Category: News

What’s New in SolidWorks 2014: On-The-Fly Virtual Sharps While Dimensioning

This entry is part 3 of 13 in the series New in SOLIDWORKS 2014

SolidWorks 2014 introduces the ability to find and use virtual sharps on the on-the-fly while creating dimensions.

  1. Start any dimension tool.
  2. Right-click on model or sketch geometry
  3. Choose “Find Intersection”.
  4. Left-click on any model or sketch geometry that intersect the first selection.
  5. The Virtual Sharp element is automatically added, the point is automatically applied as a selection for the dimension tool.

See the attached video below (AVI will open, not an embedded video).

 On-The-Fly Virtual Sharps while Dimensioning

On-the-fly Virtual Sharps (AVI video)

New stuff in SolidWorks 2014 (not mentioned in “What’s New”): Symbols

This entry is part 2 of 13 in the series New in SOLIDWORKS 2014

There are many new symbols that have been introduced in SolidWorks since 2012.

SolidWorks 2012

New category of Inspection Symbols:

  • Inspection Box (empty)
  • Inspection Box (with text)
  • Eye [for those inspection points that are visual and aren’t/can’t be measured with an instrument]

Inspection Symbols
SolidWorks 2013

In addition to new JIS Weld Symbols, these new symbols where added to Modifying Symbols:

  • Rho [used with conics]
  • Delta
  • Center of Mass

Modifying Symbols 
SolidWorks 2014

In addition to 5 new JIS weld Symbols, there are several new symbols included in other areas.

Inspection Symbols:

  • Diamond [alternative for identification of inspection points]

New category View Symbols:

  • View Rotation Clockwise (CW)
  • View Rotation Counterclockwise (CCW)
  • GOST Rotated View
  • GOST Unfold

Modifying Symbols:

  • Translation [including additions to the GD&T interface for compliance with ASME Y14.5-2009]

SW2014 symbols

What’s New in SolidWorks 2014: Ballooning

This entry is part 1 of 13 in the series New in SOLIDWORKS 2014

Balloon annotations have been improved in SolidWorks 2014, with several formatting and behavioral enhancements.

Moving the arrow instead of the drawing view

Selection of the geometry within a drawing view tells SolidWorks you want to move the entire drawing view.  Normally, this is a great feature.  However, there is one case that wasn’t supported as a result.  It was not easy to select an arrow which was attached to a vertex of model geometry (because the vertex itself would be selected).  In SolidWorks 2014, when moving the arrow of a balloon to attach it to a different location, select the balloon first, then select the grip at the arrow’s tip.  This will allow you to move the arrow without moving the entire drawing view.

Moving that arrow

Leader attachment with quantites added

When a quantity is added to a balloon, the leader is no longer forced to break around the quantity.  You now have an option under More Properties button in the PropertyManager of the balloon.

To break or not to break, that is the question

Break around qty

No break around qty

Spacing between quantity and its balloon

You now have control of the distance between the quantity and the balloon with the new Distance field in the Quantity group box of the balloon’s PropertyManager.

Quantity spacing

Reattachment

You can now reattach any balloon, including dangling balloons within a stack, to associate them with any component from the same drawing view.

Deattached

Reattach command

Reattached

 Improvings

Enhancements to Balloons in SolidWorks 2014, together with the enhancements to ballooning in SolidWorks 2013, have improved and simplified many workflows to allow you to produce quality drawings faster and with less effort.

SolidWorks World 2014 Jan 26-29 2014 @ San Diego Convention Center

SolidWorks World 2014

Yup, time to start thinking about SolidWorks World 2014.  This year, San Diego has the honor of hosting our event at the San Diego Convention Center.  If case you are not aware, Comic-Con uses this same site in July.  It is a great location (being in San Diego).

Call for Presentations is still wide open!  Presenting does have its benefits (not just recognition)!

Call for Presentations

Boss’s justification letter and other reasons to attend are always available.  (SolidWorks World 2014 doesn’t fall on Valentine’s this year, so the Luvification letter won’t be quite as necessary this year, but you are welcome to modify it to use this year if needed.)  As before, attendees have the oppotunity to take a CSWP exam as part of their attendance.

Why Attend? Justification!

There’s also so many other things to do in San Diego while you are there.  I’ll be publishing an update to this article this year, but for now, here’s the list of a couple years ago.

See you there!

Big week for SolidWorks starts now

SolidWorks 2014 was announced, making this a big week in SolidWorks news.  Here’s just the start:

Many more articles will likely follow in the weeks to come.  I’ll be covering many elements too.

eDrawings for Android ( #edrawings #edrawingsforandriod )

Parts

Zooming methods and standard views are the same as assemblies.  The Play button is also available, as fun as every.   You can also select and highlight individual faces on parts.

Part

Standard views

DimXpert dimensions are supported for eDrawings part files (.eprt).

DimXpert dimensions

Drawings

Navigation in 2D CAD documents works a little different from assemblies and parts.  Pan, zoom in and out, zoom fit and zoom home are available.  There is logically no ability to rotate a drawing sheet into 3D space.  When Play is used, you will see a slide show of each of the drawing views on the drawing.

Drawing

Zoomed in to drawing view

Drawing sheets are also supported from a dropdown menu.

Bottomline

eDrawings for Android has enough functions to immediately make this tool useful for viewing SolidWorks and eDrawings files on Android devices of various types.  The user interface is geared towards the tablet sized devices, but the app works well on smartphones too, being easy to use and intuitive.

eDrawings for Android is available as of August 12, 2013 from the Google Play store here: eDrawings from SolidWorks.  There’s already a lot of activity on the Twitter hashtag #edrawings and more specific discussions are welcome on #edrawingsforandroid too.  There is also some additional information found at the SolidWorks eDrawings Mobile website.

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