SolidWorks Legion

Houston User Group Meeting

I enjoy opportunities to visit SOLIDWORKS users. My previous trip found me in St. Louis. Recently, I visited the Houston. While in Houston, I was able to present at the Houston SOLIDWORKS User Group at their meeting on June 13, 2023. Joe Lance is the leader of the user group. He was instrumental in setting up and running the meeting. Also, he also gave me sound advice for my travel arrangements in Houston. Additionally, I was also able to connect with several customers and resellers during my trip.

I actually gave two separate presentations at the user group meeting!

My first presentation covered the topic of xDrawing and the associated Manufacturing Definition Creator Role on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. The benefits of xDrawing are numerous, not least of which is the flexibility to create drawings and MBD product definition from the same data set, so work is not duplicated when creating either, and so that data always matches between these different methods.

My second presentation followed a break and interlude where Joe Lance gave out swag to attendees. Joe gave away lot of great SOLIDWORKS themed items! The topic for my second presentation was about the Product Definition team and how we work to make sure we keep our customers at the forefront of the decision-making process for SOLIDWORKS products. This presentation was impromptu, without slides nor firm outline.

Exploring the Town

Overall, this trip was a little shorter with a more tightly packed schedule. As such, I didn’t get much time to explore Houston. There are some sites/sights I was able to squeeze in, such as a visit to the Space Center Houston and an evening at Saint Arnold Brewing Company.

Replica Space Shuttle Independence and an actual Space Shuttle Aircraft, Boeing 747

I did discover a good breakfast crepe at Melange Crêperie. Are there more hidden gems in Houston? Another trip back may be in order at some point.

Journey via 3DEXPERIENCE World 2023

The day was Wednesday, February 12, 2020. This was the end of 3DEXPERIENCE World 2020 in Nashville, TN. Many of us flew to our various homes without realizing we were only weeks away from a changed greater world. The first conference to wear the moniker of 3DEXPERIENCE World was the last the unbroken chain of conferences previously known as SOLIDWORKS World. Then, the long night descended upon our lives. 3DEXPERIENCE Worlds 2021 and 2022 where both held by electronic vigil on a multitude of glowing screens. These conferences were not in-person; only online or virtual.

Then there was 3DEXPERIENCE World 2023, a return to an in-person conference. Not everything is the same as before. 3DEXPERIENCE World 2023 was both in-person and virtual. General Sessions and break-out sessions varied in length and schedule. But, it was also in Nashville.

We had many informative Break-out, Hands-on and Virtual sessions for a various of technical presentations about Dassault Systemes many products. There was also the CSWE Event, Tuesday Night Off-site Event, and the Sunday afternoon and Monday receptions in the 3DEXPERIENCE Playground (formerly Partner Pavilion). The food for breakfast and lunch was good too.

I was able to reconnect with many power users, user group leaders, influencers and other customers. It really seems like there was a lot of pent up interest by customers to engage with DS team members face-to-face, especially after going without an in-person conference for two years.

My recent 3DEXPERIENCE Certifications

My recent 3DEXPERIENCE Certification

Copying mapped network folder or drive locations to email

From time to time, I fumble around trying to remember how to copy mapped network folder locations to emails for others within the same organization who don’t share my network mappings. Here’s how to do it!

From time to time, I fumble around trying to remember how to copy mapped network folder locations to emails for others within the same organization who don’t share my network mappings.

The big problem is that this task is not intuitive within Windows. To allow another person to see my files on some mapped network folder location, it is necessary to copy the “UNC” or raw address, so that it can be pasted into an email.

Since discoverability is nearly zero within Windows, here are the instructions:

Open Windows Explorer.
Within Windows Explorer, navigate to the mapped network folder location that you wish to share. (This assumes you’ve already set up that folder to be shareable.)
Start a new email from Outlook.
Make sure both Windows Explorer and your email windows are open and visible on the screen.
Within Windows Explorer, right-button click and hold on any folder or file within the shared folder, or right-button click and hold on the folder icon to the far left of the address field.
While still holding down the right-mouse button, drag the selection over to the body of your open email and release the button. A new dialog appears.
From this dialog, select Create Hyperlink Here.
Voile! You automatically have an unmapped hyperlink to your folder location.

