SOLIDWORKS’ 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021’s Top Ten List
Yup, it’s that time of year again! The drive for ideas in the annual 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List is happening right now!
Yup, it’s that time of year again! The drive for ideas in the annual 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List is happening right now! For example, do you have ideas that address any of the following?
- Do you know of a workflow that’s been annoying you?
- What functionality just needs one more thing to make you job 100% easier?
- Will a shortcut to current functionality help you?
- What missing functionality do you need?
- Is there a workaround for which you’d like a native SOLIDWORKS solution?
Submit your ideas to let other SOLIDWORKS users see. Learn how your ideas stack up when compared to other submissions! Comment on other ideas that you like or don’t like.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve only been using SOLIDWORKS products for a year or 20 years. Your ideas will be read by other SOLIDWORKS users and the Product Definition team at SOLIDWORKS! When it comes time, SOLIDWORKS user-base can vote on submitted ideas. Also, there’s a great track record for implementation of Top Ten ideas!
Platform for SOLIDWORKS Top Ten
As with last year, the platform upon which the Top Ten List resides is now 3DSwym. So, if you are new or you didn’t submit an idea last year, please see the main SOLIDWORKS Forum article and video. There’s information on how to access the Top Ten. Once you have access to the Top Ten forum, check out the video at the top called “Starting Here: Informational Video!”
Important Dates:
| Idea Submission Open | November 10th, 2020 through January 4th, 2021 |
| Voting Open | January 4th through February 1st, 2021 |
| 3DEXPERIENCE WORLD | February 8th through February 12th, 2021 |
You have no ideas? Your input is still important!
This isn’t just for people who want to submit an idea. This for all current SOLIDWORKS users to see what’s on everyone else’s mind! Maybe you don’t have an idea yourself, but you find that someone else’s idea might disrupt your own workflows. Your comment about such is very important! Likewise, perhaps you see a great idea that needs a bit more polishing to better suit your own needs. Your about about that is also very important!
There’s already some great ideas to check out:
- Make Face Curves Editable
- BOM to Filter Visible Components
- Left Hand Cosmetic Threads
- In a “Multiple Page Drawing” scenario, Add a Property Tab to Change Drw Format
Have fun reading everyone else’s ideas and hopefully submitting your own as well!
SOLIDWORKS X-ray Vision with transparency
SOLIDWORKS that allows you to quickly view your entire model as transparent mode, like an X-ray of your assembly.
Top Level Transparency is an option within SOLIDWORKS that allows you to quickly view your entire model in a transparent mode. It’s like a quick-access x-ray of your model. You may need this to peer deep into the heart of your assembly. Perhaps you are trying to visually find an obscured part which is buried within your assembly. Even within an individual part, you may just want to see a particular set of features without a section view.
You don’t have to change the transparency of each and every component within your assembly or create special display state. Just turn this setting on, and then turn if off.
To turn it on, right mouse button click on the top line of your Feature Tree. Select the Top Level Transparency option from the shortcut bar or within the list of options of the right mouse button menu. Repeat to turn the mode off.
Although Top Level Transparency is a mode, it does directly affect the transparency of the assembly and components while active. This means the setting is persistent. If you turn this setting on for a component, when you open the associated assembly, that component will be transparent within the assembly. A component or assembly can also be saved with this mode active.
Besides Transparency, explore changes to Exploded Views
Another assembly tool that you may wish to explore in SOLIDWORKS might be Exploded View, which has seen a number of enhancements over the years. SOLIDWORKS 2015 introduced Radial Explode. Back in SOLIDWORKS 2013, you gained the ability to copy exploded views. More recently, you have the ability to autospace exploded components.
Each release of SOLIDOWORKS sees many enhancements for assemblies. Be sure to always review each year’s What’s New document.
All Uppercase, or how I learned to stop worrying about CAPS LOCK in SOLIDWORKS
SOLIDWORKS 2014 introduced the All Uppercase option for Note Annotations. Forgetting to use CAPS LOCK is no longer something to fear.
