Drawing Archives - Page 14 of 29

DraftSight ends Beta; general release announced!

The big news from Dassault Systemes today is that they just announced the general release of DraftSight for Windows. DraftSight is a no-cost 2D CAD application for CAD professionals, students and educators which allows them to create, edit and view .dwg files. The very long beta release of the Windows version has ended with an impressive 400,000 450,000 downloads (as of 5:00PM ET on February 22, 2011) from the DraftSight website. In a conversation I had with Aaron Kelly, Senior Director of DraftSight at Dassault Systemes, he stated that this number is “a lot more than we expected.” He added that the total number of full DraftSight activations is over 95,000.

Language support

Also according to Kelly, since the beta 3 release, the DraftSight user interface has simultaneously supported 14 languages at once (English, German, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Turkish, Korean, Polish, Russian, Czech). As of today’s general release, DraftSight will now also support these languages in the Help file, meaning that DraftSight is now fully localized (all 14 versions will be released at once for each update).

DraftSight is community driven

Free support, training and enhancement requests may be conducted through the DraftSight online community, based on Dassault Systemes’ SwYm online collaboration and social innovation platform. SwYm communities have profiles, blogs, micro-blogging, “iQuestions”, wikis, media sharing spaces (data, audio, video, and even 3D), status updates, and more all within one online user interface.

Other updates in the general release

API support for DraftSight is now available, for a fee. This enables users to write add-on programs for DraftSight in C++ and other supported programming languages. The addition of Command Variables Enhancement allows users to set and change system variables directly from the command line. Aaron Kelly adds, “we fixed a bunch of bugs that people reported”. He also stressed the value the user base in improving DraftSight.

Service options

DraftSight offers a variety of support options, including no-cost community support (mentioned above), as well as fee-based Premium Services that may include telephone and email support, network licensing and access to DraftSight APIs. There is now the Education Premium Service for educators which includes curriculum materials, network licensing and telephone and email support.

Mythical Specifications: Non-accumulative tolerance

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Mythical Specifications

Mythical specifications come in many forms. One realm they seem to haunt is that of repetitive features, also known as patterns. Many attempts to shorthand pattern callouts are continuously made. Bad habits die hard as old mistakes are passed down from one generation of engineers to the next. One particularly bad habit is the use of linear dimensions with the term “NON-ACCUMULATIVE TOLERANCES”, or something similar. There is no such thing. Trying to use this shorthand leads to tolerance issues.

In the example above, the dimensional callout attempts to simply dimension a pattern without considering tolerance stack-up. However, this attempt fails since any two non-adjecent holes cannot avoid accumulation of tolerance due to the dimensioning scheme. Tolerance stack-ups on linear dimensions have accumulation. There’s no way to avoid it without dumping linear dimensions.

I had originally planned on a short article about this topic. However, once I started delving into it, I found out that there is a lot of ground to cover. So, this topic will be addressed in detail within a future article (Feb 23, 2011) where examples of different pattern dimensioning schemes will be explored.

Also see How to dimension feature patterns on drawings.

Hidden SolidWorks Commands – compiled by Scott Baugh

SolidWorks Help file is notoriously unhelpful at times. It has evolved over the years to improve its usefulness. However, there are still many under-documented functions within the Help file or commands that are completely undocumented. One day in January 2011, Scott Baugh asked a sincere and innocent question in the SolidWorks area on Eng-Tips.

Does anyone no (sic) where I can find a document with hidden SW commands. There are some key strokes and commands in SW that are not always listed in the help, or if they are they are overlooked very easy (sic).

From there, a long thread of comments grew. Someone mentioned that users can print out a list of keystroke assignments. This isn’t what Baugh was looking for.

Then, the list of “hidden SolidWorks commands” began as people submitted commands they felt were obscure or impossible to find in the SolidWorks Help file. It wasn’t long before Baugh offered to compile the list into a document. At first, the idea was to build the list in a discrete document. However, Deepak Gupta suggested GoogleDocs.

From there, Baugh built the list of “hidden SolidWorks commands”. There were three types of items added to the list: commands that are truly undocumented, commands that are under-documented (full functionality isn’t described), and commands that were too hard to find within the documentation.

Baugh then brought the topic over to the SolidWorks Forums, where the discussion further exploded. SolidWorks staff chimed in to address several points, but also to learn. Jim Wilkinson provided several detailed responses to help bring clarity to the conversation. Through his efforts, he also discovered several areas where improvement to the SolidWorks Help file is needed.

