Ricky Jordan's Blog » SolidWorks World

SolidWorks World 2012 Top Ten List

Ricky Jordan — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 14:43:50 +0000

The SolidWorks World 2012 Top Ten List candidates are posted. You can log in to the SolidWorks Forums (link provided above – click the picture) and vote your favorite ideas up or down. Idea submission is already closed but voting will be open right up until just before SolidWorks World 2012 begins.

For the sixth consecutive year, I’ll be covering SolidWorks World as a member of the press, so stay tuned for more updates. In the coming weeks I’ll share some thoughts prior to the start of the conference in regards to what I think we might see. Stay tuned…more to come!

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SolidWorks 2012 Sneak Peek

Ricky Jordan — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 02:15:01 +0000

One of the favorite parts for many attendees at SolidWorks World each year is the Sneak Peek preview of the upcoming SolidWorks release. This year at SolidWorks World 2011, we all got a Sneak Peek of SolidWorks 2012. Like many years in the past, the new features were revealed in the form of a “skit”. This year it was CAD COPS. (Themed after the popular Fox show “COPS”. I’ve got to say this was probably the funniest one yet. Anyhow, let’s get started reviewing the enhancements. I’ve provided as much detail as I could as they were presented VERY FAST.

You can pin your most commonly used files inside the Recent Documents dialog. You can also open the folders those files are in from the dialog as well. (All of this is available from the file menu as well.)

You can now change units with the Units Switcher in the right side of the status bar. (Can change on the fly anytime.)

Sheet metal flanges now have the option to be set to “Parallel to base flange” instead of vertex which allows for better control when flange angles change.

You can now reference the outside tangency to ensure flange lengths stay the same and corners close properly

Easier placement of Form Tools. You can also dynamically flip, rotate and utilize configurations of your forms! (Thumbs up for sure on the configurations!)

You can now select faces to ignore when unfolding sheet metal parts.

New Swept Flange feature for Sheet Metal (Wasn’t able to get a picture of this one.)

Place one diameter dimension and the sketch automatically locks into diameter dimension mode.

Equation Editor is all new. There is a single dialog box and the software not AUTOMATICALLY calculates the solve order. There are several different views incorporated such as Category, Dimension, & Ordered view. You can access ALL dimensions of a part from a list as well. File properties, functions, & global variables are all available from drop down boxes. You can also utilize the Measure tool from within the Equation Editor to create a reference dimension on the fly which can be used as part of the equation.

Exploded views are now available from the Drawing Pallette. They can also be enabled in the PropertyManager or from the Right Mouse Button Menu. (In current versions, the option to show an Exploded view is buried in the view properties dialog box.)

Bill of Materials can now be created without pre-selecting any views.

Balloons have several enhancements. You can Auto-Balloon sequentially. This will allow you to pick the location of your item 1 balloon and then your balloons follow in sequential item number order around the view (the placement shape is still based on standard Auto-Balloon options). The whole setup appears to be very configurable and will allow you to make adjustments to the balloon sequencing on the fly with all associated Balloons and Bills of Materials dynamically updating.

Balloons now have magnet lines. This is a very popular feature of 3dvia Composer. Balloons can be positioned along a magnet line and you have complete control over the spacing along that line.

View labels are now automatically re-used when views are deleted.

Centermarks can now be automatically inserted at any time for an entire view. (Not just during view creation.) You still have a variety of options for the insertion.

3dvia Composer has enhanced realtime rendering tools which result in a higher quality display image. There is also a Compass tool which helps you navigate and change the appearances of your models.

3dvia Composer also now features BOM highlighting. This allows the user to highlight components in a BOM by hovering over the corresponding components in the model view.

Much like the Magnet Lines mentioned earlier, SolidWork has incorporated some other 3dvia Composer functions. One of which is pressing the Tab key to hide components in an assembly.

SolidWorks 2012 includes a brand new Costing Tool. It analyzes the model (including the features) and gives breakdowns of cost by manufacturing process. It even includes areas where machine setup costs can be input so that quantity adjustments can update the individual component cost. All of this is based on templates which can be modified using an included Template Editor.

Simulation now supports motion sensors and Design Studies support motion simulation. Optimization is also now available in motion simulation.

