filled it by creating the BalloonNote macro.  This macro simplified the process of adding quantities to balloons.  The macro does have its quirks, but overall it is very well conceived and executed.

BalloonNote screen shot

For the past eight months, BalloonNote has really been the state of the art when it comes to adding quantities to balloons.  OK, that’s a slight overstatement, but the macro is very cool.

What’s New Announcment at SWW09

Either way, SolidWorks has stepped up.  At SolidWorks World 2009, the What’s New presentation showed off many new abilities planned for SolidWorks 2010.  One of those new functions is the adding of quantities to balloons.  Strangely, there are some eerie similarities between the SW2010 function and Tobin’s macro.  I cannot get into too much detail beyond the announcement itself.  I will say that it will be nice to have the functionality built into SolidWorks.

SWW09: Focus Groups (Drawings and Sheet Metal)

As previously mentioned, I attended two focus groups (also called roundtable discussions) this year.  These are generally held on Sunday before all the major SolidWorks World activities begin on Monday.

Sheet Metal

The first group I attended was for sheet metal functionality.  Though attendence was very light, the number of different methodologies and opinions was high.  My own interest in the topic is the problem with being forced to use assemblies to fully document sheet metail parts with inserts.  This is an issue because if you start a drawing of a part, you cannot later replace that part with an assembly.  So, if you create a sheet metal part with no inserts and then you need to add inserts on some later revision, you are forced to recreate the drawing practically from scratch.  This is a horid time and resource sink.

Others in the group talked about using K-factors to determine the material used by the sheet metal part (for flat patterning), while others disregarded K-factors in favor of bend reduction techniques.

One request that seemed to get common acceptance is the idea of creating a table of all the bends of a part with their full characteristics, with the ability to highlight each bend by clicking on it within the table.  When this table is on a drawing, it was suggested that details be added to a specific layer.

The session  also revealed that some used work arounds to use the SolidWorks model to instruct sheet metal tooling to perform certain actions (either via direct or translated input).  Some use alternative features which do not match the final design in order to instruct a tool to produce the feature desired in the final design.

One work around solution did come out of this session.  Right now, the material mass number changes from bent state to flattened state.  Although this difference is minor, over a large quality of parts, the error multiples and can create issues in part handling.  Use a non-configuration custom property to link to the the material property (of a specific configuration?).  Use this custom property as the source for the mass regardless of the configuration or part state.

Drawings

A large portion of the drawings discussion revolved around printing and saving issues with Drawings.  It seems many people are experiencing similar problems.  When saving as a PDF, views randomly disappear.  When printing as a PDF, text locations get shifted.  Also, changes to parts at lower levels of an assembly may cause errors and view changes in higher level assembly drawings; meaning the the company has to open up all levels of a product’s assemblies to make sure that any change did not affect the drawings in unexpected ways.  It seems more people are having these kind of issues that I originally thought.  Many of the problems are magnified by use of PDM’s.

The meeting also focused on DimXpert and how to handle its dimensions.  One comment is that it should place dimensions per current standards within the model.  Another comment noted that datums and feature frames should drive the model.

I voiced my other major concern as well.  Symbols from the Gtol.sym library file should be stored within a drawing.  Right now, I cannot give native drawings to others outside of my organization because they will not be able to see symbols that we employ.  When a symbol is used within a drawing, it should be included in that drawing’s file and not require editing of any other user’s Gtol.sym file.

SWW09: Wednesday General Session (Part 2: SWUGN, More Customer stories)

I didn’t realize that I missed writing about this portion of the Wednesday General Session.  Sorry for any confusion about there being a Part 1 and a Part 3 with no Part 2 in the middle.

Here are the SWUGN award winners announced during the General Session

User Group Leader of the Year

Rob Jensen, Southern Minnesota SWUG

User Group of the Year

Central MA/Northern CT SWUG, lead by Tom Cote

Lifetime Achievement Award (2 winners)

 Gerald Davis, Colorado SUG

 Dan Bertscki, Northeast Ohio SWUG

More Customer Stories

Two companies to keep an eye on in the near future are Terrafugia and Magenn Power.  Both are taking to the skies, but for completely different reasons.

Terrafugia used SolidWorks to develop the Transition.  Transition is both a car and an airplane.  It transitions (dare I say “Transforms”) from one to the other quickly.  This allows the driver/pilot to choose their mode of transportation.  If they are on a business trip, and the weather is fine, they can fly via small local airports to and from the destination.   If the weather turns, they can convert their Transition to car mode and simply drive home.   In fact, they can convert it to drive to and from the airport as well.  It is street legal.

Magenn Power is using SolidWorks to develop balloon based wind power turbines, called Mageen Air Rotor System (MARS for short).   The goal is to be able to place these balloons in areas where windmills are not practical.  As stated on their site, “MARS captures the energy available in the 600 to 1000-foot low level and nocturnal jet streams that exist almost everywhere.”

SWW09: Prototype This!

Prototype This is a show on Discovery Channel where four engineers create prototypes for radical new ideas.  Dr. Mike North and Joe Grant represented the show at today’s General Session.  From their entrance, we know this would be no ordinary presentation.  Joe was in a Firefigther’s hat, pushing (and pulling) Mike up to the stage in one of their inventions for the local fire department.  It was a cart that could carry firefighting gear up stairs and convert into a chair to assist in the rescue of trapped individuals.

They talked about the earlier struggles they had with the show’s producers in the first few episodes.  The producers expected 100% successful projects of world changing scope each week (in fact they wanted two each week originally).  As the show went on, the producers gained more appreciation for the design process and began to focus the show in that direction.

