hot of the press…cadd edge & solidprofessor?

CADD Edge Selects SolidProfessor Knowledge Resources

SAN DIEGO, California, March 30, 2009 – SolidProfessor, a SolidWorks Solution Partner, today announced a partnership with CADD Edge to provide its customized resources and support solutions to all CADD Edge customers. Demand among engineering professionals for immediately accessible answers to their design questions is being addressed by CADD Edge’s addition of SolidProfessor’s "On-Demand" feature rich multimedia content to reinforce the live learning experience.

David Ptak, President of SolidProfessor remarks, "We’re very excited to be able to contribute to CADD Edge’s overall training and support program by customizing our solutions to integrate with the services they already offer. Today’s design professional requires a blended training and support solution where on-demand knowledge augments the live class experience. Our integrated solutions make it easier than ever for CADD Edge’s customers to get their design questions answered quickly and with the least disruption to their workflow."

Effective immediately, CADD Edge subscription customers have direct access to the latest SolidWorks training reference courses inside the SolidWorks design environment; a value of over $400,000.

"In today’s economy it’s critical that SolidWorks users understand and utilize the latest SW functionality to improve their efficiency and bring products to market faster. In an effort to help our customers and to thank them for their patronage we’re giving each SolidWorks subscription customer the 2009 SolidWorks Update Training course by SolidProfessor to help them maximize the benefits of the latest SolidWorks release. Providing our customers with the finest software and support resources available is the foundation of our success and partnering with SolidProfessor allows us to deliver our training and support resources integrated into the SolidWorks Task Pane", says Marcel Matte, Chief Operating Officer with CADD Edge.

SolidProfessor content can be accessed through the SolidProfessor Learning Management System (LMS) which runs as a SolidWorks add-in and as a standalone application. On-demand search, testing and reporting and exercise files are some of the many features included with the SolidProfessor program.

About CADD Edge, Inc.

CADD Edge provides a complete line of engineering business solutions to leading manufacturing companies throughout New England and the Mid- Atlantic. Well versed in the engineering process, we offer leading software, staffing and service solutions for CAD, Enterprise Data Management, Product Lifecycle Management, Reverse Engineering and Rapid Prototyping. For more information on CADD Edge, please contact the company at (508) 475.2900 or visit www.caddedge.com

About SolidProfessor

SolidProfessor is a SolidWorks Solution Partner 100% focused on creating the very best on-demand knowledge resources for users of SolidWorks and SolidWorks related software. The mission of SolidProfessor is to provide the highest quality and best value for all levels of SolidWorks users worldwide. SolidProfessor products may be ordered direct or from a growing number of SolidWorks Value Added Resellers. SolidProfessor is your SolidWorks Knowledge Resource. For more information visit www.solidprofessor.com

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My Personal Take

This is a great partnership that I hope more VAR’s will seriously take a look at. In today’s economy, not every company has the resources to attend some of the “What’s New” events that are put on across the world by the SolidWorks Value Added Resellers. Because of this, some of the important functionality that is included in each of the new releases is never fully utilized by the end user. By joining with SolidProfessor on something like this it truly makes the reseller that you use value added in my opinion. There you have it, my $.02 for what its worth.

Mar 30 2009

hot of the press…nvidia introduces new product line

NVIDIA INTRODUCES INDUSTRY’S MOST POWERFUL PROFESSIONAL GRAPHICS LINEUP

Most Advanced Visualization Product Line Ever; Highlights Decade of Quadro Graphics Innovation

SANTA CLARA, CA-MARCH 30, 2009- Whether designing the next aircraft or delivering seven-day weather forecasts, today’s professionals seek a reliable, robust visualization platform designed to address their unique challenges and needs. Highlighting a decade of innovation, driven by the needs of the most demanding professionals, NVIDIA today introduced its most powerful and advanced top-to-bottom line of Quadro® professional GPU solutions in the Company’s history.

"Our mission with Quadro is to help customers solve the world’s most challenging visual computing problems," stated Dan Vivoli, executive vice president of marketing at NVIDIA. "We learn every day from them and are humbled by their brilliance. The new lineup, with the flagship Quadro FX 5800, sets the stage for the next ten years of innovation."

