Category: News
SolidWorks Rollout Event
In what might be considered the premier SoildWorks Rollout event in the San Francisco Bay Area, Hawk Ridge Systems kicked off their rollout tour for SolidWorks 2010 at the Hiller Aviation Museum. Now, I don’t normally rave 
about VARs doing anything, but this event stands out. Where other VARs are holding events at their offices or even just doing webinars, Hawk Ridge Systems went all out. Despite the first major storm to hit California in a few years*, attendance to this event was good.
The topics covered during the event included many of the improvements in Solidworks 2010, from predictability and consistancy to the new Dimensions Palette. Also included in the event were fairly in depth presentations for 3DVia, Enterprise PDM and SolidWorks Simulator. For the first time ever, I’ve developed an appreciation for the functionality within 3DVia. I’m still not the audience to which this application should be pitched, but hey, it looks cool.
On top of everything else, lunch from Pasta Pomodoro was an unexpected delight. I’m 
also happy about being able to take a free tour of the Hiller Aviation Museum, which has been on my todo list for a long time. The museum was a little smaller than I expected, though every cubic inch has some aeroplane or other sky contraption and wonderment. I bought the t-shirt (as I always do). One complaint I have about using this location for events like SolidWorks Rollouts is that the museum remained open during the presentations. Once in awhile, arriving patrons did get a bit noisy which made it hard to focus on the presenter.
As usual, sponsors did get their chance to speak. Fortunately, they kept their announcements short and sweet. Taken on the whole, this was an event that stands out as being well above par (or below par if you are a golfer).
*A major storm for California consists of an amount of rain and wind that other portions of the planet may consider timid. We had a lot of slowed traffic and neighborhood debris from trees and turned-over trash cans. That’s about it. But it’s enough to cause people to change their plans.
SolidWorks 2010 Rollouts season
A lot of VARs are planning some pretty cool events to rollout SolidWorks 2010. I would recommend checking with your VAR if you haven’t already been contacted by them about their offerings. Here’s a couple of examples:
In the San Francisco Bay Area, Hawkridge Systems has several planned events, one of which is at the Hiller Aviation Museum. There are many other events around California and in Nevada, Oregon, Canada, etc.
GoEngineering has several morning-long sessions available in a variety of cities.
Then there’s 3D Vision Technologies and their webinar schedule starting this week.
SolidWorks 2010: Minor tweaks II
SolidWorks 2010 has made some minor tweaks to the control users have over balloons.
- In an assembly, when the user inserts a balloon, they can set it to follow the item numbering of a selected BOM under Balloon text (an added option for that field).
- The user can now add quantities to balloons. These quantities are parametric so they update automatically as the quantity changes for the associated parts used within the assembly. This was talked about in one of my SolidWorks World 2009 articles.
- One thing that has bugged me about SolidWorks for a long time is the fact that balloon size is determined by font size. Finally, balloon size can now be set using an actual numeric value (such as .50″). This can be a general setting in Tools>Options…>Document Properties>Annotation>Balloons. Individual balloon sizes can also be directly customized via it Balloon PropertyManager.
Future of Enterprise PDM
In a recent article, I expressed concerns about the current state of PDM, especially for SolidWorks. There were particular questions posed regarding the long term outlook for Enterprise PDM. The concern is that Dassault Systemes’ plan for PDM solutions may be different than SolidWorks Corp. If that is the case, the Enterprise PDM may not be viable long term solution.
My worries where not allayed in a recent presentation by Noam Ktalav of Dassault Systemes (DS). He was asked about where Enterprise PDM fits into the DS product offerings. His answer didn’t fully address the question. Instead, he talked about Enovia and its scalability. Needless to say, official word regarding Enterprise PDM from DS is very mixed.
Jeff Ray offers insight on this topic
This prompted me to contact SolidWorks Corp for a clearer picture, as least from their perspective. Jeff Ray, CEO of SolidWorks Corp, was able to provide some interesting insights. He exclaimed that statements from DS about Enterprise PDM are mixed. Ray did offer hope that something is being done about this.
[There is a] very intensive effort between SolidWorks and Enovia for a clear road map.
SolidWorks Corp is working hard to lay out a clear plan for its customers. Ray discussed the need for a long term strategy. SolidWorks Corp does not want to force a decision on customers that may eventually lead to a dead end. This would bad for SolidWorks Corp, bad for reputation of individuals who relied on the solutions offered by SolidWorks Corp, and bad for the companies that implemented those solutions. Instead, Ray declared,
We need to give people a scalable answer.
Ray then stated that he wants to optimize the user experience and “hide the plumbing” of the software. He doesn’t want to let technology get in the way of the user experience. He elaborated that users shouldn’t have to be IT experts or even require extensive reliance upon IT departments just to manage their data.
So, a solution that will address Enterprise PDM’s place in the DS universe is coming. As to the when and in what form? Answers will be forthcoming soon.
And what of SolidWorks Workgroups PDM?
During my interview with Ray, I also asked about SolidWorks Workgroups PDM (aka PDMWorks). He clarified that development of the application has hit the limits of the technology behind it. It is not worth the effort to continue to extensively develop the application further. He stated that SolidWorks Corp will continue to support Workgroups PDM and any customers that choose to use it, but that the limitations of the application need to be clearly explained.
SolidWorks 2010 Deleting Dimensions
This information was previously posted as part of another article, to which Vajrang Parvate (SolidWorks Corp Sr. Manager, Drawings Development) replied with an additional helpful hint. I’m reposting as a separate article to highlight the information.
Deleting Dimensions behavior
SolidWorks has a new user-selectable behavior when a dimension is deleted. If the user deletes a dimension or even just removes text from a dimension, SolidWorks has the ability to automatically realign the spacing of the neighboring dimensions to get rid of gaps caused by that deletion. The user has the option to turn this ability on by going to Tools>Options…>Document Properties>Dimensions to select the Adjust spacing when dimensions are deleted or text is removed checkbox.
Undoing the deletion
From Parvate:
…When the “Adjust spacing when dimensions” checkbox is checked and SolidWorks moves in dimensions after one is deleted, two commands are added to the undo stack : one for the deletion of the dimension and another for the movement of the rest of the dimensions. So hitting Ctrl-Z will undo the deletion in two steps.