Category: Methodology

United SolidWorks of Contributors

Future SW Online Community 

With two recent surveys (1) (2) regarding the future of the online SolidWorks community as conceived by the SolidWorks Corp, it is becoming apparent that some plan is in the works for a new vision of this online community.  How is that vision shaping up for far?  SolidWorks’ Matthew West’s recent words seem to point to having “a  central repository on solidworks.com” where tips, tricks, hacks, tutorials, instructions, etc can be collected.  To me, this suggests an educational focus.  Mr. West continues, “I think it would be great for casual users and people who aren’t into the whole blog thing to have one place where they could find information generated by other users, and maybe even sign up for your RSS feeds.” 

Are SW Users Ready?

One problem right now, as I see it, is that there are hundreds of thousands of SolidWorks users, but only a small fraction of these seek out further SolidWorks information online.   For example, the SolidWorks Forum recently hit 50,000 users.  This was a celebrated number, but is a small fraction of the total number of SolidWorks users.  Even further fractioned is the number of those who actually actively browse the forums frequently.  And of those, how many actually participate in forum discussions?

No one should expect everyone to be online every week looking around through SolidWorks resources.  However, I think these numbers indicate that many people may not even know these resources exist; or that they have not realized the depth and value of such resources yet.  

Support from SW Corp

If SolidWorks Corp puts a concerted effort into promoting its new online community, it may have a higher level of success.  However, they already have one case study that demonstrated the difficulty of this task: 3D ContentCentral.  Even with a link built right into the SolidWorks software, I suspect the user contributed area of this site gets very little activity when compared to the total number of users.  This may be due in part to how the site is organized.  It is definitely better than before, but still lacks the intuitiveness required for content managers that house a large quantity of items.  But, this may not be the point.

Types of SW Users

So what’s really going on?  It almost seems that it is the experienced (power) users who come online seeking out resources.  These are people who may have a consulting business or they are their company’s SW guru (or future guru).   These are the people for who it is important to expand their skill set.  Should SolidWorks Corp online efforts focus on the average user, or should they focus on the power user?  I think they can support both.  They may have to do this with separate efforts.

A central repository of user provided content would best serve the power user.   SolidWorks Corp should invest in this.  It can be wiki-like.  Or, perhaps it can be more like an aggregator, similar to SolidMentor.  It would have to be organized, maybe like CADdigest.  Opposing views should be represented without prejudice.  I’m not talking about commentary (though that is important too).  I’m talking about opposing views in terms of methodology.  For example, some people prefer one particular methodology, while other methodologies that accomplish the same task are also available (and may be better for many scenarios).  If a wiki-environment is employed, debates regarding such will definitely unfold, as they do on Wikipedia.org.  Again, this would be for power uses.  I think the biggest obstacle is determining how to make such a site for the average user.   To do this, information will have to be easy to find.

Ease of Use

How does one set up content driven site that makes finding particular topics easy?  This is question I’ve asked myself about my own blog.  I see people come to this blog and look around.  I see the searches they do.  I am often frustrated at just how many searches are unsuccessful when I know I have articles that covered the searched keywords.  This is because searches are imperfect.  The results are often too exact.

Alphabetical listing by topics wouldn’t work.  For example, How-to articles are often far to complex to make such a system useful, as they often cover topics involving multiple concepts or concepts that cannot be reduced down to a simple noun phrase.  My experience with How-to books (home repair, etc.) is that they are more for casual reading to get ideas rather than actually being a go-to reference (such as encyclopedias).

The online community site would have to be heavily cross-referenced, whether it encyclopediatic (Wikipedia.org, SolidMentor), aggregational (Pulse, SolidMentor), or listy (CADdigest).  Most of the research in setting up such a site should be in the area human systems analyst to find out how people most intuitively use content managers.  If the content is user driven, the content itself be the least of SolidWorks Corp worries.

Depersonalization and Individual Ownership

So, this does bring me to a point recently brought up by Matt Lombard:  Depersonalization.  I look at this with two points in mind.  First, there shouldn’t be an effort to remove personality or individuality.  The singluar voice still has to be heard in order for a united site to work.  Second, how does one set up such a site without stepping all over copyright?  It seems to me that SolidWorks Corp may be forgetting they would have to respect the individual’s copyright over the material they produce. 

