Category: Drawing

My unorganized #SOLIDWORKS User Group tour – #swugn

This year, I’ve been on a kind of unorganized SOLIDWORKS User Group tour.  I’ve presented at user groups in Tulsa, OK, Denver, CO and Seattle, WA.  The diversity of meeting locations never ceases to surprize me: hotel conference rooms, high school machine shops, college meeting rooms, libraries.  BTW, I’m not pictured in any of the photos below, as I was the one who took these photos of other speakers at these events.

In Tulsa and Denver, I presented on Drawing Views.  As simple as this topic may seem for many, even experienced users have told me they learn something new when I talk about Drawing Views.

In Seattle, I presented on SOLIDWORKS drawing functionality that has been added since SOLIDWORKS 2013.  Even though most of the capabilities I discussed were available since SOLIDWORKS 2014 and 2015, even seasoned users of SOLIDWORKS 2016 jumped up with excitement as they found out about “new” functionality.

Tulsa SOLIDWORKS User Group

Tusla, OK


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Northern Denver, CO


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Southern Denver, CO


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Seattle, WA

Classic drawing interpretation problem

There’s a classic problem with drawings:  interpretation.   Without enough information, there is always some sort of ambiguity.  Let’s take at a classic interpretation problem for example.

What is the shape of the part being described by this drawing (below)?  Note that Hidden Line Visible is turned on for both the Front and Top views.

Classic drawing interpretation problem

Because HLV is on, this cannot be a sheet metal bracket, since you’d be able to see the sheet metal wall as hidden lines in both views.

 

Not the solution

So, can you model this part?  Well, I’m not going to make you wait for the solution.  If you want to cheat to see the solution modelled in SOLIDWORKS, feel free to download it here: woodblockproblem (SW2015).

Resellers are already making great videos about SOLIDWORKS 2016 new functions

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series New in SOLIDWORKS 2016

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

SOLIDWORKS 2016 Beta rollout Shanghai, ChinaI 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.


SOLIDWORKS Beta rollout event in Shanghai, China
Day one of the event focused on customers interested in SOLIDWORKS core, including assemblies, parts and drawings. Understandably, this was the largest group of the event.  The SOLIDWORKS team visiting from Waltham had a great opportunity to connect with our customers in China.  We got a lot of great feedback about SOLIDWORKS 2016.

Days two and three of the event focused on customers interested in such topics as SOLIDWORKS Electric and SOLIDWORKS PDM.

SOLIDWORKS Beta event winners

Each day of the event, SOLIDWORKS China recognized the most prolific bug finders of the day.

Shanghai iconic skyline

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!