At the news conference that immediately followed the General Session, Mike and Joe talked about the goals of the show: to show cutting edge technology, to inspire kids, and get them to reconnect with the development process.  As the show went on, they realized that kids started to think the way engineers think about design.  They were becoming interested in a career in engineering.

When the show started, many of the devices were built in very traditional ways (such as reliance on machined parts).  They then started working with companies like Forecast 3D (of which I am also a customer from time to time) to utilize rapid prototyping technologies.

I asked them, “How long have you been using SolidWorks, and how did you first become aware of the software?”  Mike (the mechanical guy) explained that before the show, he did not do the type of work that exposed him 3D CAD modelling often.  He discovered SolidWorks through the course of the show.  SolidWorks Corp provided one seat for them to use.  They then started to design and conduct FEA activities with SolidWorks.  Since then, it has become the show’s “bread and butter”, and that it was the “savior of the show”.  Mike explained that SolidWorks helped the show go from being a build-show to become a design-show.  You can’t get plugs better than that.

Another area they began using heavily was 3D printing.  Not only did using this technology speed up the design cycle, producers where enthusiastic about being able to print actual working parts right in front of the camera.  Mike and Joe showed off a wall walking device that would support 80 lbs of weight on window.  The structure of the device was 3D printed.  It had a shape and composition that could not be reproduced using traditional manufacturing means.

As the show progressed in season one, the producers began to understand that failure of a project is still an engineering success.  Failure is needed in order to learn and to succeed.  Sucess is measured by the achievements within the project.  It appears that SolidWorks played a significant role in helping this transition in their mindset by providing the backbone of the design process so that sucesses could be realized much faster.

SWW09: Wednesday General Session (Part 3: Jeff Ray makes announcements)

First, the fun fact.  SolidWorks World 2010 will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Southern California.  I think this is good for many of us left coasters, but also for those from the Asian Pacific areas and Central America; it means visitors from the East Coast and Europe will have to do more planning.

In a pre-announcement of sorts, Ray spoke about a new program that will start later this year called Engineering Stimulus Package.  This program is designed to support engineers who have lost their job through no fault of their own in the current difficult economic environment.  A free personal version of SolidWorks will be given to such individuals, along with contact with their local VAR.  In a news conference later today, Jeff Ray added that this program is similar to another program implemented by SolidWorks Corp during the last economic downturn.  The key difference this time is that this new program will have the goal to help the participicants to achieve a CSWA, which will give them an advantage by providing certification of their skillset related to SolidWorks. He also added that the roll out of this program will be in different stages around the world, but that it will be global (not North American centric).  A forecoming official press release will have more details later this year.

Ray announced that there is a new program in Ireland where 18,000 seats will be placed in over 900 schools around the country, giving 16 to 18 year-olds the opportunity to use 3D CAD software earlier in their schooling.  Currently, there are over a 1 million students using SolidWorks worldwide.

He made several other announcements that I may cover via other articles.

SWW09: “Sage”; Engineering and Environmental Impact

SolidWorks Corp has made a giant first step in providing engineers and designers with the ability to quickly determine the environmental impact of any design.  In partnership with PE International, SolidWorks Corp announced today that they are providing a new tool for this purpose that will run within SolidWorks, currently codenamed Sage.  It promises to make sustainability more accessible to engineers and designers.SolidWorks Corp believes that many engineers do not understand the environmental impact of their designs.  This is perhaps because the engineers have little or no access to this information.  But also, many companies still do not have a focus on designing with environmental impact in mind.  Sage will provide this information in an easy fallow report that can be used by the engineer during the design process.

The question is this, why should engineers care about the environmental impact of their designs?  Decisions they make early in the design process have the most influence on the environmental impact of the final product.  Sage not only makes it possible for them to determine the impact of their designs, it also allows them to provide others (who may not be technically inclined) with this information in a clear manner.

The core areas that will be addressed by Sage are carbon footprint, energy consumption of the processes used to make a part (including regional data, transportation, etc), air and water pollution (such as emissions from the manufacturing processes).  It displays this information in several easy to read charts.  As stated by SolidWorks Corp, “Sage is the only CAD-integrated software to provide a comprehensive view of a design’s impact.”  Sage will not only provide the overall impact, but it will allow the engineer to drill down into the design to find out which factors are having particular influence on the product’s environmental impact.

As stated above, Sage will run within SolidWorks.  It is based on PE International’s GaBi software engine.  Sage will use the PE International vetted database which contains extremely comprehensive information about a wide number of variables that are affected by each design.  Though information in this database may be as specialized as a full blown special study conducted by PE International, the results it provides will be of the same quality.  The database used by Sage contains averages for particular areas of impact

Sage will contain the ability to allow engineers to compare design changes, so they can make informed decisions early in the design process.  It will allow them to “see hidden gotchas”, as stated by Rick Chin, Director of Product and Marketing Innovation, SolidWorks.  The reports created by Sage will be standalone (i.e., SolidWorks or SolidWorks experience is not required to see or use the report once it is created).  The reports will contain educational matter that will explain the criteria within the report, and also why the information within the report is important.  This will empower the engineer to explain critical design decisions to upper management.

Though nothing is finalized yet, reports will likely be available in both Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF formats.

Two versions of Sage will be available for SolidWorks 2010.  First is the Xpress version that will allow analysis of individual parts.  The Pro version will provide analysis of assemblies and entire designs.  Also, a downloadable version (presumably an Xpress version for SolidWorks 2009) will be available early from SolidWorks Labs by this summer.

This new tool from PE International and SolidWorks Corp gives the engineer a whole new level of understanding of their designs.  It allows them to make environmentally friendly decisions rapidly based on years of data and experience from the PE International team.  I’m personally looking forward to having a chance to utilize Sage as soon as it is available, not only out of curiosity, but also to write are more detailed review of it’s capabilities in action.