Ricky Jordan's Blog » SolidWorks Tips

SolidWorks Tip: Import DXF/DWG Set Origin

Ricky Jordan — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 05:47:10 +0000

I ran across this today when importing a DXF file from a vendor. I’m not quite sure how long it has been there, but this is the first time I have noticed it.

When importing a DXF/DWG file you are presented in an import wizard with many options. The first screen is shown below.

In this case, I chose the “Import to a new part as: 2D sketch” option. Once you click next you come to a screen with an interesting new option.

In instances like the example shown above, the origin of the file is located far away from the geometry. There is now a “Define Sketch Origin” option that allows you to place the Sketch origin in a different location rather than the 2D file origin. You can use the view options to zoom in tight to the point on the model where you would like to place the sketch origin. This would be a REALLY cool option if it was able to employ ESNAPs, but for now it doesn’t. Still this can save a sometimes necessary step before importing the geometry. Below is an example of placing the Sketch Origin in a different location.

Once the file comes into SolidWorks, you can see that the sketch origin is placed correctly. (You still should do some fine tuning to make sure the geometry is perfectly centered about the origin.)

That’s all for now…stay tuned…more to come!

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SolidWorks 2011: User Interface Enhancements

Ricky Jordan — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 05:21:54 +0000

Although in general, the User Interface is the same when comparing SolidWorks 2010 to SolidWorks 2011, there are some subtle differences. Lets start with one of the most simple, yet effective enhancements. I’ll bet you thought I was going to talk about the Search capability, right? Well…not just yet. While the search enhancements certainly fits into this category, there is another feature that might even be a little more simple and effective.

The context toolbar made its debut in SolidWorks 2008. It is a short toolbar that pops up near the mouse cursor upon left clicking a model feature or feature tree item in SolidWorks. It also appears above the menu that is display when an item is right clicked. The context toolbar has remained mostly unchanged until now. In SolidWorks 2011, the Fillet & Chamfer features have been ADDED to the context toolbar. It appears when you select an edge or face in a Part File in SolidWorks. Since Fillets and Chamfers have now been added as Assembly features, they also appear when selecting edges and faces in Assemblies!

Ok…so this is a small change, but it will definitely speed up the process of adding Fillets and Chamfers to models. Perhaps the most talked about UI enhancement though has to do with Search. So many programs these days contain a search window in the upper right corner of the screen. Its simple really…Type what you want to find in the window and almost instantly you are browsing the results of the search. On more than one occasion I have “accidentally” typed a value in the “search” window in SolidWorks 2010 thinking I could search the help. (After all, this is how we do search in most web browsers…right?) In previous versions, this window only searched for models contained in your saved search paths. In SolidWorks 2011, you can set the Search window to search not just Models, but also the SolidWorks Help, Knowledge Base, and Community Forum. An example of how you set the search option is shown below.

The last of the UI enhancements I’ll cover today has to do with the appearance of icons in the PropertyManager. The differences are subtle, but the icons are presented in a more consistent manner and when possible, icons that have similar meaning in other parts of the software have been “standardized” across the program. Note the use of the Draft Feature icon for the Draft option in Boss-Extrude PropertyManager as shown in the image below.

That’s all for today. Stay Tuned…more to come!

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SolidWorks 2010: Sketch Pictures in Drawings

Ricky Jordan — Tue, 18 May 2010 03:57:42 +0000

With my schedule relaxing a bit, I’m finally back in the groove and am excited to bring some new posts to the site. This one is kind of a “reminder post” of a new feature in SolidWorks 2010 that is easy to overlook.

You can now show Sketch Pictures inserted in models on the Drawing! Below you’ll see a quick example I made of a picture frame. With the help of Realview and a nice rendering made in Photoview 360, it’s pretty easy to quickly make something that is visually appealing. The problem with an example like this is that when you take that model to a Drawing, the centerpiece (the Sketch Picture) was in the past lost.

In SolidWorks 2010, the Sketch Picture automatically comes into the Drawing and is shown in all views where the image is visible.

If you go ahead and turn on the Shaded views, you can show the full appearance in the Drawing!

Although this example is a bit “out of the norm”, this new feature might just allow you to document your designs in certain area with greater detail. The application of it is up to you!

Lots of new stuff coming…until then….stay tuned!

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SolidWorks 2010: Awesome Tables!

Ricky Jordan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 04:55:12 +0000

Sometimes when testing newer versions of Software you discover some “unreported” enhancements that really can be a time saver. That type of enhancement is the source of this post, but first we’ll take an overall look at the enhancements to Tables in SolidWorks 2010.

