SolidWorks, The CAD Industry, & More!

As I mentioned in my SolidWorks 2009 Enhancement Highlights, the Materials Database has been overhauled.  Today we are going to take a closer look at the enhancements to the Database AND Interface along with some other tidbits.  Let’s get started!

Many users in the past have defined materials using custom properties.  In SolidWorks 2008 the ability to link the SolidWorks Material to custom properties was added which allowed for some efficient uses when it came to drawing production.  At the beginning of this video tip you see how to set that property.  Since the material library is much more complete now, I believe the importance of knowing about this option is greater than ever.  The image below shows a preview of the property linking.

The Materials database now opens in a separate window.  The SolidWorks Materials in the database are read-only.  You can create Custom Materials which are fully customizable.  One of the enhancements to the interface is how easy it is to use a SolidWorks Material to create Custom Materials with simple Copy/Paste operations.  Creating Categories and folder structure is now much easier as well.  If you use SolidWorks Simulation (formally called COSMOS) you probably are very familiar with the fact that the SolidWorks based Material list was not NEAR as extensive as the materials library found in the Simulation products.  That is no longer the case.  The SolidWorks based Materials have now been TRULY unified with the Simulation library which results in a MUCH larger material selection straight out of the box for SolidWorks Users.  Those materials of course can be used in Simulations as it has in the past.  The point is that there is no longer a need in the Simulation interface to look for a more expanded set of materials.  The Favorites tab in the Materials database allows you to now control the items listed in the SolidWorks FeatureManager for quick selection (without having to open the database window).  Previously this list was based on recent materials used.  Below is a screenshot of the Materials interface.

Click on the image below to view the Video Tip.

Stay tuned….more to come!

I have switched the Comment system for this Blog over to DISQUS.  If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed that I have been pondering this for a few weeks.  After having to moderate 37 “undesirable” comments today (I’m not going to say the word) I decided to go ahead and make the move.  It looks like most if not all of my Legacy Comments have been imported, so I would say so far it is a success!

DISQUS has some really cool features.  I would highly encourage you to register a profile at the DISQUS site.  If your register, you can create an avatar that is viewable on this site and most other Blogs using DISQUS.  One of the REALLY cool features is that you can go to the DISQUS site and view comments you left on any of the Disqus Community Blogs all in one place!  You can also see if there have been any replies to your Comments since DISQUS is commonly setup with a threaded theme.  SolidSmack, The SW Geek, & SolidWorks Heard! are also running Disqus.  Thanks to all of those guys for answering some of my questions!

Other Happenings

I’m in the final leg of a project that is taking up most of my time outside of work.  If you follow me on Twitter….you probably know already what it is.  I’ll post more about it in the coming weeks.  Later in the Fall I plan to finish up the Mach 4 Racer that is shown in my Blog Header image and then make it available to anyone who wants it!

Stay tuned….more to come!

I’m sure if you have read any of the SolidWorks Blogs in the past couple of weeks, you have probably heard of the new Custom Properties Task Pane window in SolidWorks 2009.  The interface for this window is completely customizable.  SolidWorks includes an application called Property Tab Builder that allows you to design the interface so that you can enter custom properties in Parts, Assemblies, and Drawings in a manner that best matches your company’s engineering processes.  A screen shot of the Property Tab Builder is shown below.

Some GREAT news with this is that you can COMBINE this new functionality with the new Title Block Wizard in Drawings.  This Video Tip focuses more on how the two can interact together rather than how to build the Task Pane or Title Block Window.  I will have posts in the coming weeks that will reveal more details on how you can setup these new features.  Click the image below to watch the video.

Stay tuned….more to come!

SolidWorks Developer Greg Leuenberger has posted an EXCELLENT video showing off MANY of the details of PhotoView 360.  You can click on the image above to view the streaming version or click HERE to download a zipped version of the video.

The video is a little over 28 minutes long…which is perfect for viewing during a lunch break!  Watching Greg’s video has made me want a workstation with an 8 core processor!  You’ll see what I mean when you view the video! 

Stay tuned…more to come!

No, SolidWorks 2009 has NOT exploded.  But it has now “officially” burst onto the scene this week with SolidWorks posting their SolidWorks 2009 Launch site and Industry Magazines putting out stories.

The SolidWorks 2009 Launch site is action packed with at least 10 different videos posted on new features and behind the scenes happenings.  There’s also 5 new Whitepapers (which I have had NO time to read yet) posted.

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a NEW CAD magazine out called Develop3D.  CAD Industry veterans Al Dean and Martyn Day (among others) are the driving force behind it.  Their latest issue for July/August 2008 has an article on SolidWorks 2009 authored by the “slightly eccentric” Josh Mings of SolidSmack.  Go to the Develop3D site and subscribe for FREE.

