SW Real Rewards Program Update

Ok, so some time ago, I squibbed SolidWorks Real Rewards program in an article called SolidWorks Real Rewards (Smart Button).  SolidWorks Legion got a lot of attention because of that article.  That article is still in the top ten articles here on SolidWorks Legion.  So here’s the deal.  I did make fun of the program; didn’t see  a major reason to take it seriously.  However, there was an unintentional side effect, both to the program and to my article.  If you look at the article, you’ll find a lot of requests from individuals who wanted to be signed up for the program.My Rewards!!!

Program Purpose

As described to me by the program’s initiator at SolidWorks Corp, the purpose of this program was to encourage individuals to spread the word about SolidWorks.  If someone knew another person or company that could benefit from 3D CAD software (particularly SolidWorks), they could sign those individuals up via the Real Rewards website.  In return, if a purchase of SolidWorks was made as a result of the referral, the referrer would get a snazzy little prize.

Something Strange Happened

However, in practice, my article has attracted many people looking for a trial of SolidWorks for various other reasons.   I’ve dutifully submitted the email of each person that requested such within the comments of that article.  I never expected any of those leads would turn into a qualifying purchase of SolidWorks, but I thought I’d do it anyway, just in case (and kinda for the fun of it).

Well, guess what?  Recently, I contacted SolidWorks Corp about my many referrals to see if anyone did indeed make a purchase.  It turns out one did!  Of course, I’m a little annoyed that I had to ask instead of SolidWorks Corp just surprizing me.  But hey, free gifts, right?!  I earned the level 1 gift.  It is a package including a SolidWorks backpack (not the same one from SWW8 or given away at user group meetings), a business card holder all jazzed up with faux wood, and an insulating coffee cup that is so heavy, it could prolly be mistaken for a mortar shell.  I’m moderately delighted that I earned something from the program.  Maybe I can earn those Logitech Speakers at level 2!

Real Life Use

So, although this isn’t the word of mouth promotion SolidWorks Corp was hoping for, it has lead to the some good promotion and realization.  Several people who asked to be signed up for the program where looking to practice on SolidWorks before a job interview.  Those aren’t necessarily going to lead to future sales, but it does indicate that new SolidWorks users are entering into the job market due to job demand for people with such skills.  It also may indicate that the U.S. economy isn’t doing poorly in every sector.  (The program is limited to North America.)

One final comment.  Technically, the program only ran in the first quarter of 2008.  The rules for the program have not been changed.  It would seem wise for SolidWorks Corp to officially update the rules to make this an on-going program; if for no other reason than to give me a chance to earn my Logitech speakers!

Update (12/18/2009)

This program was cancelled by SolidWorks Corp as of December 2009. I am not able to fulfill any further submission requests for the trial version of SolidWorks. It is my understanding that SolidWorks still has other programs available. Please contact a local VAR for details. To find a local VAR or for information about current offers, please see the SolidWorks.com website.

PhotoView 360 research

PhotoView 360 is the new rendering software available in SolidWorks 2009.   SolidWorks Corp is now getting some feedback from users about PhotoView 360 and is also asking what features future versions of the product should incorporate. Upon finishing this short survey, there’s a webpage that features some renderings created by the PhotoView Community.  See the link here:

Survey:  http://www.solidworks.com/PhotoView360_survey

SW Dwg ER Blitz: Dwight Livingston Interview

Dwight Livingston is an Industrial Designer who participates on the SolidWorks Forums.  A couple of months ago or so, he took on a cause that hits close to home for many of us.  A discussion was started that asked the question, “when is solidworks ever going to focus on drawings for a new release?”  Mr. Livingston answered this call to arms by taking on a new project in the Drawings Forum called SolidWorks Drawing ER Blitz, where many people have come together to bring up drawing functionality that needs improvement, such as missing features, bugs, nice-to-haves, and more robust capabilities.   The purpose of this is effort is to compile a list in which all of us are welcome to vote.  The list will then be submitted to SolidWorks Corp, who have expressed interest in the results.  Stay tuned for more information on when and where to vote.

In the meantime, I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Livingston about his project. 

Dwight, you are running a project in the SolidWorks Drawings Forum that has generated a lot of attention. You named it SolidWorks Drawings ER Blitz.  Please, tell me about this project and how you got started with it.

Dwight LivingstonThe effort grew out of a couple of frustrations. One is with the current Enhancement Request system. I’ve put in a few enhancement requests, but I never felt it worked for me. When I look through the listed ERs, none seem to be those that people are talking about on the forum. Some of the ERs did not make sense. If I added my own ER, it would not show up. I wanted a better process, one that would engage people and encourage critical discussion.

The other frustration has been Drawing Tables. Vertical padding in tables has never worked right, ever since I started using SolidWorks in 2004. Every year I expected it to be fixed, but the fix never came. I have been involved in writing CAD procedures for our shop, and they include table formatting for our drawings. With the current versions of SolidWorks, the tables often look like crap. The work-around is a lot of manual fussing with row heights. I had to include a little table in our procedure that shows proper row heights for how many lines of text. It’s embarrassing.

When the Eddie Cyganik started the forum topic “What Drawing Functionality Does SolidWorks Need to Improve?”, I thought that was a good way to address the ER process. Other people had similar ideas. Steve Calvert suggested an Enhancement Request Forum, which I think would be a great thing to have. Users could have a dialog with each other and with SolidWorks people, focusing on a specific ER. There’s be a chance to improve the ER, get people to understand what the ER is all about, show perhaps that SolidWorks already had the capability requested.