Do I want my whole articles published on some other site?  Maybe, as long as I received some benefit from it.  Each person requires something different.  I doubt there is a single method that will fulfill the requirements of any majority of individual contributors.   This cannot be like Wikipedia.org where all content is non-copyrighted.  This is because the content provided by the individual for the Solidworks community is Original Research, unique to that individual.  Wikipedia.org does not allow Original Research at all.  A united SolidWorks community sie would have nothing but copyrighted Original Research.  SolidWorks Corp will have to recognize this and work within the guidelines established by each contributor, just as they expect their user to follow legal requirements in the use of the SolidWorks application.  SolidWorks Corp cannot dictate to us on how the rules will be set for such a site.  They will have to find a consensus upon the contributors, somehow.  This is why I previously stated such a site is a risk to SolidWorks Corp.  How would they handle content if they do not own that content?  Also, how do they prevent bias from interferring with the content that is provided?

Where to Start

Maybe to start, SolidWorks Corp can set up a simple RSS feed page that links to the major SolidWorks blogs.  It should still be easy to use and in a format that can be easily referenced and provided to non-power users.  These qualities will allow a dynamic area that will benefit the power user and also provide value to others.

Other Solutions Needed As Well

Something that may be just as effective for the average user is an effort to work on the improvement of the documentation provided by SolidWorks Corp for its software.  Why must a user come online in order to find a tutorial and how-to guide for basic functions?  The information provided on some of the technical blogs should already be apart of the manual provided by SolidWorks Corp for its SolidWorks software. 

Discussion to Continue

So, that’s my thoughts about this at this moment.  I welcome other ideas, points and counterpoints.   If ideas come up that have merit, I will likely adjust my own input about this matter.  I’ve set this article as second in a series of article that will likely continue, called “Future SW Community”.  Let see where this discussion leads.

P.S.

One additional point on a sidenote:  We need printed manuals!  At the very least, I feel there needs to be printed CAD Administrators manual that allows CAD Administrators and power users to have access to detailed information in offline settings for study and research.

Drawing Template with Two Different Sheet Formats (Part 1)

A long sought after function in SolidWorks that has gone pretty much ignored is allowing users to set up Drawing Templates with two different Sheet Formats (one for Sheet 1 of X and one for all other X of X sheets).   [In the past, m]ost of us just had to  directly pick and load the separate X of X sheet when we add a sheet to a drawing.

Some half solutions do did exist to get around the limitation.  I have seen one hack that involves using the X of X sheet Sheet Format as the default sheet format with sheet 1 of the Template itself simply having addition entities around the Sheet Format entities to form the complete sheet 1 of X “format”.   Another way is was to have two sheets already present in the Drawing Template, each one with its own Sheet Format; then delete sheet 2 when it is not used.  No more half steps!

There is a way to have two completely different Sheet Formats embedded into a Drawing Template without having additional sheets already present.  I am currently working on writing up the protocol. I will post the steps on Thursday 7/17/08 (Instructions are now available here).  The protocol is not complex as far as I can tell.  I just wish to thoroughly experiment and test it before posting.  Stay tuned.  And, if you know of other ways do to this, then please post your methods (or links to them) here so everyone can compare notes.  Who knows, maybe someone else has already published something about this  I just know I’ve not seen anything in any other online resources, which is why I’m fairly excited about making this method available.

UPDATE for SolidWorks 2014

SolidWorks 2014 now has a second sheet setting in Document Properties. Fancy workarounds are no longer necessary.  Please see  2014 What’s New in SolidWorks – Sheet Formats.

Users, Choosers, and PDM-less Losers

It’s a fairly common topic on most of the SW fora: “How do I move/manage/protect my files?”.  I suppose someone needs to say it, just as a formality; it doesn’t take very long before someone replies, “You should get a PDM system!”

 Can I get a “Well, Duh!” from the congregation? [Amen, Hallelujah].

The fact is, the vast majority of the SW community are users, not choosers.  They work away in the arena provided by their employer: slow network, weak workstation, outdated software, leaky ceiling and bad coffee.  Users may have loud voices, but usually very little say in what they get to use.  They almost certainly don’t get to decide whether to install and use a PDM system, making the first salvo of well-meaning advice hollow. For whatever reason, management will not allow PDM implementation.

File Management Survival Skills

As CAD skills go, file management tends to get short shrift.  New users-in-training are preoccupied with more pressing issues like changing colors and constraining sketches.  They are in a hurry to get useful so that Sir Boss doesn’t second-guess his hiring decisions.  Especially true for small-to-medium sized businesses, where cost of CAD comes out of Sir Boss’ pocket.

At work, it gets worse.  Projects and priorities appear and change daily.  Many projects get idled or abandoned, and the SW files get scattered across a half-dozen network drives and “My Documents” folders.  Multiple files exist of some parts, leaving no one certain what truly belongs.  Parts get accidentally changed by ham-fisted noobs or over-eager bosses.  In many places, there is no formal ECN process or designated storage area for released files.

Get the picture?  I’ve seen it four times over in the last two years while doing contract work.