Spanning from sub-$100 entry-level to standalone visual computing systems, this new series includes:

NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 – the industry’s first and only 4GB, ultra high-end solution delivers the highest visualization performance and capabilities, enabling professionals to work with large-scale models and datasets.
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 – ultra high-end solution provides professionals with the most complete toolset to dramatically push the boundaries of realism, performance, and quality.
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 – single slot solution with a robust feature set and added capabilities such as SLI Multi-OS and SDI support to enable a no-compromise, high-performance, interactive visualization experience.
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800 – mid-range solution offers the best price performance for workstation graphics and provides the optimal blend of quality, precision, performance, and programmability.
NVIDIA Quadro FX 580 – best-in-class entry-level solution boosts productivity for a variety of industry-leading volume CAD and digital content applications.
NVIDIA Quadro FX 380 – an affordable professional-class graphics solution extends energy efficiency while delivering 50-percent faster performance.
The Quadro NVS 295 – capable of supporting up to two 30-inch digital displays at maximum resolutions, taking business graphics to a new level visual perfection.

"Once again, NVIDIA has set new graphics performance standards for professionals in the product design and development community," said Laurent Laloy, director, 3DVIA User Experience, Dassault Systèmes. "This latest generation of Quadro professional solutions will allow our customers to drive innovation and design with unprecedented 3D visual quality."

This new line-up also brings the introduction of NVIDIA® SLI® Multi-OS, a ground-breaking technology that enables, for the first time, 3D workstation virtualization on the Quadro GPU. With SLI Multi-OS, applications and users are able to optimize productivity and costs through the use of multiple Quadro GPU technologies from a single workstation in a virtualized environment. Users can also enable native SLI technology support on key partner platforms to accelerate application performance, scaling and higher image quality.

Availability
NVIDIA Quadro solutions are widely available through leading system manufacturers such as Dell, Fujistu-Siemens, HP and Lenovo; leading workstation system integrators; and NVIDIA channel partners PNY Technologies (US and EMEA), Leadtek (APAC) and Elsa (Japan). For additional information about the complete lineup of NVIDIA Quadro professional solutions, please visit: www.nvidia.com/quadro.

"The new family of powerful NVIDIA GPU solutions are an ideal match for the new HP Z Workstations, which have been totally reinvented from the core outward for breakthrough performance, value and serviceability," said Jim Zafarana, Vice President and General Manager, HP Workstations. "This powerful combination can tackle the most challenging visual computing problems that exist for today’s demanding professionals."

"As the worldwide leader in workstations, Dell looks to partner with only the best companies to deliver the solutions that workstation professionals demand," said Greg Weir, senior manager, product group. "The power of Dell Precision and NVIDIA graphics represents a step-change in what customers can expect from a reliable, powerful and ISV-certified workstation with performance gains at levels beyond what customers could have imagined."

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce® graphics products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro® graphics products and the high-performance computing market with its Tesla™ computing solutions products. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and has offices throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com.

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Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the benefits, features, impact, and capabilities of NVIDIA Quadro professional solutions, CUDA and SLI are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: development of more efficient or faster technology; adoption of the CPU for parallel processing; design, manufacturing or software defects; the impact of technological development and competition; changes in consumer preferences and demands; customer adoption of different standards or our competitor’s products; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated into systems as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Form 10-K for the fiscal period ended January 25, 2009. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on our website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

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Copyright® 2009 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, Quadro, GeForce, Tesla, NVIDIA SLI, and CUDA are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject to change without notice.

Mar 25 2009

it’s alive! solidworks 2009 sp3.0 now available

SolidWorks has officially released version 2009 SP3.0 to the general public today. Looking at the Fixed SPR’s page it seems to be a healthy chunk of fixes that are included in this new service pack. You are free to get the update with an active SolidWorks Subscription Service by going to the SolidWorks Customer Portal and then to the Downloads and Updates page.

To download SolidWorks 2009 SP3.0 click here.

To view the Fixed SPR’s in SolidWorks 2009 SP3.0 click here.