The other part was establishing the importance of an idea. It’s frustrating to see SolidWorks come out with enhancements that I can’t use, rather than add the things I need. The users need to provide SolidWorks with priorities. Voting is a way to do that. So we’re doing a big voting survey to choose which of all the enhancements we came up with would be the ones most people really want.

What was the inspiration for the name SolidWorks Drawings ER Blitz?

Not much inspiration. I wanted a term that would be easy to search. I was thinking of football, I guess, and a play where the defense concentrates their forces on a limited objective and takes the issue to the other side. That’s instead of spreading out and waiting to see what gets tossed our way. In can’t say “blitz” describes the speed of the process; it seems too slow.

The project is feed by individuals posting responses in the SolidWorks Forums.  Posts related to this project now approaches 200 (possibly already more).  What do you think of (or feel about) the responses and participation so far with this project?

It’s been good. Some of my own ERs got shot down – that’s a good thing. People explained some existing functionality that made the ERs unnecessary, so we weren’t clogging the process with requests that don’t need solutions. Some of the other ER schemes evolved as people commented and improved over time. That’s how I think it ought to work.

I wished we could have had more people making critiques. There may be ways to draw people into the discussion, make it easier for people to join in. I think the process should be more competitive. There should be feedback to tell people that their favorite idea is going down unless they improve it. Matt Lombard’s current column has a nice example of using polling tools, placed right in the discussion. After reading a couple of paragraphs you get to fill out a poll. You pick if you think a feature should work this way, or that way, or it doesn’t matter. I can see adding some additional choices, such as “I don’t understand what you are talking about”  and “What we really need is. . . .” That way we might get more people involved in the process.

What are you getting about all this?  🙂

We’ll see. I’ve received emails from SolidWorks, with interest in the ERs and in the process. That’s what I really hope for, is an improved ER process, one that engages more users, is more competitive, is more open, and encourages evolution of the ideas.

Direct input to the list of items within the project has now closed.  It has entered the voting stage.  What is your plan for the vote results?

The results will be posted on the forum. The plan is to list popular items as official ERs, which people may then go and support. That stage may be unnecessary, as the survey will go directly into SolidWorks evaluation process, in some manner.

SolidWorks 2009 Title Block management

SolidWorks 2009 makes further inroads into the area of drawing control.  In the past, they added sheet formats, revision tables, BOM improvements, and links to model properties.  The move to improve drawing control has been slow, often in baby steps.  The newest control addition is another such baby step.  SolidWorks now allows users to specify title block fields for direct entry.  This mean, you just double click on the particular title block fields and fill-in their content quickly without any other functions.  This functionality is nice, but given the extensive use of model and/or drawing custom properties to automatically fill in title block fields, I’m not sure how truly useful this new Title Block management really is for most users (at least in its current state).  I can imagine this might benefit users who rely heavily on model custom properties, as they may find it useful to not rely on a custom property for the drawing’s Drawn/Date By fields (where the drafter is a different person than the solid model designer). 

Using the Title Block Manager

The new functionality is easy to use, and not difficult to set up for an existing title block.

  1. To set up, open a drawing sheet or template.
  2. RMB click the sheet format in the FeatureManager.
  3. Select Define Title Block. This will re-center the view window on the drawing’s lower right (presumably the title block location).  A grab-able black rectangle box appears at this corner of the drawing.Select fields
  4. Resize the box to fit roughly around the title block area.
  5. LMB click on any single-line annotation note that is meant to be filled in manually for each drawing.  Each field will highlight blue, and be added to a list in the FeatuerManager pane.
  6. Select OK.Using the field
  7. Once satisfied with the set up, save as a drawing template.

Then, when in a new drawing, just LMB double-click to activate the field and enter the desired data.   As shown here, setting up and using this new functionality to control drawing title blocks is very easy.  It may be most useful for those setting up new title blocks; perhaps this is best for those companies upgrading from 2D CAD applications.

SolidWorks Geeks Unite!

SolidWorks Geeks Unite!  Come under one banner on (yet another) social networking site; this one is made just for you.  Yes, if you are reading this, you!  :-)  Did you know social networking has now supplanted porn for the most activity online?   Yup.  That happened very recently!  Anyway, this badge didn’t fit in my sidebars, so I’m just writing up this quick blurb and placing it here for now:


Visit SolidWorks Geeks
See you there!

Backwards compatibility discussion with SW Dev Team

One thing that seems to come up constantly is the desire to have some sort of backwards compatibility between releases of SolidWorks.  It is mentioned on the various SolidWorks forum message boards at least once month (and sometimes almost daily).  Why does SolidWorks not provide for backwards compatibility.  Well, the cynic will tell you that it is intentional, as part of the overall SolidWorks Corp business model.  Others will say that it is due to new features and tools being added to each release which will not be supported by previous releases.

Right now, I cannot speak to reasons relating to business model.  I can say that the SolidWorks development team, some of which attended the T-VSWUG Sept 10th meeting, seem genuinely interested in users’ desires and ideas regarding backwards compatibility. 

One suggestion at the meeting was to provide a way to simply save models for older releases.  The problem here is that once an unsupported feature is reached in the FeatureManager, it and all subsequent features would have to be dumb anyway.   On the other hand, the advantage is that as least some of the information in the model would useful.

Another suggest that had been on my mind was actually proposed by the SW development team; open, edit and create files native to their release level within a single session of SolidWorks.  Features and functions not supported by the release level of a particular model would either be grayed out or (when selected) display an error message stating that it is not compatible with the release level of the active document.

You know what?  I like this approach best.  I can image there are some technical issues which will need to be over come.  For example, how will SolidWorks handle assemblies with mixed release levels?  Regardless, it seems the SW development team is on top of this issue.  Hopefully, a working solution to this issue will be available sometime soon (2 years?).