hot off the press…3dconnexion products support solidworks 2010
One of the most popular partner products used by SolidWorks users has to be 3Dconnexion 3D mice devices. That is why I felt that this press release was important to post for all of you. 3Dconnexion announced yesterday that their full product line of 3D mice now support SolidWorks 2010. To see all the details of this check out the press release below.
3Dconnexion 3D Mice Enhance New Design Experience in SolidWorks 2010
3D Mice Help SolidWorks 2010 Design Engineers Work Faster, Simpler and Smarter
FREMONT, Calif. – Oct. 27, 2009 – 3Dconnexion, a Logitech company, today announced that its full line of 3D mice, including the SpacePilot™ PRO flagship 3D mouse, now supports SolidWorks® 2010, the newest version of the popular 3D CAD software. 3Dconnexion 3D mice complement the new user-driven features in SolidWorks 2010 that help designers and engineers work faster and smarter.
Using 3Dconnexion’s 3D mice within SolidWorks 2010 allows professionals to navigate around their designs more intuitively, further enhancing the speed improvements made to rendering, loading parts and large assemblies in the new 3D workspace. In addition, 3D mice enable engineers working in SolidWorks 2010 to view designs from multiple angles, helping to detect errors earlier in the design process.
“3Dconnexion is committed to improving and enhancing the productivity of 3D design work, and the core design functions that have been implemented into SolidWorks 2010 echo that goal,” said Dieter Neujahr, president of 3Dconnexion. “SolidWorks 2010 paired with 3Dconnexion 3D mice provides today’s engineers a very powerful 3D design solution focused on efficiency and design performance – critical elements in bringing competitive products to market as quickly as possible.”
3Dconnexion’s 3D mice enhance new features of SolidWorks 2010. For example, when using the new Rapid Dimension Tool with a 3D mouse, designers can position drawing views and add dimensions to generate final drawings with greater ease and efficiency. In addition, 3D mice complement the functionality of new Mouse Gestures in SolidWorks 2010 for drawings, assemblies, parts, and sketches, helping engineers concentrate on design needs instead of the application environment.
“SolidWorks 2010 is focused on optimizing core design functions so users can more quickly and intelligently achieve their goals,” said Nick Iwaskow, Manager of Alliances at Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. “Using a 3Dconnexion 3D mouse with SolidWorks 2010 can help today’s engineers work even faster, simpler and smarter.”
About 3Dconnexion 3D Mice
3Dconnexion’s advanced six-degrees-of-freedom sensor technology allows designers to simultaneously maneuver 3D objects or move within 3D scenes by gently pushing, pulling, tilting or sliding the 3D mouse controller cap. Using a 3D mouse together with a traditional mouse engages both hands into a balanced and cooperative work style and provides more control than just using a standard mouse alone that is confined to motion on two flat planes. 3Dconnexion’s Professional Series of products – including the SpacePilot PRO, SpacePilot™ and SpaceExplorer™– provide another level of productivity with quick access to frequently used SolidWorks 2010 commands via customizable Intelligent Function keys.
3Dconnexion provides advanced and affordable 3D mice that are supported by more than 130 of today’s leading and powerful 3D applications. For a complete list of applications supported by 3Dconnexion, visit: www.3dconnexion.com/solutions.
Pricing and Availability
SolidWorks 2010 supports 3Dconnexion’s entire 3D mouse product line on Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, and Windows 7 (SolidWorks 2010 SP1 when Windows 7 ships). The 3Dconnexion product line, including the Professional Series with the new SpacePilot PRO (MSRP $399), SpacePilot (MSRP $299 with promotion) and SpaceExplorer (MSRP $299), and the Standard Series with the SpaceNavigator (MSRP $99) and SpaceNavigator for Notebooks (MSRP $129), are available from professional CAD resellers and major online resellers including CDW, Insight, PC Connection, and PC Mall. For a complete list of resellers or to buy directly, visit www.3Dconnexion.com.
About 3Dconnexion, A Logitech Company
3Dconnexion, a wholly owned subsidiary of Logitech (SIX: LOGN) (Nasdaq: LOGI), is the leading provider of 3D mice for 3D design and visualization. 3Dconnexion devices support today’s most popular and powerful 3D applications by offering users a more intuitive and natural way to interact with computer-generated 3D content. 3Dconnexion’s award-winning 3D mice serve a wide variety of industries and are used by 3D designers, animators and artists worldwide. 3Dconnexion is headquartered in Fremont, Calif. with European headquarters in Seefeld, Germany and offices worldwide. For more information, visit www.3Dconnexion.com.
solidworks world 2010…why you need to be there.
So the biggest event of the year, as a SolidWorks user, is coming up fast. A lot of the planning behind the scenes is going on which mean only one thing, you need to figure out a way to get to Anaheim, CA. in January. Why you might ask? Well here is a brief breakdown of the reasons I feel it is a necessary event to attend each year.