As reported in my SolidWorks 2010 Enhancements Highlight article, all Tables in SolidWorks 2010 now behave VERY similarly to Microsoft Excel. You can now use the Tab key and arrow keys to quickly switch between cells during data entry. In previous versions, you had to double-click EACH CELL to make a modification. This could make entering data in any type of table a painfully slow experience. Below is a link to a video that highlights the Excel behavior in tables.

Last week I got a question from one of our users concerning tables. He was working on a cable drawing that contained a couple of “custom” tables that were produced in Microsoft Excel. The tables were pasted into SolidWorks which utilizes standard Windows OLE (Object Linking/Embedding) to display the Excel information inside the SolidWorks Window. In previous versions, we stored the Microsoft Excel document inside the Design Binder of the Drawing document. The user noted that when opening a Design Binder document in SolidWorks 2010, the default behavior was now set to open Microsoft Excel WITHIN the SolidWorks Window which is similar to the behavior you see when you create or edit a Design Table.

As we were discussing the table behavior, a thought popped into my head. I wonder if I can import the Excel data into a SolidWorks General Table? Having the Table in SolidWorks will allow for easier table editing and more precise font and cell sizing options since OLE isn’t in use.

This table was HUGE. About 5 columns wide and 49 rows tall. As a test, I created a General Table that matched the column and row count. I then editing the Excel table to where I could access the data directly in Excel. I copied all the cells to the clipboard. After exiting the Excel interface, I tried pasting the data from the clipboard to the new General Table I just created. It worked! All the Font sizes and type were perfectly preserved.

So with this little trick…it won’t take very long for users to convert OLE type Excel tables to General Tables! There are lots of documented features to export tables, but nothing is shown for importing table information from a spreadsheet. Below is a link to a video that shows off the Excel Import trick.

The new table behavior is a welcome change and this little import trick really completes it.

Stay tuned….more to come!

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SolidWorks Help in your Browser!

Ricky Jordan — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:52:47 +0000

As reported here a few months back, SolidWorks 2010 introduced an option for Online Help. The Online Help has some enhanced search features which includes sorting by subject and links to the Knowledge Base. In addition to that, because it is web based, it is guaranteed to always be up to date.

Here is something new that you may not know. SolidWorks Help is available via your favorite Internet Browser! Just go to http://help.solidworks.com and you are off and running. (Note that you need to Click on “SolidWorks” to access the SolidWorks Help.) There are no logins or registrations necessary! Help files for SolidWorks Enterprise PDM, SolidWorks Workgroup PDM, SolidWorks eDrawings, & SolidWorks installation are also available. Having the help available online all the time and accessible outside of the SolidWorks application will be a great benefit to users around the world. The online help is currently available in 12 languages.

Something else to look out for is the “Feedback on this topic” link at the top right side of every page. This is a great way to give instant feedback about the Online Help content to the SolidWorks Documentation team.

Stay tuned…more to come!!

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SolidWorks 2010: Hole Wizard!

Ricky Jordan — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:09:38 +0000

It’s been a while since I have had a chance to post. I have been working some crazy hours on various projects. Hopefully some of them I can share with you one day. Its time to get back on track with introducing some of the new features of SolidWorks 2010.

Today we take a quick peek at one of my favorite enhancements in SolidWorks 2010. This is probably not one that you will find in many demos or online videos – It is minor yet major. Simple yet brilliant. Oh yeah…and probably overdue but HEY, I’m glad to finally have it.

In my previous job I trained new users of SolidWorks. The most common mistake new users would make is to NOT pre-select a planar face or reference plane before entering the Hole Wizard command. This would force them to define their hole points in a 3DSketch which meant that extra relations were required to fully define the placement of the points. Unless you are placing a hole on a curved surface, a 2D Sketch is very much the preferred method!

SolidWorks 2010 now defaults to a 2D placement plane for all Hole Wizard Holes. If the user fails to pre-select the plane, then SolidWorks asks the user to define it rather than assuming a 3D placement is needed. The 3D Sketch placement option is still available….just not the default when you choose not to pre-select. Follow the video link below to see a quick demo of this simple yet soon to be popular enhancement!

Stay tuned….much more to come!

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ALL NEW SolidWorks Community (Forum)

Ricky Jordan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:56:22 +0000

Users of the SolidWorks Forums were treated to a NICE upgrade today with the launch of the revamped forum which has been renamed to “SolidWorks Community”. With the new features of the forum, I feel like the new name fits nicely. Just about everything in the forum has been enhanced. I’ve listed my top enhancements below:

MANY Enhanced posting options which include posting YouTube and Vimeo videos directly in thread replies
Document posting
Additional Profile options
Bookmarks
Ability to add Friends (Ok..yeah…a little “Facebookish” but cool.)
History
A multitude of browsing options
Customizable “Your View” start page
Implementation of Tags
Blogs! (This one really got Matt excited.)
Better organization of subjects (communities)
Enhanced Search and sorting options

I’ve probably forgot a few, but these were the my highlights anyway. The speed of the forum has been a little sticky for some, but most of the browsing I have done tonight has resulted in pages loading at what I consider an acceptable speed. There were some concerns raised that only subscription service customers could use the new forums (since the login is now tied to the Customer Portal). SolidWorks has assured that folks off subscription can still participate. (After perusing a few other blogs tonight it looks like there are a few non-subscription customers having trouble accessing the new site, but I’m sure with the policy statement made by SolidWorks, those issues will be corrected.)