Select Create Hyperlink Here to create the link to the mapped network folder or drive

Drag with RMB to email in order to copy mapped network folder or drive address

This method may not work directly with other applications. However, you can still use this method to share raw addresses in other documents. Just copy your newly placed address from your email into the editor of whatever document you wish. Repeat as needed.

Angles and their relationships

Uncommonly known types of related angles, and their SOLIDWORKS support. Some may surprise!

Geometry establishes a lot of imaginary objects and relationships between them in order to define models and the real world. Angles are an important set of those relationships. But, we often skip or forget types of relationships between angles. Let’s look at related angles. Related angles are pairs of angles that have some sort of relationship to each other. Several types of related angles are established by Geometry. Some may surprise, as they aren’t commonly known.

Types of related angles

Complementary angles – a pair of angles with a common vertex and a sum of a right angle (90°).

Supplementary angles – a pair of angles with a common vertex and a sum of a straight angle (180°).

Explementary angles – a pair of angles with a common vertex and a sum of a full circle (360°).

Vertically opposite angles – a pair of angles that equal to each other and are vertical-and-opposite of each other with a common vertex. These angles are formed by two intersecting lines.

Of course, a single complementary angle is one of the pair of complementary angles. A single supplementary angle is one of the pair of supplementary angles. A single explementary angle is one of a pair of explementary angles. And, a single vertically opposite angle is one of a pair of vertically opposite angles.

Conjugate?

The term conjugate angles is sometimes used as a synonym for explementary angles. Technically, conjugate angles is a set of angles with a sum of 360°. Despite the word conjugate meaning coupled/related/connected, it seems that the term conjugate angles is a set that need not be made up of only two angles, and so the angles within the set are not necessarily related angles, though they are connected by a common vertex. Additionally, the term conjugate angles does not apply directly to any angles within the set, but only to the set itself, so there’s no singular form of this term.

SOLIDWORKS support for angle dimensions

Though explementary and vertically opposite angles are not as common as supplementary and complementary angles, they are important from time to time when designing and defining mechanical components and assemblies. As such, SOLIDWORKS has supported both explementary and vertically opposite angles since release 2015. See Year of the Angle Dimension – Part 2 – Flipping out (and over) and Flipped Angle Dimension in SOLIDWORKS for information on how to use these types of angles in your dimension scheme.

Other types of angle dimensions in SOLIDWORKS

Another type of angle supported in SOLIDWORKS since release 2015 is the straight angle (180°). You can dimension two lines that form a straight angle.

Also, angle dimensions can be created from one line and one vertex instead of always from two lines.

St. Louis User Group Meeting

April 2020. That’s 28 months ago. April 2020 was the time when I was scheduled to present at the St. Louis SOLIDWORKS User Group meeting. Hindsight would now tell most what’s wrong with that date. When Charles Culp and I planned the meeting, there was no COVID-19 in the public mind. The devastating fires of Australia were still yet to happen. Charles and I were just planning a routine user group meeting.

Needless to say, that meeting was cancelled, along with a great many other things. 28 months later, we were finally able to have that long awaited user group meeting. It appears to have been worth the wait.

For this trip to St. Louis, I was joined by Sara Berndt (UX Design Manager) and Chris Pagliarini (Product Manager).

My presentation covered the topic of xDrawing and the associated Manufacturing Definition Creator Role on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. The benefits of xDrawing are numerous, not least of which is the flexibility to create drawings and MBD product definition from the same data set, so work is not duplicated when creating either, and so that data always matches between these different methods.

Tweet from the event: https://twitter.com/charlesculp/status/1554967421462659072

Sara’s presentation covered the topic of user experience and how SOLIDWORKS brand uses well-established methods to learn from our users to create and improve our products and tools.

We met a lot of awesome people at the meeting and learned quite a bit from our customers on this trip.

In other new from St. Louis

St. Louis itself is a great place to visit. Our team had a chance to try out local flavors, like toasted ravioli, St. Louis style pizza, gooey butter cake and BBQ.

Instagram links: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cg1pIDxrEee/, https://www.instagram.com/p/Cg1sQUkLCwX/, https://www.instagram.com/p/Cg5cKLSLv5n/