1. Learn
Why else would you go to a user conference like this right? There is no shortage when it comes to learning at this event each year. There are more breakout sessions than you can shake a stick at, ranging from CAD Administration to Education to Modeling Essentials to Customer Success/Designing Better Products. These are only a couple of the categories that are available to each attendee. One of the hardest parts of attending SolidWorks WORLD is trying to map out your schedule because there are usually 3 or 4 breakouts that you want to attend during each time slot. This however is the reason that this is such a great place to go to learn more and enhance your SolidWorks skills.
2. Network
Have you ever attended a SWUGN (SolidWorks User Group Network) meeting before? If you have you know the atmosphere where there are 30, 40, 50 or even 80+ SolidWorks users walking around, talking to each other and NETWORKING. Now try to imagine upwards of 4,000-5,000 SolidWorks all in the same building willing to help and discuss about anything and everything SolidWorks. This I think is the coolest part of the event. The learning is great but the ability to talk to other users from around the world is even better. There is NO other event that you can attend that will give you the opportunity to do this.
3. Explore
This one seems a little out of place probably but it is also a very important part of this event. The Partner Pavilion is a place to see first hand all of the partner products and add-on that work inside of and with SolidWorks. This is also something that you will not be able to do anywhere else, at least not at the same time. There are a lot of products out there that could benefit your line of work greatly and you might never know about them if you don’t see them. The Partner Pavilion is a great place to see these products.
So there you have it. A brief list of why this even is so important to go to. I will breakdown each of these areas more in depth in upcoming posts along with how to convince management to send you. If you have seen enough and are ready to sign on the dotted line all you need to do is register.
To register click here and fill out the necessary information.
mia? where i’ve been and what you can expect
After a flurry of posts covering SolidWorks 2010 in August and September I have kind of fell off of the face of the blogosphere in October. October 1 my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world and the past couple of weeks have tested my ability to balance life as a whole. Being a parent brings a whole new aspect to life and it is one of the best things I have ever experienced.
So with that being said I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know some of the things you can expect to see on this blog in the upcoming months. As many of you know SolidWorks 2010 was released on Monday so there are a ton of questions and topics out there about when to upgrade, how to upgrade, and why you should upgrade. I will attempt to cover all of these things the best that I can to hopefully help you out in your upgrade process.
Another hot topic and event that is fast approaching is SolidWorks WORLD 2010 in Anaheim, CA on January 31-February 3. In years past I have done a series of posts on how to get there and why you should make it a priority to attend and I plan on doing the same this year, even though I am a little behind the 8-ball already.
So there you have it. Do you have any questions about SolidWorks 2010 or SolidWorks WORLD 2010? If you do feel free to drop me a comment or email and I will try to address them as best as I can.
christmas for solidworks users…solidworks 2010 sp0.0 is live!
It’s that time of year again for SolidWorks users, Christmas in October. The highly touted, highly publicized SolidWorks 2010 showed up in the Customer Portal yesterday for anyone that is on a current SolidWorks subscription plan. If you are ready to download it and are ready to jump in with both feet you can access it by going to the Downloads and Updates page in the Customer Portal and it is listed there. I did notice on twitter this morning (thanks @tyler524) that it is about a 4.9 GB download.
So what is this release all about? Well you can find a lot of information out there on all of the blogs (see links to the right) and/or you can check out the series that I did on it the last couple of months.
solidworks 2010…edge display
Well, we have finally reached the end of the previews of the enhancements to drawings and detailing in SolidWorks 2010. Like I said when I started these and have said a few times along the way, I really like the changes made to this area for this release.
I feel like these enhancements were much needed and I am really happy to see the focus to this area for SolidWorks 2010. To wrap up this area of enhancements I want to show some of the enhancements made to tangent edges.
To start with you will now be able to change the display color of your tangent edges in drawings. To change the default color you can go to Tools > Options > System Options > Colors > Drawings, Model Tangent Edges. You can see in the screenshot below I have changed the color to magenta.
Here is the meat and potatoes of the tangent edge enhancements in SolidWorks 2010. In the Hide/Show Edges command (found on the Line Format toolbar) you will notice a new interface that will allow you to quickly filter the edges that you would like to display. You can select the edges quickly by simply selecting the edges you wish to hide. Other options are in the Hide/Show Edges PropertyManager under the Tangent Edge Filters and Hide edges shorter than headers.
By clicking the Hide Non-Planar Edges you will get a result similar to what you see in the screenshot below.
You can also tell SolidWorks to hide all edges that are shorter than the length you set under the Hide edges shorter than heading. In the screenshot below you will see the result of simply clicking on edges that you want to hide.