There is a new Large Design Review mode which allows you to open large assemblies in seconds. (it was described as Quickview on steroids). When opened in this mode the assembly can be navigated as if it were a small assembly. Zooming and panning is also smooth. You can create or reuse Walk throughs and have full interactivity with the FeatureManager Designtree. Hide/Show status can be set from the tree or the graphics area. You can also use the Section View tool while in this mode! Components and sub-assemblies can be opened with full editing capabilities. If you modify the component or sub-assembly and Save it, it will update the Large Assembly already open in Large Design Review mode.

During the SolidWorks World Top Ten Enhancement requests, it was mentioned that the “Freeze Feature” that was shown at SolidWorks World 2010 will be included as part of the SolidWorks 2012 release. (It was in early SolidWorks 2011 alpha builds but was not included in the final SolidWorks 2011 release after some user feedback to questions posted in the SolidWorks Forums. It was held back primarily so that more features and options could be added to it (including support for configurations).

Probably my personal favorite is the Large Design Review mode. If all of the features described make it into the final release, it will be BIG for those with MANY components. Having the Units Switcher in the Status bar is my other favorite. (Sometimes it’s the little things that can make a difference.)

That’s all for now….stay tuned….I’ll post a synopsis of the rest of the Wednesday General Session soon.

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SolidWorks World 2011 General Session Tuesday

Ricky Jordan — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:35:55 +0000

The Tuesday General Session is now over and SolidWorks World is nearing it’s halfway point. The focus of today’s session was on The SolidWorks User Groups and SolidWorks Customer Stories.

Fielder Hiss led off the with an award for HP who is a platinum sponsor for SolidWorks World. He then introduced Richard Doyle, User Community Manager for SolidWorks to present this year’s SWUGN awards.

The User Group of the Year was won by the Chicago SolidWorks User Group. The award was accepted by group leader Denny Bahl. The User Group Leader of the Year award was one by Ed Gebo of the Connecticut SolidWorks User Group. I met Ed for the first time this year and I couldn’t think of a better guy to win this award. Congratulations Ed!

The session shifted to a bit of a somber note as we remembered one of the SWUGN founders, Michelle Pillers, who lost her battle with Cancer last year. Phil Sluder and Richard Doyle both talked about the early days of SWUGN (It was called SNUG) and how inspirational and helpful Michelle was in getting SolidWorks User Groups and Forums started. She will be missed.

SWUGN has created a new award and has named it in Michelle’s honor. The first recipient of the Michelle Pillers SWUGN Community Award is Wayne Tiffany! Wayne is a SolidWorks World veteran, longtime User Group Leader & SWUGN Regional Rep, and participant in the SolidWorks Forums. Congratulations Wayne!

Next up was SolidWorks Founder and Group Executive Jon Hirschtick. Over the last couple of years Jon has visited SolidWorks customers and brought their stories to SolidWorks World. This year Jon brought the VERY FIRST SolidWorks customer on stage. His name is Bill Townsend. He is the Founder, President & CEO of Barrett Technology, Inc. Bill’s company manufactures force feedback robot arms that measure interaction with people and react directly to them. There are many applications for these robots. To make them have the smoothest possible torques, Bill’s company developed drives that use cables instead of gears. They also solved many wiring problems by putting the motor and encoder for the drives into a densely packed PCB design about the size of a large coin. This allowed the controls to be mounted onto the drives (because of their size) rather than existing inside a large enclosure. Wiring was reduced from over 100 wires to 4! Very impressive.

The next guest Jon brought out was Rony Abovitz, Founder & Chief Visionary Officer, MAKO Surgical Corp. He is somewhat of a customer of Barrett Technology. He used Bill’s Robots to build his first generation robots that assisted surgery. That was the basis for his current RIO Robotic arm line which is 100% designed and manufactured by MAKO. Robotic Assisted Surgery is a type of surgery that is an alternative to a full Knee Replacement. MRI based 3D images of the patients knee is developed and brought into SolidWorks via point cloud data. Custom supports for the knee were developed and manufactured. Since the robots know the geometry of the knee, they assist the surgeon with the surgery. There have been over 6,000 surgeries to date!

