SolidWorks, The CAD Industry, & More!

As I was channel surfing this morning I ran across a program on the Military Channel called Backyard to Battlefield.  I came in about halfway through the episode but it IMMEDIATELY caught my attention.  If you are not familiar with the show it features “outsider” defense contractors made up of small teams that are often times working out of their garages or workshops.  This of course is a stark contrast to the more common (and MUCH larger) military contractors.

The show featured two projects that were VERY interesting.  It turns out that BOTH of them were designed in SolidWorks!  The Howe brothers of Howe and Howe Technologies from Maine have designed a truly remarkable vehicle called the Ripsaw MS1.  Even though it has “tank like” tread, it’s design enables it to handle almost any terrain and reach speeds around 80 mph!  You can see it in action in this YouTube Video.

Click the image to watch the video!

So how did I know it was designed in SolidWorks?  A quick look at some of the Deleted Scenes on the Military Channel website shows how they design and fabricate some of the structural tubing for the frame.  It appears that they are using the Weldment functionality inside of SolidWorks to design the entire main portion of the frame!  What was facinating to me was how they were taking some of the structural tubing with complex intersection cuts and converting them to sheet metal parts to get a flat pattern of the cut.  This profile was then fed to a CNC laser cutter!  That is quite an innovative approach!  You might also recognize the PhotoWorks background in one of the images above.  Since I missed the first half of the show there may have been more scenes showing insight into the design process.  I’ll be queuing up the DVR for the next time it comes on! (Wednesday October 15th at 2:00pm EST in case you are wondering.)

The second project show was the BEAR life saving robot from Vecna Robotics.  The BEAR is designed to balance itself on two legs while picking up a 200 pound mannequin (or later on an injured soldier)!  It uses hydrualic power in combination with various tracks to rescue wounded soldiers in the field.  Towards the end of the episode the BEAR team discovers a failure in one of the hydraulic units.  One of the team engineers is then shown bringing up the SolidWorks model of the hydraulic unit and the results of a SolidWorks Simulation study that predicts a high stress in the area where the cylinder ruptured.  The BEAR team also used physics based simulation programs to predict how the robot would perform based on the programmed movements.  Very cool stuff!

According to the Military Channel website, this is the premiere episode of the series.  This looks like a show you want to keep your eye on for sure.  Also - For all of you Discovery Channel geeks out there - Don’t miss the premiere of Prototype this coming up this Wednesday.  You can check out Josh Ming’s post over at SolidSmack about that series HERE.

Stay tuned….more to come!

No…I’m not talking about Saturday Night Live.  They have had some pretty darned funny skits on the Presidential candidates lately though….but I digress.  I’m talking about the SolidWorks Network License (SNL).  If you wish to upgrade to SolidWorks 2009 in the next few weeks, you will need to download a temporary network license file to use.

You can find the temporary license file by logging into the Customer Portal and searching the Knowledge Base with the keywords “SolidWorks 2009 License File”.  The first entry in the search results should be the one you are looking for.  The license file will last until October 31, 2008.  By then the SolidWorks 2009 license files should be available.  When the permanent license files become available you should be able to download it from the Customer Portal via the “My Products” link.

Stay tuned…more to come!

We had a special guest at our North Alabama SolidWorks Users Group (NASWUG) meeting last week.  Follow the links below to check out the write up and some images from the meeting.  SolidWorks User Groups are a GREAT way to learn more about SolidWorks and network with your peers.  If you aren’t currently involved in a SolidWorks User Group, check out the SWUGN site to find a group near you!

NASWUG September 2008 Meeting Notes

NASWUG September 2008 Meeting Photos

If you click on the image above it will take you to a website that will allow you to sign up for a Free 30 day evaluation copy of SolidWorks Premium 2009.  Unfortunately for some folks, this offer is only available to those in the United States.  If anything changes with that, I’ll post it here.

At the same time you can get some free entertainment in the form of some comic strip style cartoons showing the advantages of 3D design (using SolidWorks Premium of course).

As soon as you sign up SolidWorks will mail you a DVD containing the software.  You can also request a Live demo if you like.

Getting evaluation copies of SolidWorks has in the past been handled mostly on a case by case basis by the SolidWorks Resellers.  I’m glad to see there is another option out there for those interested in test driving SolidWorks!