Mar 25 2009

make it easier on yourself…copy drawing sheets

How many times have you had a part with multiple configurations in which only 1 or 2 dimensions were the reason for the all of the versions? Well, I run into this from time to time and in our company we need to make sure that we have a separate drawing for each configuration. How we handle this is to have one drawing file with multiple sheets that are for each of the configurations. This can become a very tedious process because you want all the drawings the same but just showing the different dimensions and possibly part number. Never fear, there is a rather easy way to do this.

The 1st thing that you are going to want to do is to create a “master”drawing of your first configuration. This drawing will be the one that you will be copying for all of the other configuration drawings. Here is where the fun begins. Rename the drawing that you just created to match the configuration that it depicts. You can do this by RMB click the Sheet1 tab at the bottom of the screen (see below in red) and selecting Rename.

Next thing you are going to want to do is to RMB click the Sheet1 tab again and select copy. Once you have done this simply use your keyboard shortcut for Paste (Ctrl+V) to paste that sheet in this file. When you paste it you will see a pop-up box like the one below that will give you some options.

Once you determine where you would like to locate this copied drawing you will want to rename it to the next configuration that you are making a drawing for. Now that you have done this you have (2) drawings but they are both referencing the same part and the same configuration, right? Now it’s time to take care of that as well. In your newly created drawing, RMB click on one of the views and select Properties. You will see a box like the one below that will allow you to change what configuration you want that particular view to show (highlighted inside red box). Select the configuration that you have named your sheet and away you go. There is one kicker however, you will need to re-associate ALL of your drawing view to match the same configuration.

I hope that this makes your life a little easier when you are given the job of making drawings for that one file you have that has 178 different configurations in it. Have fun!

Mar 23 2009

how cool is this? solidworks & the white house

So what do the Whitehouse & SolidWorks have in common? Well, probably more than we even know about but this one is for sure. Rainbow Play Systems has made a new playground for Malia and Sasha Obama to play on right outside the Oval Office. Here is the press release according to TenLinks.

White House Playground Set Designed With SolidWorks

CONCORD, MA, Mar 16, 2009 – First daughters Malia and Sasha Obama are climbing, swinging and sliding on a playground set designed with SolidWorks 3D CAD software so President Obama can watch his daughters playing through his Oval Office windows.

Rainbow Play Systems recently delivered “Malia & Sasha’s Castle,” to the White House for installation just a few yards from the West Wing. The company used SolidWorks software to develop multiple configurations of parts and subsystems that made customizing the final design layout for the Obamas a simple process. The play set includes a double bubble, overhead monkey bars, shimmy bars, four standard swings, a race car tire swing, rock wall, step chain ladder, slide, binoculars, periscopes and chalkboard. Rainbow Play Systems flipped the set’s design from the standard model so that the "double bubble" faces the Oval Office, where President Obama can keep an eye on his daughters at play.

“SolidWorks helps us provide the customer with the exact play system they are looking for,” said Jon Mattson, product design manager for Rainbow Play Systems.

Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, were said to have greeted the swing set with "squeals of joy," when it was installed on March 4, according to White House staff. The girls played on the set for almost an hour in chilly weather that afternoon. Their mother went for a swing, too. A plaque on the play system reads: "Established March 4th, 2009, Malia & Sasha’s Castle, Handcrafted with Pride in the Heartland of America, Beautiful Brookings, South Dakota, The Hometown of: Rainbow Play Systems, Inc., God Bless America." The playground is made from 100 percent North American cedar and redwood, which was an important selling point due to President Obama’s drive to promote green economic policies. Original Rainbow Play Systems contain only certified lumber from third-party inspected mills that comply with all local, state, and federal harvesting regulations.

Rainbow Play Systems relies on SolidWorks authorized reseller Alignex, Inc., for ongoing training and support.

About Rainbow Play Systems

Rainbow Play Systems has grown from a small custom job shop in Minnesota to a high-tech manufacturing facility on 130 acres in the heartland of America-Beautiful Brookings, South Dakota. While the scale of our operation has changed over the last 24 years, our focus has not. We continue to pride ourselves on manufacturing the safest, most durable and highest-quality play systems available in America.

About Alignex, Inc.