Case Study: A Client Awakens

There is hope for some.  My current assignment is at a metal fabrication place with three SW users, plus myself.  The engineering manager saw the mounting file management crisis and tasked me to address it.  PDM was out of the question, as there was no money or support from parent company.  We had to find another way.

The result was a system of protected folders acting as a vault for CAD files and a library for other documents.  The folders are protected using windows security and are owned by a “phantom” user, so that no individual can inadvertently change files under his own login.  So far, it works.  Not as good as PDM, but OK.

What was encouraging was that the manager saw the value of his CAD data.  CAD data is valuable information.  Design data does not come cheap.  Software, hardware, users, training, etc. are all pricey.  Even more costly are the mistakes that can result from mishandled or lost data.  Design data needs careful guardianship.

File Management Survival Skills

File management is a skill set that is no less important than sketching.  There are things every user should know how to do (or at least know can be done).  If you can not do any of these things, you should not be satisfied with your file management skills:

  • Move files to a new folder
  • Create copies of files for work or backup
  • Copy entire assemblies
  • Replace components in an assembly
  • Reconnect “lost” components to an assembly
  • What is a file’s “internal ID” and why it is important
  • Understand how SW finds components and references
  • Use your operating system to protect files and folders

Not a complete list, but enough to get one thinking.

Better Modeling using Pencil and Paper

I am finding more and more posts on engineering related forums as well as discussions with industry professionals that cannot believe that designers and engineers have little to no idea how to sketch using a pencil and paper.

Personally, sketching helps me reduce my modeling time anywhere from 20-50% while at the same time increasing the simplicity and accuracy of my model.  In my Advanced Modeling course at NTI I start off the course by asking the students to define advanced modeling.  Those who do not know me yet will answer with functions like Surfacing, Sweeps, Lofts, Sheet Metal, Weldment so on and so forth.

Then I pull out my soap box and tell the students that these are actually industry specific standard tools.  If you are working on sheet metal day in and day out then those are generally the core set of tools you use son on and so forth.  Same goes for Mold Tools.

The next part of my presentation talks about advanced modeling being about modeling using the most basic tools possible to accomplish a manufacturable component, assembly that 2 years down the road the next newbie can immediately open and make the necessary changes for the next design.  I talk about taking the time to model as best you can in a manner that will allow you to import you model dimensions to the drawing to save time in the detailing process.  Model so that your drafts, fillets, chamfers (dare I say it “extruded text”) are at the bottom of the feature manager tree so they can be easily suppressed.  Use the hole wizard to aid not only in assembly but also use you companies standard hole callout format.  Try to limit the parent child nightmare by relating back to datum planes, origin or you base feature.  These are tangible items in which i can immediately show the results and demonstrate the value.

Being able to sketch your part before modeling is proving to be more of a challenge.  I cannot tell you how much time I have saved throughout my career by sketching before I model.  It is a great way to spend those countless hours in drawn out design reviews (cat fights).

What value do I find in Sketching?  It allows me to envision how my model will be constructed (is this a cast to machined part? will this become a progressive die stamped part? how can I ensure my design intend in understandable?), add notes to features that may associate to other parts of the assembly (this hole is related to part B, the connection is a shaft the will be pressed into 2 bearing what was that fit again?  Oh yeah it is right here in my sketch), list our drafts, minimum radii, wall thickness, materials to select from, I can add all kinds of research to a sketch that will reduce my time at the computer and increase my productivity while I am at it.

This is proving to be a challenge to convey to students.  They want to work on the computer all the time.  I even talk about my time in Florida (the highest number of lightning strikes per inch capital of the world) and how there is often times you can not have a computer with you.  Or how about when one of your machines is on the brink of failure but we can only take it offline for a given amount of time to reverse engineering the no longer existing replacement parts needed to over haul the machine.

Anyone else in the Legion have some examples of how they use sketching to improve modeling productivity?  Any one out there think that sketching is the dumbest thing next to the pet rock.  Let me know.  My student will benefit from all views.

Set up of Custom Properties for Drawing Template Use

Custom properties can be deceptively simple in purpose.  They can be used for a wide variety of functions.  One of the most basic of these is quickly inserting values into drawing templates.  This allows the user to quickly fill in the title block and other areas of a drawing with no direct editing of the sheet format or even the sheet itself.

For those people not familiar with custom properties and how to use them on drawings, I wrote a previous article about how to link custom properties to annotation notes on drawings.  Also, see SolidWorks Help.  The remainder of this article will assume familiarity with this function.  In this article, I wish to discuss the issue of when to use particular sources for the custom properties for the purpose of filling out a title block and other drawing areas.  I do not present my article as a final word on the issue.  In fact, I hope to create dialogue on this issue in the comments of this article.  So first, let me ask some questions.

