This morning, I started looking around Youtube to see what’s already popped up for SOLIDWORKS 2016 What’s New. There is already several great videos by several resellers. Here’s a few for Mate Controller, Foreshorten Dimensions and DimXpert.
Shanghai, China SOLIDWORKS Beta rollout event
I travelled to both Osaka, Japan and Shanghai, China last month to attend SOLIDWORKS 2016 Beta rollout events. After the Japan event, was I ready to tackle another week in yet another country? Well, yes. I was already adjusted to the local timezone in Japan, so the one hour difference between Japan and China didn’t phase me.
Since I was in town a day early, I was able to meet up with the SOLIDWORKS China team and visit a customer to talk about how we can improve SOLIDWORKS to better meet their needs. The Product Definition team conducts over a hundred of these vists each year. It was great being able to visit one of our valued Chinese customers.
Each day of the Beta rollout in China was a complete event for its attendees. In the morning, SOLIDWORKS China team presented the What’s New and explained the SOLIDWORKS Beta testing. For the rest of the day, attendees eagerly tried out SOLIDWORKS 2016 on their own models and designs in our lab.
Days two and three of the event focused on customers interested in such topics as SOLIDWORKS Electric and SOLIDWORKS PDM.
Each day of the event, SOLIDWORKS China recognized the most prolific bug finders of the day.
In the evenings, those of us from out of town explored the iconic areas of Shanghai on foot.
The Shanghai SOLIDWORKS 2016 Beta rollout event was great. Interacting with our customers as they are using SOLIDWORKS 2016 for the first time provided a lot of valuable feedback. A big thank you to our SOLIDWORKS China team for hosting this event!
Osaka, Japan SOLIDWORKS 2016 Beta Rollout event
There are many SOLIDWORKS Beta rollout events throughout the world each year. Beta rollout events gives local companies and particular users an opportunity to preview SOLIDWORKS functionality for the upcoming release. They are able to test drive the new SOLIDWORKS release with their own SOLIDWORKS files from their projects. The rollout events allow them to help us find bugs and to preview functionality so they can get a heads up on what to expect in the next release. 
These also give customers a chance to directly interact with SOLIDWORKS team members from Development, Product Definition and User Experience. Japan, China, Germany, Brazil, US, Mexico, etc all host events during the summer leading up to the official product release in September. This year, I attended the Beta rollout event in Osaka, Japan and Shanghai, China.
The SOLIDWORKS 2016 Beta rollout in Osaka was a great two day event. We met with several large customers and user influencers. Rob Jost of the Product Definition team did most of the presentation, going into detail about what’s new in SOLIDWORKS 2016. I presented on the topics drawings, MBD, eDrawings and a couple of other areas.
After the What’s New presentation, the SOLIDWORKS Japan team conducted a technical session to talk about the functionality. Our customers had a lot of good comments about what they had seen so far.
I love rice and many Japanese dishes. Each day, lunch was a treat!
On day one, the SOLIDWORKS team had a great opportunity to talk with our customers all day, and answer their questions, not just about new functionality, but also about existing tools too.
On the second day of the SOLIDWORKS Beta rollout, our customers were able to try the new functionality on their own in our lab. There were a lot of great discussions. Rob and I gave impromptu presentations about What’s New again for customers who were not able to attend day one of the event.
At the end of the second day, we wrapped up by gathering everyone for a final discussion. Customers talked about what they liked about SOLIDWORKS 2016, and in some cases, what they felt needed further improvement.
For me, and I hope everyone else, this was a great event! Many thanks to our SOLIDWORKS Japan team for hosting this event and making it a success!
If you are interested, this event was covered real-time on Instagram. Check out current SOLIDWORKS related postings by following the official Instagram account. You’ll see more of my photos from this event, plus many more by the new Community Manager, Rachel York.
Great use of SOLIDWORKS, James Bond style
Not seeing sharp corners when using thick lines?
Have you ever noticed there is a gap on the corners of your lines when you have model edges or sketch lines? You will usually notice this when you try to use very thick lines on a SOLIDWORKS drawing. Why are you seeing this gap? Welp, as with most visual display characteristics in SOLIDWORKS, there is a setting for that. You actually have three options for corner appearance: Flat (default), Square and Round. This is found in your drawing’s document properties at Tools pulldown>Options…>Document Properties>Line Font on a setting called End cap style.
Flat is the default option and normally works fine for most cases. However, if you are using much thicker lines, you can utilize one of the other two options to get the look you need. It is important to note that this setting applies individually to each of type of edges, so you can use a different end cap style for sketches than you use for visual edges.
Square:
Round:
3DPrint.com and Game of Thrones
3DPrint.com recently released an article about a person named Nimi Becza who is such a fan of Game of Thrones that he created his own replica of a weapon wielded by the character Oberyn Martell. After modelling the weapon in SOLIDWORKS, he had it 3D printed (and then posed for the obligatory photos). Check out 3DPrint.com’s article (and photos), Game of Thrones Fan 3D Prints His Very Own Replica of Oberyn Martell’s Blade.