Category: CAD Mngmt

Top Ten Enhancement Requests for SolidWorks World 2010

As with each year, SolidWorks World lists the top ten enhancement requests as choosen by SolidWorks users.

#10 Simplify Video Card Requirements – I’m not sure I entirely understand the scope of this request.

#9 Exploded Views for Weldments – Cool.

#8 Option to Dangle Children Instead of Deleting – This should be much higher on the list, in my opinion.

#7 Graphical Map of Reference – Ok, sure.

#6 Allow More Types of Assembly Features – Cool.

#5 Better Utilization of Processore Cores – Yes, definately.  SolidWorks is years behind the curve.

#4 On The Fly Equations in Dialog Boxes – Yes!!!

#3 File Compatibility Between Versions – YES!!!

#2 Increase Stabilty – Yes, but what does this really mean?

#1 SoldWorks Should Cleanly Uninstall Itself – I agree with this too, but is this really something that affects a lot of people on a daily basis?

Breakout Session 2010 – 10 CAD Administration Tips

At Matt Lombard’s 10 CAD Administration Tips breakout session, he covered ten things to consider when administrating SolidWorks.

– Unique file names. Don’t use “block”, “base”, etc as file names. One thing of interest that he highlighted was the fact that when opening a file, SolidWorks looks in 12 places before it looks in the place you last saved it.

– Think about a revision scheme. Don’t save the revision in the file name and don’t use configurations for revisions.

– Select good hardware. Don’t go too cheap, but also don’t just buy what is expensive. Research hardware to find what best suits your needs.

– Clean installs of SolidWorks to reduce the chance of legacy settings affecting your install.

– System Maintenance.

– Reuse and share data.

– Establish standards and best practices. Modelling practices should be tailored to a specific group of users.

– Proper and complete training of users.

– Upgrade/update plan.

– Toolbox (no strong recommendations as to using it or not).

SolidWorks World General Session – Monday (part2)

Another theme of today’s General Session where potential improvements to 3D CAD, much of which is cloud computing based.  These include collaboration to allow more than one person to edit the same model at the same time.  Searches to use data from the database instead of making models from scratch.  Bring a “lifelike experience” (soon to be trademarked term, I’m guessing) to SolidWorks and other applications.  Predictive Engineering that can do things like calculate interferences or handle material properties before the user even requests such data.  With all these improvements associated with cloud computing, I am willing to predict that there will eventually be no distinction between SolidWorks and Catia.

Up in the clouds at SolidWorks World 2010

A new game has taken SolidWorks World 2010 by storm.  Count how many times the word “cloud” (as in cloud computing) is spoken.  At one point, it might seem that entire speeches consist entirely of the word “cloud cloud cloud cloud cloud cloud cloud cloud cloud.”  There’s a message somewhere.  Oh, that’s right.  Cloud computing is the future of SolidWorks and the rest of the Dassault Systemes applications (maybe even for high security customers). 

Cloud computing has many advantages over traditional installed software, according to Jeff Ray, CEO of SolidWorks.  No matter how good SolidWorks is, it is still limited by the computer upon which it is installed.  A significant investment is required to purchase computers that are powerful enough to get the most out of 3D CAD software.  Also, installed software tends to be limited by computer operating systems.  SolidWorks, in its current form, will not likely to be ported over to run natively on a MAC OS.  Instead, SolidWorks will bypass these limitations with cloud computing.  With cloud computing, “SolidWorks” (in whatever form it takes) may run on any platform.  In fact, the user’s computer power will play very little roll.  CAD files (even hugh assemblies) can be accessed instantly and edited on practically any platform, such as Microsoft, MAC OS, Google OS, Firefox, and iPhone.  This is all accomplished without installing any software.   They even discussed SolidWorks running seamlessly with ENOVIA V6, maybe even sometime this year.

According to Ray, the new cloud technologies will be rolled out as they are ready.  The customer will choose when (if ever) to implement.  These improvements represent a “completely new design environment”.  Ray also stated that these new techologies where developed in secret and “run like a start up”.  Technically, all this cloud talk represents nothing more than vaporware right now.  However, if Dassault Systemes delivers, they may have a massive game changer on their hands.

Stump the Chumps submission form

See if you can stump the chumps with your SolidWorks questions at our session in SolidWorks World 2010:

Stump the Chumps question submission form

Also, if you have files to submit as part of your question, please email your question and files to stumpthechumps@gmail.com.

SolidWorks is easy to learn

Based on my recent unscientific research, SolidWorks seems like it is an easy application to learn.  In one poll, I asked for preference of educational choices for new employees not familiar with SolidWorks.  A second poll asked how current users actually learned SolidWorks.  The results are a little surprizing.

Of the respondents to the first poll, just slightly over 50% said they would teach SolidWorks to new employees on the job by mentoring them.  Just under 50% said they would send their employee to VAR classes.

In the second poll, the overwhelming majority stated that they are self-taught in the use of SolidWorks.  Some questions comes to mind.  If SolidWorks is so easy to learn, do the VAR classes serve any purpose?  Or, is it that the VAR classes are so ineffective that one is forced to learn on their own?

My own experience in sending new employees to VAR taught introductory SolidWorks classes have yielded mixed results.  They do not seem effective in many cases.  In fact, the VAR classes actually seem to be turning off some individuals to the use of SolidWorks.  It may be that there is just too much information crammed into the short 3 to 5 day courses.

SolidWorks is easy enough to learn without classes.  Classes should simply be used to provide a head start.  Instead, in some cases they seem to have the opposite effect.  Maybe the classes need to be broken down a bit.  Perhaps the introductory class can take a slower pace and focus on core skills over the 3 days.  Then, more complex skills can be taught in an intermediate class over another 3 days.  (The current advanced classes offered by VARs would likely remain the same.)