Should one maintain the values for custom properties on the drawing itself?  Should one maintain the values on the solid model, and refer to those in the drawing?  Or, should one maintain some values on the drawing and some from the model?  If there is a mixed answer, which properties come from where?  Here’s what I’ve found.  (There is no absolute answer for every situation.)

The solid model is increasing become more important.  The drawing is the source for far less information in the 3D CAD realm.  Given this fact, utilizing the solid model’s meta-information at must as possible can prove to be very advantageous.  Custom properties are no exception to this.  Values for custom properties can be established on the solid model and utilized directly on the drawing.  This is very powerful because it allows the user to enter certain data only once in the model and have it applied parametrically to the drawing.  When the model changes, so does the drawing.

However, not all custom properties will have the same value in the model and the drawing.  For example, the originator and origination date may be different between the solid model and drawing.  There’s also the issue of multiple parts on a drawing (where drawing information isn’t necessarily driven by one or the other or either).   Imagine the use of workarounds to avoid being forced to directly edit the sheet format to account for these scenarios.

Other issues may arise.  Engineers may not set up models correctly in the first place; with all the required information properly filled out.  Many engineers tend to create their own part/assembly templates that may not interface with the standard drawing template properly.  Models or drawings may be from outside sources that have different schemes. 

In some environments, drawings tend to have more properties than the model due to notation standards.  Examples of this can be values for the watermark or inspection criteria.  I looked into this recently at my own company and I found that only 2 of the basic 7 properties are 100% common between the model and drawing.  I don’t want to create confusion as to where to fill out which properties.  I also don’t want people editing the sheet format because values from the model is different than the drawing; or still further to have some drawings work differently than other drawings because the method to obtain values was changed via the Properties dialog box.  So I left the custom properties as a function of the drawing and not the model (the model carries its own information that pertains to it).  Does one really want to have to open the model every time a text only spec is changed on the drawing?  Additionally, it is not necessary that a drawing have a model or assembly associated with it at all.  Where would the values for the drawing come from in that event? 

There are a lot of rules that must be in place in order for a clean use of solid model properties directly on the drawing.  Some people call these good practices.  I just call them rules because at the end of the day it’s 6 one way and 1/2 a dozen another.  For me, it’s just a matter of having flexibility on how drawings are created and used.

Bottom line, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution in the case of linking to custom properties from the solid model verses maintaining them on the drawing.  When setting up a system, it is best to determine what is most beneficial for that particular system.  I suspect in most cases, there will be a mix between which custom properties on drawings are linked to the solid model, and which are controlled on the drawing itself.

Some macros that allow copying of properties between files:  Rigid Custom Properties, Migrate Properties, and FixProperties.  Websites to explore for more of these types of macros are Lenny’s SolidWorks Resources, Lorono’s SolidWorks Resources, and Esox Republic.

Introduction to SolidWorks Custom Properties

SolidWorks has something called custom properties. Many programs within Windows have file formats that include properties which allow the user to include some general information about the file without affecting its actual content. For most of these programs, there is a standard short list that includes fields like Author, Keywords, Comments, Title, and Subject. There is also a method that allows the user to create their own custom properties.

SolidWorks has simplified the process to create custom properties, and allows its users to utilize their values within the document via linked annotation notes. The custom properties are available under pulldown File>Properties>Custom tab. There are even shortcuts included that allows the user to create links in these fields to attributes of the document itself.

The advantage in using custom properties is that one can link to their values in annotation notes. This allows for automatic updates to annotation notes without having to edit them directly.

Here are the instructions to link a note to a property. (These instructions are from SolidWorks Help which can be found by searching titles only for “Link to Property”. For more detailed information, please see the Help.)

Start an annotation note.

In the Note PropertyManager (left pane) choose this icon:

 Link to Property Icon

-OR-

In the Note Properties dialog box, choose this icon:

Link to Property Icon

Then,

  1. Select the radial button that identifies the file from where the values will be linked.  The most common choices are either the “Current Document” or “Model in view specified in the sheet properties” (for drawings).
  2. View the available custom properties.

    Dialog

  3. Choose one and then click the OK button.
  4. This will add a tag to your annotation note that looks something like $PRP:”<property name>”.  The annotation note itself will display the value of that custom property.

This can be used to automatically fill in data fields on drawing blocks based on custom properties and document properties in the model.  It can also allow the fields to be filled in from a macro that is designed to provide those values.  Linking annotation notes to custom properties can save a lot of time and reduce repeatitive drawing activies.  However, before committing completely to using links to custom properties on drawings, one should look into the methods and reasons for this.  They should also consider the pros and cons of each.  I will go into detail about when and how to use links to custom properties on drawings in a near future article.