Signatures that many users are accustomed to (appears at the bottom of a thread post) are gone but the information that was normally contained in a signature can be easily found on the user profile page. The nice thing about this is that it cuts down on some of the “vertical real estate” which results in a little less scrolling on those long winded discussion topics.

I was pondering doing some videos showing off the new features but it looks like Greg Jankowski has already done it! In fact, he has created the Getting Started Docs page in the forum that guides you through the enhancements along with some YouTube video posts.

I have taken the liberty to embed the videos below. If you are a forum user I recommend you check out the Getting Started Docs page as it contains some additional information that is not included in the raw video feeds I am showing below.

(NOTE: I normally don’t embed YouTube videos but thought this was pretty cool. My apologies to the folks behind the corporate Websense firewall that can’t see them)

A BIG thanks to Greg for creating these!

Stay tuned….more to come!

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SolidWorks Electrical Routing – Part 2

Ricky Jordan — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:20:12 +0000

Most users of SolidWorks Electrical Routing use the product to determine wire & route lengths. This video is a direct followup to the Part 1 video. In this segment, we will take the 3D Electrical Harness that we created in Part 1 and make some modifications to the route itself to better fit our design intent. Along with that we’ll show you how you can add wires to your electrical route which will give you accurate cut lengths for the individual wires and/or cable conductors that make up your harness. The method shown is the “manual” method which is necessary when you create a route “on the fly”. Click on the image below to play the video.

Part 3 of this series of posts will cover creating an Electrical Cable/Harness using a From/To list. There is a little more setup involved, but the automation is GREAT, which results in faster route creation.

Stay tuned…more to come!

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SolidWorks Electrical Routing – Part 1

Ricky Jordan — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:03:07 +0000

After talking about it for quite some time here on the site, today marks the first installment on a series of posts on SolidWorks Electrical Routing. In this first example I guide you halfway through the creation of an Electrical Harness using what I call the “on the fly” method. This particular method is often used when you don’t have any electrical wiring information to import in the form of a “From/To” list. In this example we have an electrical enclosure that contains several connectors along with some terminal block connections. We know in general where the signals are routing from and to, but don’t yet have any detail on the number of signals or any pin to pin connections. This is a quick way to get some accurate wire lengths.

I originally wanted to continue on and show how to manually insert electrical wires in this harness, but the length of the video would be almost doubled. We will save that for Part 2! In later posts I’ll go into some of the important details of the Routing package which include more information on the sub-assembly structure, Connection Points, Route Points, and special in-context capabilites that are only present in the routing package. To watch Part 1 simple click on the image below to load the video.

The videos on this site should be much improved now in the way the flash video loads thanks to a recent upgrade to Camtasia Studio 6. Let me know if you have any problems viewing it. I still have a few new things in store for the videos in the future as I get time to explore some new tools at my disposal.

Stay tuned….more to come!

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SolidWorks Video Tip: Roll View

Ricky Jordan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:56:35 +0000

I’m sure all of us have had this happen before. You stroll around through the UI of your favorite software package and find a button that somehow you have missed seeing before. I have never claimed to know everything there is to know about SolidWorks, but I do know my way around a bit. After serving as Technical Editor for three books on SolidWorks, I somehow have overlooked this little viewing tool, so I thought I would share it.

The viewing tool I’m talking about is the Roll View option. It is available in the Right Mouse button menu in the graphics area. It allows you to roll the model about an axis pointing normal to the viewing plane. (The axis is coming out of your screen.) Here’s a short video showing it off.

Alright folks, fess up! If you have never noticed this viewing tool before, leave me a comment. I’ll bet I’m not the only one!

I’ve got some other stuff in the works and will be picking up a USB microphone this week so I can start posting videos with voice again to the site. My next “series” of posts will be about SolidWorks Routing. This is something I have wanted to do for the site for quite some time and I’m looking forward to sharing some tips with you that will hopefully simplify the mystique that seems to surround that product at times.

SolidWorks 2010 Beta testing is going well. As soon as the NDA is lifted I’ll have some videos ready to roll out that show off the new functionality.

Stay tuned…more to come!

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