The Hidden SolidWorks Commands list is now a treasure of numerous golden nuggets. It’s not long, yet it can take awhile to fully explore. Check it out. If you have any further suggestions, feel free to leave a comment here, or in either the SolidWorks Forum thread or the Eng-Tips thread.

Hidden SolidWorks Commands

InspectionXpert for SolidWorks review

Refresh Project InspectionXpert for SolidWorks is an inspection report automater and ballooning application that runs within SolidWorks FeatureManager pane. Its tight integration with SolidWorks has earned it SolidWorks Gold Partner status.

InspectionXpert helps users to automatically generate inspection report forms in conjunction with automatically ballooned inspection drawings. The user can choose to create an inspection report for every dimension (for First Article), or choose particular dimensions to inspect, such as those identified with the rounded outline box. InspectionXpert displays identified information in something called Characteristic Tree (it includes dimensions, geometric tolerances, notes, hole callouts, weld and surface finish symbols extracted directly from the SolidWorks drawings). Report forms created from the Characteristic Tree are created in Excel.

Inspection data points within the Characteristic Tree can be saved directly inside of the SolidWorks Drawing for added convenience. InspectionXpert has a project refresh function that may be used if dimensions are added or if a drawing is changed.

InspectionXpert can be particularly useful for Incoming Inspection, Manufacturing, and other groups by allowing them to generate accurate and highly specialized reports based on information directly pulled from the SolidWorks drawing. This seems like a good solution that can simplify and streamline the inspection process.

What’s New? for SolidWorks 2012 (a most tasty & complete list from SWW11 )

2012 Some say the world will end in 2012. There are a lot of books being rushed to market right now that make some amazing claims about what’s going to happen just 22 months from now (Dec 21, 2012). SolidWorks Corp seems gleefully oblivious to all of this hoopla, as they have put a lot of effort to bring new capabilities to SolidWorks 2012. Here are some highlights.

There’s a few generic user interface capabilities to be added:

A pushpin function will be added to allow users to put choice drawings, models or assemblies in a quick access flyout menu.
Users can now switch between units of measure via a selection tool added to the status bar.
A new command filter search will be added to allow users to search for SolidWorks commands on-the-fly (has opposed to stumbling around the Help file).
Selecting an item in the graphics view will highlight it and zoom to it within the feature tree (finally!).

Sheet metal will see several improvements:

Users will be able to choose faces to ignore in flat patterns.
Swept flange feature will be available. They will be flattenable.
Tangent Flange position function.
Users will be able to set flanges parallel to a sketch.

Big news about equations:

Improved equation editor, with solve order and sort.
Global variables are now editable via the equation editor window.
Auto-rebuild for immediate implementation of changes.

On drawings:

BOMs will be insertable without having a pre-selected view.
Exploded views will be an option in the View Pallet.
Balloon order sequencing will be available, with the ability to number around a view from any start location.
Magnet Lines!!! (someone at SolidWorks Corp. was listening)
Unused View Label letters will be automatically reused.
Ability to add center marks to entire view.

Assembly will have a new Design Review mode that allows users to open and explore large assemblies without all the overhead lag. This function will include the ability to conduct walk-throughs.

In an apparent extension of functionality added with SustainabilityXpress, SolidWorks 2012 will give users the ability to conduct manufacturer part costing.

New motion sensors will be added for actuator forces, baring loads and travel limits.

And now, the much hyped changes to be made in SolidWorks 2012:

Feature Freeze (they are going to try implement it again).
Complete Uninstall, with new options that allows for more control. Also, uninstall function will be available from Admin Image.
Files will be cleared from memory when they are closed.
Dual monitor support will allow SolidWorks to span across two displays in a logical manner.

InspectionXpert for SolidWorks achieves Gold Partner status

Extensible CAD Technologies LLC recently declared that InspectionXpert® for SolidWorks has just achieved Certified Gold Partner status with DS SolidWorks Corp. They state,

With this certification awarded on January 7^th, InspectionXpert for SolidWorks becomes the first Certified Gold Partner application for automating quality inspection documentation that is fully integrated into SolidWorks® software.

InspectionXpert enables users to access inspection dimensions directly from their SolidWorks drawings, create ballooned inspection drawings, and export to an inspection report form. The technology should help users reduce manual processes, reduce errors, and save the time it takes to create inspection documentation for first article, in-process, and final inspections.

InspectionXpert for SolidWorks 2011 interface

As noted, Extensible CAD Technologies will be demonstrating InspectionXpert SolidWorks World 2011. As with many other products being shown next week, I’ll try to get a chance to check out their demonstration.