Samuel Brooks, an actual patient who has had this surgery came onto the stage to share his story. He walked only two hours after his surgery and was playing golf 3 days after!

The next customer brought onstage was Local Motors. This company supports the first Open-Source Designed Car, the Rally Fighter. The design of the car is a collaborative, 3D based process in which users submit designs via SolidWorks models. All models developed as part of the project are available for download both during the design process and once the design is complete. They get proven engines, transmissions, and other components from GM, Ford, Chrysler, and other automotive suppliers an develop the car around it. (They have a process in which they are able to acquire NURBS or Mesh based models of the objects to supper the project.) Many of the designs are competitions with prizes (like seats of SolidWorks) given away to the winner.

Darren Henry, Director of Marketing for SolidWorks was up next to introduce Casey Pieretti and Bill Spracher, hosts of the upcoming Discovery Channel show, Bionic Builders. Casey lost is right leg below the knee but is honestly one of the most active people I’ve seen. His career choice might surprise you as is Hollywood stuntman. Bill is a design engineer, and together with Casey, has designed a variety of leg attachments to help Casey accomplish a variety of tasks. Casey’s quote was: “I don’t want to be enabled…I want to be super-enabled.” The show will be about building attachments that not just MATCH normal human performance, but EXCEED it in many ways.

This looks like it is going to be another MUST SEE show for me on Discovery Channel.

Theres only one more General Session left (tomorrow morning) and it is going to be a BIG ONE. This is where they will reveal new products and give us a sneak peek at future products. I’m hopping that most of the General Session tomorrow will be spent on this as this is a VERY BIG DEAL to the users at this event (and following along at home as well).

Stay tuned…more to come!

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SolidWorks World Monday General Session

Ricky Jordan — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 14:29:40 +0000

The first General Session is over and WOW we have had quite the beginning to SolidWorks World.

Jeff Ray kicked off the event by sharing how companies using SolidWorks assisted in the rescue of the miners trapped in Chile in 2010. SolidWorks customer Center Rock designs and manufactures drill bits that were used to drill the Option B hole. When the drill bit snapped, the Center Rock team designed a new drill bit onsite in SolidWorks and was able to get the newly designed bit manufactured back at the factory in 3 days! (Normally this would take 4 weeks.)

Oakley (also a SolidWorks customer) provided sunglasses for the mine workers so that their retinas would not be damaged due to lack of sunlight for so long.

Jeff also showed of the a device that helps treat jaundice in infants called the Firefly. This is the second product brought show at SolidWorks World by Design that Matters. (The previous was a neonatal unit made from recycled parts shown at SolidWorks World 2009.)

There are 100 newly Certified SolidWorks users who obtained their certification at the conference! A small group of users who have attended every SolidWorks World since 1999 were recognized. (Congrats to Phil Sluder for being one of those users!)

Halliburton employee and SolidWorks user Joe Lance brought 33 people to the conference! (pretty impressive!)

Draftsight has now been downloaded 300,000 times and has been activated 66,000 times.

Now – For those of you who are following the whole SolidWorks Cloud discussion. New SolidWorks CEO Bertrand Sicot was introduced on stage and one of the first things he said was that SolidWorks will ALWAYS support Desktop, Online, & Mobile platforms. Very interesting statement. (More on that later.)

Bernard Charles also made an appearance onstage and showed off the new post3d product. It allows users to import their products into a virtual 3d environment so that they can show their designs in a virtual reality setup. (More on this later as well.) Check it out at post3d.com

Jeremy Lucchini and Bernard showed off the product which included the Lets Go Design Ultimate CAD Chair.

Gene Kranz and Jim Lovell were up next. Gene provided a brief background of the space program up to Apollo 13 and then went into many specifics of the mission. Part of that background was some details on how the Apollo fire effected the entire program and particularly how it affected mission control. He also talked about what it took to be part of Mission Control in that era. “Failure is Not an Option” was the motto. Jim Lovell came out about halfway through and began describing what was happening inside the spacecraft. (I thought this was an excellent way to organize the presentation.) He started with a little background leading up to the mission and then gave a descriptions of the events of that fateful flight. Jim and Gene closed out the presentation describing the 5 series of events that led to the explosion onboard Apollo 13.