There was a dark time when one had to remember to turn on CAPS LOCK keyboard toggle while they created engineering drawing notes. This was problematic because if you forgot, you’d have to retype everything. If you were creating your general notes, that was a lot of retyping. Even if you remembered to use CAPS LOCK, you’d still have to find workarounds for file properties and certain custom properties that displayed the raw system value, where capitalization wasn’t possible. A light shined upon the world in 2013. That year, SOLIDWORKS 2014 introduced the All Uppercase option for Note Annotations.
However, unlike word processor applications, SOLIDWORKS is smart about how it capitalizes text.
- Original text is preserved, so if you turn the setting off, your text returns to its original state.
- The setting recognizes the value of file and custom properties and capitalizes these as well.
- Where you would want the “mm” in the word “dimmer” to capitalize as “DIMMER”, you wouldn’t want the “mm” in “10 mm” to capitalize. So, along with the new functionality, SOLIDWORKS is smart enough to know the difference by using its Exclusion list.
There is the ability to use the capitalization setting as a Document Property, meaning that any note you create will automatically use the All Uppercase setting. You still have local control for each note, of course.
SOLIDWORKS 2018 introduced this functionality for Tables in SOLIDWORKS. You can change the setting for an entire table, a range of cells or individual cells.
Finally, SOLIDWORKS 2020 introduced this functionality for Dimensions (including Hole Callouts).
You have the ability to set All Uppercase document defaults differently for Notes, Tables and Dimensions, so if you want to automatically capitalize your notes, but not your dimensions or tables, you have that choice.
One more point; a tip:
- Select a note.
- Hold down SHIFT and press F3.
- While holding SHIFT, each time you press F3, you will toggle All Uppercase on and off for the selected note.
- This is the same keystroke as MS Word for switching between casing options.
3DEXPERIENCE WORLD 2020, a non-comprehensive look
So, technically and actually, everyone that attended 3DEXPERIENCE World 2020 has attended every 3DEXPERIENCE World conference! Isn’t that awesome? A fresh start! Or is it? SOLIDWORKS World‘s new skin, or something more?
What really changed? There is still a very heavy SOLIDWORKS focus, the 21st Model Mania, and the SOLIDWORKS Top Ten. The Partner Pavilion is now a bit different with a new name, 3DEXPERIENCE Playground. The number of breakout sessions continues to expand, including new 30 minute format (in addition to 60 and 90 minutes). General Sessions have returned to the morning to include product announcements, keynote speakers, SWUGN community updates, amazing customer stories, etc. Sunday had its Certification testing, SOLIDWORKS CAD Manager’s Boot Camp, and Reception. Monday saw yet another CSWE Event. Tuesday had the Special Offsite Event on Broadway in Downtown Nashville, complete with several live music acts. Even the unsanctioned CAD Monkey dinner roared to record attendance on Saturday.
My Presentations
As usual, I have two (or more) presentations. My breakout session on Monday called MBD and Me was actually standing-room only attendance. There was a lot of interest in Model Based Definition. My other session was a Hands-on session for new and improved tools for Drawing Views in the past 7 years. As per the usual when I presented similar sessions on the past, attendees would yell out in amazement after being shown one or more new tools or enhancements that have been implemented years ago that they somehow missed. I love those moments, but also slightly sadden that well-established SOLIDWORKS users aren’t catching everything they need from each year’s What’s New documents.
Nashville
Nashville may have been unusually chilly (even for winter), but that didn’t stop it from being beautiful and interesting.
My Instagram Videos from SOLIDWORKS 2019
Here’s my videos from Instagram from SOLIDWORKS World 2019. Nothing new to add, other than bringing them over for posterity.
Here’s my videos from Instagram from SOLIDWORKS World 2019. Nothing new to add, other than bringing them over for posterity. It appears that both uploading and download videos with Instagram involves significant compression, so the quality of the videos is “potato”, and not actually a result of my tool used to record these (my phone).