Another industry publication that’s got an article on SolidWorks 2009 is the Canadian based Design Engineering magazine.  Ben Eadie of SolidMentor penned their SolidWorks 2009 Review.  Thanks for the link Ben!

Wait…there’s MORE!  Rob Rodriguez posted a GREAT interview with the 3 time SolidWorks Beta Contest winner and multiple time PhotoWorks Contest winner Lin Shaodun.  Lin has not just “eeked out” wins in the Beta Contest.  He usually wins by a LARGE margin.  Congratulations to Lin for winning the contest (AGAIN) this year and to Rob for posting the interview.

Stay tuned….more to come!

Last Friday I had the pleasure of participating in a SolidWorks 2009 Roundtable discussion podcast over at SolidWorks Heard!.  The podcast episode has been posted and you can listen to it by clicking HERE.

Thanks to Lou Gallo of SolidWorks Heard! for inviting Josh Mings (SolidSmack), Jason Raak (Rocksolid Perspective), and myself to participate in a discussion of the new features in SolidWorks 2009.  Mike Puckett and Alex Ruiz were scheduled to be there but couldn’t make it due to some last minute conflicts.

If you are an iTunes user you can Subscribe to SolidWorks Heard! for your iPod, iPod Touch, or iPhone.  Lou has been by far the most prolific SolidWorks “podcaster” around.  Check it out!

Stay tuned….more to come!

New in SolidWorks 2009 is the Sketch Slot feature.  This sketch entity allows you to quickly create both Straight Slots and Arc Slots in a variety of creation methods.  When you use this type of sketch entity and an Extrude Boss or Cut is created from it, a temporary axis is created not only at the arc center points, but also at the center point of the slot.  The PropertyManager for the Slot sketch entity is shown below.

Click on the image below to see a quick video demonstration on the various methods available to create a Sketch Slot.

Stay tuned…more to come!

A few months back I Blogged about some of the new options in the SolidWorks Knowledge Base.  Well, the folks at SolidWorks are at it again.  I went to the Customer Portal last night to do a Knowledge Base search and notice MORE new options!  I’m not sure how new they are but I certainly haven’t seen or heard about it yet!

The front page for the Knowledge Base has received some attention.  I’ve got to admit it was a bit plain with little description as to what it actually was previously.  For the first time I have seen, it refers to the Knowledge Base as the SolidWorks “KB” ….interesting.  :-)  The front page has an explanation of what types of information is included in the KB search.  SPR’s (Software Performance Requests - Bugs), and Solutions which have been included in the search in the past have been joined by Service Requests (SR), SolidWorks websites, & Documentation.  Below is an image of the new front page.

Once you type in a keyword and hit search you’ll find some nice new options on the left side of the screen.  You can refine the search results by Data Source, Product, Area, Sub Area, & Status.  Note that the main Data Sources are still from SPRs and Solutions.  Another VERY nice feature is the ability to sort the results “Oldest to Newest” or “Newest to Oldest”.

This was already a great tool to find solutions or answers to questions quickly and it seems to be getting better and better!

Stay tuned…more to come!

Yesterday I posted a Sneak Peek of PhotoView 360 and today I am posting a First Look of PhotoView 360.  PhotoView 360 Beta is now available for download at the Customer Portal so the rest of the NDA has been lifted.  I can now talk about all aspects of the program.  I honestly didn’t think it would happen this quick so you get the First Look review today which will highlight some of the features of the software.  I’ll post some more in-depth stuff in the coming days.  I’m sure my buddy Rob Rodriguez will be posting some stuff on his Blog too.  Ok…let’s jump right in!  Below is a screen shot of the main User Interface (UI) window of PhotoView 360.

As you can see the UI is VERY simple.  The image you see above is the render preview image.  This is a view of the model that you can rotate, pan, zoom, zoom fit, and box zoom.  It is important to set your floor in SolidWorks as this is the floor setting that PhotoView takes.  The nice thing about this is that it makes rotation of the model easy.  There is no way you can get your model turned upside down.  With PhotoView 360 you can apply Materials through a drag and drop interface.  You also have several different Environments that can be loaded.  Environments carry the background, floor, and lighting setups.  Lets start with the Materials.  When you click the Materials button shown above, a separate window containing the Material selections opens.  The main UI window opens smaller than your full screen size.  This is so that your preview window isn’t too large.  The larger the preview window, the longer it takes to update.  The Materials window is shown below.