It was a GREAT General Session. Without a doubt my favorite speaker presentation EVER at SolidWorks World.

I’ve posted MANY photos over on the Flickr Group. So make sure you check it out.

Stay tuned…much more to come!

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SolidWorks and “Space”

Ricky Jordan — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 05:30:53 +0000

A couple of weeks ago there were two “Space” related SolidWorks announcements. I have a personal interest in both of them (one more so than the other). So here goes, let’s take them on one by one.

Apollo 13 Heroes to Headline SolidWorks World 2011

Apollo 13 Commander Capt. James Lovell and Apollo Flight Director Gene Kranz are coming to SolidWorks World 2011 in San Antonio and will be on stage TODAY at Monday’s General Session. Getting to hear first hand accounts of not only the Apollo 13 mission, but the Apollo program itself and the moon race is going to be a once in a lifetime occasion for many in attendance. If you aren’t familiar with what happened to Apollo 13 (there might be a few of you out there), the crew was nearly lost in space when an oxygen tank exploded while the spacecraft (and crew) were on the way to the moon. Just how they were able to make it back home, is one of the most amazing stories ever told. Someone pointed out over on the SolidWorks Blog that this was indeed the 13th SolidWorks World. Very fitting.

To say I was thrilled when I heard this announcement would probably be an understatement. As a kid growing up just north of Atlanta, I was a “Space Nut”. For a good many years, I lived and breathed space travel history. At one point, I could name every mission from Mercury to Apollo. I read every book I could get my hands on about the space program. Getting to see the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville (I now live 8 minutes from it ), Kennedy Space Center, and the Smithsonian National Air and Space museum were three childhood memories I’ll never forget. As the years grew on and life and other hobbies took interest, I always had space exploration in the back of my mind. So why do I mention this? Well this kinda sets the scene for the second SolidWorks “Space” related announcement.

Rocket City Space Pioneers Rely on SolidWorks to “Power” Their Entry in the Google Lunar X PRIZE

This one has a bit MORE of a personal note for me, because I am a member of the Rocket City Space Pioneers team! Dynetics (the company I work for) is leading this team of Huntsville companies on a mission to return to the moon with a lunar lander and rover as part of the Google Lunar X PRIZE. I’m very appreciative that SolidWorks is on board as a mission sponsor to help make that happen. Getting to the moon is no small task, but we are very much looking forward to the challenge. Our team is only a few months old, but we’ve already won successfully won contracts for the NASA ILDD program. There are many other things going on that I can’t talk about yet, but will be able to in the near future.

Thats all for now….stay tuned…more to come from SolidWorks World 2011!

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SolidWorks World Monday General Session

First Announcement: SolidWorks n!Fuze

Ricky Jordan — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 20:55:45 +0000

Yesterday on the SolidWorks Blog, SolidWorks n!Fuze was announced. This is the long rumored and delayed “first cloud product” that was demonstrated at SolidWorks World last year. As mentioned in the article, it has gone through three name changes and has now settled in as n!Fuze.

There are a few screen shots (which I have displayed below) but really not many other details as of yet. The “teaser” is for folks to come Test Drive n!Fuze at the SolidWorks booth when the partner pavilion opens later tonight. (T-minus two hours!)

I’ve got to admit that I’m a little surprised this wasn’t saved for a reveal on the General Session stage…which makes me wonder just what else will be shown as new products while we are here. We will know a little more tomorrow. I’ll see if I can get close to the SolidWorks Booth and get some video soon. Here are the screen shots that were shown on the SolidWorks Blog.

Stay tuned…more to come!!

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New Product Announcement at SolidWorks World?

Arrival at SolidWorks World 2011

Ricky Jordan — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:38:20 +0000

Arrival at SolidWorks World is always one of the coolest parts of the trip. Getting to see friends who I haven’t seen since last year is fun and is certainly one of the highlights of the day. You also get to check out the lay of the land. Getting to scout the convention center and all of the locations of the different places we will all be visiting over the next day.

SolidWorks World is looking bigger and better than ever. I’ll be posting images to the Flickr Group as often as I can.