Another difference you will notice is a new option when you RMB click a drawing view and select Tangent Edge. You will notices the Hide Ends option.
When you select the Hide Ends you will end up with a result as shown in the screenshot below.
Well that wraps up the enhancements to the drawings and detailing portion of the software. Please feel free to let me know what you think about all of the enhancements made to these areas. Are you as happy about them as I am?
solidworks 2010…sketch pictures
Some of the post that I have done the last month about SolidWorks 2010 have been fairly long or drawn out. Well not today. Today’s preview is going to be extremely short, sweet, and to the point.
Sketch pictures are something that have always been wanted in drawings, well at least I have always wanted. In SolidWorks 2010 you will now be able to see the sketch pictures you insert into your parts and assemblies in your drawings. You can see the end result in the screenshot below.
See, short & sweet!
solidworks 2010…multibody part drawings
Continuing on with the theme of the last couple of weeks about drawings and detailing I want to show you another really nice enhancement that was made to the drawings area. In the previous posts about these topics it has been about a 50/50 share between the drawings and detailing portion for each enhancement. However, the next 3 enhancements are going to be strictly drawings enhancements and not so much about the detailing end.
How many of you have become extremely frustrated with the inability to create drawings of multibody parts very easily in the past. That is going to change in SolidWorks 2010. You will be able to create the 3 standard views of multibody parts and for flat patterns of multibody sheet metal parts you can use one body per view. So how do you do this you ask, let me show you.
As you can see below I have a drawing for a part that has 3 separate bodies in it. In the Drawing View PropertyManager you will notice a Reference Configuration heading and below it there is a Select Bodies button.
When you click that button it will automatically take you to the part file that contains these 3 bodies. Now all you need to do is select which bodies you would like shown on your drawing and click the green check mark.
You will then be taken back to your drawing and voila, you are now showing a multibody part in your drawing.
solidworks 2010…configurations & dimensions
Today’s previews are not eye popping but they still deserve a mention. As I stated earlier in this release SolidWorks focus was not on bright and shiny new features but on the little things like cleaning up the code and making the user interaction.
The things that I am going to show today prove that theory because they are not the cool new functions but they are functional enhancements that will help the everyday user tremendously.
Configurations
The process of changing configurations for a drawing view kind of was long winded in previous releases. RMB click on a drawing view, select Properties, look on the pop up for the configuration section and then pick your desired configuration from the drop down. Sounds right? Well in SolidWorks 2010 it will be a lot easier and smoother to do this. The option to change configurations is at the top of the Drawing View PropertyManager. You can see it in the screenshot below under the Reference Configuration heading.
Diameter Dimensions
In SolidWorks 2010 when you insert a diameter dimension in a section view you will now see the diameter symbol like you would in a normal drawing view.
solidworks 2010…section views
Another week is upon us and yet more previews of SolidWorks 2010 are comin’ at ya. I am going to stay in the areas of drawings and detailing this week because there are so many good additions to this years release.
Today I am going to take a look at section views. If you are like me section views are one of those tedious processes that just aren’t all that fun to make. Don’t get me wrong, they are needed but just not fun to do, because everything should be fun right? Let’s get started!
Aligned Section Views
Now you could always create aligned section views (well maybe not always) but the kicker was that you could never accurately dimension across one. That’s about to change because starting in SolidWorks 2010 you will be able to dimension across an aligned section view.
Section Depth
Another really cool/nice feature in SolidWorks 2010 is the ability to set the depth of the section view in part drawings. What this allows you to do is set to how far beyond the section line you want to see. You can set this in the Section View PropertyManager under the Section Depth heading.
solidworks 2010…part & assembly title blocks
So over the last week we have looked at a whole bunch of new enhancements to the drawings and detailing portion of the software. Well this one I guess can kind of be grouped into that but it also has to do with part and assembly files.
Raise your hand if you have ever wanted to add a tolerancing chart to your part and/or assembly. Well in SolidWorks 2010 you will now be able to do that. This will be extremely nice if you are a company that runs productions or a machine shop and you have people out on the floor that are looking at your 3D models. How did you communicate to them in the past all of the information that is normally put on the drawing? Now you will be able to insert a title block into your part and assembly files so that you can have all of that information readily accessible for anyone that might be opening that file and checking it out.
In order to insert one all you need to do is go to Insert > Tables > Title Block Table. You can either user the default SolidWorks table that they provide you or you can create your own and use that. These title block tables act the same as they do in drawings by being able to pull information out of your properties in order to populate the necessary cells.
You can see an inserted Title Block Table in the 2 pictures below. The first screenshot shows it in a part file and the second screenshot shows it in an assembly file.
I would love to hear how you think you could use this new option. I outlined some of my ideas about uses above but I would love to hear what you think.
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