Day 3 at the SolidWorks 2009 Press Launch Event started out like the other days with breakfast in the hotel dining room. At 8:00 am CET (2:00 am EST) we were on a bus heading to IQS Engineering School in Barcelona for an optional hands on training session with SolidWorks 2009. IQS is 1 of 2 engineering schools in the city and they have been using SolidWorks to get their students ready for the work force. A brief presentation was given by an instructor at the school as he showed all who attended some of the projects that his students had worked on. Some of the projects were very impressive and I appreciated his willingness to share them with us.
Next we were off to a classroom for the training session. This was an interesting session because of the difference in people that were in the room. You had a range of people from those that have NEVER used the software to those that use the software EVERYDAY. It was hard for the instructors to keep a smooth flow going to the training because of this difference but Mark Schneider, Fielder Hiss, Rich Welch and Neil Cooke (I hope I didn’t forget anyone) did an awesome job of interacting with all of the skill levels.
What this did allow some of us to do was play with different parts of the software that are not otherwise available to us. I think the 2 biggest tools that were being played with were 3dvia Composer and PhotoView 360. Both of these are brand new programs to the SolidWorks family and I think have the ability to take the company and its users to the next level. Both of these programs are built around being user friendly in my eyes. Very simple interfaces that still allow you to do some unbelievable things with your models. I am not going to get into too deep what these programs all can do but I do what to let you know what they are if you don’t know already.
3dvia Composer is a program that allows you to take your SolidWorks 3D models and create technical publications with them. What this does is allow different people in your company to create these technical documents and not even need to know how to run SolidWorks. This frees up the time of the designers to do actual design work instead of making tech doc pictures.
PhotoView 360 is a simplified version of what PhotoWorks is. It allows that normal user that ability to make great looking pictures of their models for presentations and so on. I am not sure the UI of PhotoView 360 could get any simpler than what they have it. It is a great tool and something that you need to look at if you haven’t already.
This concluded the SolidWorks 2009 Press Launch Event. It was great! Nancy Buchino and others did an unbelievably great job of putting this thing together and getting it to go off without a hitch. I want to thank SolidWorks for giving me the opportunity to attend this event, it was great and I am looking forward to seeing what they have in store for us at SolidWorks WORLD 2009 in sunny Orlando, Florida.