One of the coolest things so far was a group of 15 high school students from Tucson, AZ that were on the same plane as me. They are here for their achievement of passing the CSWA exam!! I’ll try to get details (including the schools name later.)

Stay tuned!! More to come!

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Announcements to look for at SolidWorks World 2011

Ricky Jordan — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 04:00:08 +0000

We are still a few days away from the start of SolidWorks World, but here are a few interesting announcements coming that you’ll want to keep your eye on.

T-SPLINES FOR SOLIDWORKS

I caught this post over at SolidSmack thru Twitter a little earlier tonight (Thanks Josh!). T-Splines for SolidWorks will be introduced at SolidWorks World. T-Splines has had a very interesting product for Rhino that allows users to create extremely organic shapes. This is really the first major Surfacing related development for SolidWorks since a few years back when Boundary Surface was introduced. I’ll try to get by their booth and get some video. You can read more about the T-Splines for Rhino application in this Develop3D review.

SOLIDWORKS ON THE IPAD

This one looks interesting….although there isn’t much detail on it yet. It is from a company called CADFaster. I searched the App Store and didn’t see anything released yet though. My guess is that it is a viewer and from the description it works off of the user loading their models into a cloud based storage location. I’ll get more on this next week.

I’ll keep updating this post as I see more tidbits coming out.

Stay tuned…much more to come!

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Back in Action and Ready for SolidWorks World 2011

Ricky Jordan — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 05:23:19 +0000

For the first time in this site’s existence, I had to take a break. The last two years have brought MANY exciting changes in what I do everyday which has resulted in much LESS free time for Blogging. So with the new year upon us and SolidWorks World 2011 coming up next week, I’m excited to get things going again and hopefully won’t have to take such a long hiatus again. I’m not going to bore you to death for too long, but I’ve had some interesting things going on that I’ll briefly share with you.

Many of you who follow my me on Twitter know about the incredible journey my wife has been on for about the last two years. You don’t really hear me talk about it much publicly, but that doesn’t reflect at all of how incredible proud our family is of her and the wonderful things she has gotten to share with her readers both through her website and her newly released book. In particular, the response from the SolidWorks Community has been awesome. Thanks to everyone for their support!

It hasn’t been the only change over the last two years. In March of 2009, I was fortunate enough to take part in a historic project for the company I work for (Dynetics). In a joint effort with NASA, we began work on FASTSAT-HSV01. FASTSAT stands for Fast Affordable Science and Technology Satellite. It was a new venture for our company and I had an incredible amount to learn in a small amount of time. Our amazing team designed and built the satellite in record time and this past November it was launched aboard STP-S26. FASTSAT is now in orbit and performing science operations. It was an incredible experience that really can’t be put into words. My work in that field continues today as we ready for future opportunities and missions. I’ll get to share one mission in particular with you later this week.

I’ve also been working on a team with a rather large task of implementing PLM & PDM solutions which does involve SolidWorks Enterprise PDM. I have been pretty hands on with the EPDM implementation and setup and have been VERY pleased with our progress!

So with all this going on…don’t think for a second that I haven’t been watching the CAD World closely. I find it fascinating watching all the CAD companies trying to jockey themselves in position for future CAD platforms. Some companies have changed their name, some have mixed old with new, and some are in the process of starting from a “clean sheet of paper”. I’ll have a SolidWorks World Preview post later this week that talks a little bit about the “New SolidWorks” or SolidWorks V6 as it has been dubbed by some. After being “shocked” with cloud news at SolidWorks World last year, things are moving along and hopefully we will get another preview of the new platform next week. There are many interesting conversations going on about it…but until we see details, it will remain largely a discussion point with many opinions and predictions only.

Well, that’s it for now….stay tuned…more to come!

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Al Predicts the Future of SolidWorks

Ricky Jordan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:43:38 +0000

If you are active in the CAD world and haven’t heard of Al Dean and Develop3D, then you are seriously missing out.

Al does a great job of looking at the MCAD Industry as a whole and his latest article lays out what I think is a spot on prediction of the future of SolidWorks. This is a must read for all SolidWorks users!

SolidWorks World 2010 – Next generation picture starts to clear

Stay tuned…more to come!

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