SolidWorks 2009 has been out long enough now that most of the “major” enhancements have probably been talked about on quite a few sites across the web.  Here’s an enhancement that I have noticed hasn’t gotten much press.  That enhancement is the ability to restructure Bills of Materials (BOM) in Drawings.

This video tip will show a simple example of this new capability that for some companies could be a game changer.  I know that is an awfully big statement, but think about a situation where for assembly speed reasons, sub-assemblies are used in SolidWorks, yet build procedures call for parts and assemblies to be grouped differently.  This functionality can support these instances.  I’ve only tested it on a few assemblies, but it seems to work very well and is pretty easy to pick up.  Click on the link below to see the Video Tip.

The Convert to Sheet Metal feature is a new tool available in SolidWorks 2009 that allows you to quickly create Sheet Metal parts from an existing solid model.  Click on the link below to see this new tool in action.

The voice over is getting better….still some room for improvement though!

Stay tuned….more to come!

Well, after a week in the HOT sun of Orlando, Florida at Walt Disney World, I’m finally back and ready to get back to Blogging.  There was quite a bit going on last week in the World of SolidWorks both stateside & at the SolidWorks press event in Barcelona.  I’m sure you’ve read many of the details of the press event from the SolidWorks Blog Squad.  The biggest news stateside was the release of SolidWorks 2009 SP0.  Now that the software is officially released, all customers can implement SolidWorks 2009 with full support from SolidWorks and its Resellers.  You can download it now at the Customer Portal.  I haven’t heard anything official yet, but I assume that the SolidWorks 2009 DVDs will be shipping soon.  For full company wide implementation, I still recommend that you wait for your DVDs to arrive.  I’ll post my annual implementation recommendations as soon as the DVDs start to arrive.

I just got SolidWorks 2009 installed tonight and the Installation Manager worked perfectly for me.  I’m still using SolidWorks 2008 where I work, but we will be looking to upgrade to 2009 as soon as we finish our current projects.

Stay tuned…more SolidWorks 2009 posts coming soon!

It’s been a busy year and is time for an overdue VACATION!!  I leave early tomorrow morning for Walt Disney World.  I’ll be there for 1 complete fun filled week!  More than likely you won’t see any posts out of me until I get back.  I’m sure some of my fellow Blog Squad members will keep you busy with their coverage of the SolidWorks Press Event next week so make sure you are on the lookout for that.

Stay tuned….more to come! (When I get back!  )

Being involved in the SolidWorks Community connects you with many great people doing great things.  A few years back in a former life as a SolidWorks AE I met Matt Rece who was at that time working at SolidWorks in Technical Support.  I’ve kept in contact with Matt through the years and get to work with him from time to time as he is now the SolidWorks Territory Technical Manager for my area.

Matt along with several SolidWorks and Dassault Simula employees recently participated in the Pan Massachusetts Challenge which is a charity bike ride across Massachusetts to benefit cancer research.  The ride is a 192 mile trek from Sturbridge, MA to Province Town, MA out on the tip of Cape Cod.  Each rider on the 2 day 192 mile route must commit to raising at least $4000 dollars by Oct. 1st.  Here’s a picture of Matt at the PMC.  (He is the tall guy on the left.)

We’ve all lost loved ones or acquaintances to cancer at some point in our lives so if you would like to make a donation for Matt’s ride, click on the link below to make an eDonation.

http://www.pmc.org/mypmc/profiles.asp?Section=story&eGiftID=MR0121

It’s a great ride for a great cause.

This SolidWorks Video Tip shows off an option that is easy to miss when applying Tangent Relations between Splines and Lines.  If you right click on a Tangent Relation between a line and a spline, you have the option to flip the direction of Tangency via the “Flip Relation” option.  As the video will show, this option can also be applied to Equal Curvature relations between lines and splines.  The image below shows the “Flip Relation” option.

This is the first video tip I have produced that includes VOICE.  I ask you to bear with me on this as my microphone and Camtasia settings still need a little tweaking.  Towards the end of the video the voice gets a little ahead of the video.  Click on the link below to watch the video.

Stay tuned….more to come!