You might notice that the Material categories look similar to Appearances in SolidWorks.  That’s because PhotoView is designed to import most of the Appearance data setup in SolidWorks.  In order for this to happen consistently, you’ll need to save your files in the SolidWorks 2009 format.  PhotoView will open files from previous versions, but will most likely have no Appearance/Material data.  Some of the Materials DO have textures and you have the ability to make some adjustments to those textures.

You have the ability to apply Materials to model Faces, Bodies, Parts, Assemblies, and Appearances in PhotoView 360.  The Appearances part of this might throw you off a bit at first but I have found it to be very useful.  When you setup Appearances in SolidWorks, your Appearances are applied in Groups.  For instance, you may apply a single Appearance to many components in an Assembly.  If you have done this, you can drag a Material over one of the components in that group with the Appearance mode selected and ALL of the components in that group will receive the Material in PhotoView.  If you set your Appearances up right in SolidWorks, it can be a timesaver in PhotoView.

When you click the Environments button in the main UI, a separate window opens in a similar manner as the Materials window.  The Environments window is shown below.

There are 15 default environments that come with the software.  I have not gotten into the software enough yet to fully understand what changes can be made to these environments but it looks like the options may be somewhat limited.  Double clicking an Environment box activates it for the model window.

I have prepared two separate videos that show PhotoView 360 in action. Click on the image below to view the first video which shows a model in SolidWorks followed by the quick setup in PhotoView 360.

The second video shows the actual rendering of the model.  I did this to show just how fast the rendering is in PhotoView 360.  Notice the two boxes in the video.  Since I have a dual core processor, PhotoView 360 is taking advantage of that and is using BOTH processors to generate the rendering.  Click on the image below to view the second video.

Below is the rendering produced in the second video.

Stay tuned….more to come!

Over the past week or so as I have been reviewing a few of the enhancements of SolidWorks 2009, I have had to hold back what is perhaps my FAVORITE new addition to SolidWorks.  Now that part of the NDA has been peeled away, lets talk about the newest product from SolidWorks.  PhotoView 360.  In case you missed it, Rob Rodriguez posted the first sneak peak on this product yesterday.  Rob is without a doubt one of the most knowledgeable PhotoWorks users on the face of the planet and his praise of this product to me speaks volumes.

PhotoView 360 is the result of a partnership announced yesterday between SolidWorks and Luxology.  So what is the best definition of PhotoView 360?  I call it “Rendering for the common man.”  Simply put you can open PhotoView and in most cases have a photorealistic rendering in under 10 minutes.  It is my belief that with the introduction of this product, many more SolidWorks users will be producing quality renderings of their SolidWorks models.  During the Alpha testing phase of the product we used PhotoView 360 to create some renderings for a client.  He had no idea what package they came from but the client loved the images and IMMEDIATELY wanted more of them.  Because of the ease of use and fast rendering speed, we could knock out quality renderings to show off concept models of consumer products in record time compared to our normal measures.  If you have been viewing this Blog since my changeover, you have actually already seen the results of PhotoView 360.  The Mach 4 racer that is part of my header was rendered in an Alpha version of PhotoView 360.  Below is one of my first renderings of the Mach 4 which I was able to produce in less than 10 minutes.

After a bit of tweaking and material experimentation I was arrived at my favorite image thus far which is the one that was used in my Blog header.  It is shown below.

Here are a few of the PhotoView 360 feature details I can reveal.  I has a realtime rendering preview that is surprisingly fast.  This allows you to see material and environmental changes quickly thus saving tons of time compared to PhotoWorks.  The user interface is very simple and straightforward.  You have several environments to choose from and the ability to apply a fairly large range of materials.  Some Appearances applied in SolidWorks haven been transferring to PhotoView 360 materials in many of the Alpha builds we have tested.  Since this product is still in Alpha, I cannot elaborate much past that and some of what I mentioned above is still subject to change.

With all the good that there is with PhotoView 360 (and there is plenty of it), it should be noted that this IS the first release of the product and there are things that it cannot do that still can only be done with PhotoWorks.  As more information is made public, I’ll post what I can here and I’m sure Rob will be all over it with full coverage on his site.

Here is another example of how quickly you can get quality images out of PhotoView 360.  The assembly shown below was originally modeled in SolidWorks 2001plus.  It’s been quite a while since I opened it so I thought this would be a great test for PhotoView 360.  All the parts of the assembly opened with a light gray color.  I applied materials to the model and produced the rendering you see below in 9 minutes.

Ok…so I didn’t just render cars.  Below is a rendering I prepared as a test for a new product we are developing at Dynetics.  Again I was able to produce this rendering in minutes and the folks in Marketing loved it!

The last three images shown below are some examples of how you can vary material properties and the environment around the model to make the exact same view look different.

Stay tuned….more to come later on PhotoView 360 as well as more SolidWorks 2009 enhancements!