Alignex is an Engineering technology company that assists their customers in improving their manufacturing process, whether through software solutions or engineering services. Serving Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and western areas of Wisconsin and Illinois, Alignex has been the premier SolidWorks Reseller in the Upper Midwest for 11 years and in business as an engineering technology provider for nearly 20 years. Alignex has helped over 1000 companies make the transition to SolidWorks from a wide variety of 2D and 3D CAD formats.

About Dassault Systems SolidWorks Corp.

Dassault Systems SolidWorks Corp., a Dassault Systems S.A. subsidiary, is a world leader in 3D solutions. The company develops and markets software for design, analysis, product data management, and documentation. It is the leading supplier of 3D CAD technology, giving teams intuitive, high-performing software that helps them design better products.

For more information, visit www.solidworks.com.

About Dassault Systems

As a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, Dassault Systems brings value to more than 100,000 customers in 80 countries. A pioneer in the 3D software market since 1981, Dassault Systems develops and markets PLM application software and services that support industrial processes and provide a 3D vision of the entire lifecycle of products from conception to maintenance to recycling. The Dassault Systems portfolio consists of CATIA for designing the virtual product – SolidWorks for 3D mechanical design – DELMIA for virtual production – SIMULIA for virtual testing – ENOVIA for global collaborative lifecycle management, and 3DVIA for online 3D lifelike experiences. Dassault Systems’ shares are listed on Euronext Paris (#13065, DSY.PA) and Dassault Systems’ ADRs may be traded on the US Over-The-Counter (OTC) market (DASTY). For more information, visit http://www.3ds.com.

For more information, visit www.3ds.com.

Mar 20 2009

march madness – rocksolid style

Well, over the past couple of weeks posts on here have been few and far between and a flurry of them at the beginning of March. This lack of posts in mainly due to a crazy busy schedule that I have been trying to maintain for the last couple of weeks.

The craziness started towards the beginning of last week when I was attempting to line up and finalize everything that I needed for the West Michigan SolidWorks User Group meeting that was held last week Tuesday (March 11). The response for this meeting was needless to say overwhelming! We had a record turnout of around 40-45 users which is a lot in the West Michigan area for a meeting that is held on the majority of the attendees own time. The reason for the high attendance is unknown but could possibly have something to do with the great presentations that we had from Brian Gilson on SolidWorks WORLD 2009 and Mike Puckett on the Certification area of SolidWorks and mold design. There is no greater feeling than when you have to set up more chairs because you weren’t planning on that many people, what a great problem to have.

The next day was one of the best days as a SolidWorks user that I have ever had. Myself, Mike Puckett and Marc Nelson (Greenville High School SolidWorks teacher) spent the day together touring some companies that use SolidWorks. The day started with Mike & myself taking a tour of a company located in Zeeland, Michigan called Gentex Corporation. Gentex is one of the leading suppliers of mirrors to the automotive industry and also are involved in making windows for the airline industry with a little bit of fire protection products sprinkled in. Gentex is a very cool company that is very technologically advanced. Mike Garvelink was our tour guide as he everything from the assembly lines that were designed in SolidWorks, to their machine shop which uses a combination of SolidWorks and CamWorks to their product development offices which use Catia mainly due to their relationship with the automotive industry. All in all this was a really cool tour that gave myself a good feel for just how diverse SolidWorks can be. Check out the Gentex website here.

Next up we were off to Greenville High School to sit in on one of Marc Nelson classes. Mike gave a presentation about SolidWorks that included some of the common products that we use everyday and were designed in SolidWorks to how his career path led him to work directly for SolidWorks. Mike became in instant hit when he handed out SolidWorks licenses to the students that were in the class so that they could load it on their personal computers at home. One thing that Mike kept saying was “now I know why Marie Planchard loves her job so much!” It was great to see all these kids really excited about using SolidWorks. Thanks for this opportunity Marc!

After we left the school we were off to a company called Aggressive Tooling in Greenville, Michigan. This company make fixtures for the automotive companies, mainly specializing in exhaust system testing and welding. They use SolidWorks to create all of the fixtures / machines and also have some great macros that they have wrote to assist in the design processes.

To end the SolidWorks user tour we swung in by Wolverine World Wide in Rockford, Michigan. Wolverine is the maker of popular brand name boots and shoes such as Sebago, Hush Puppies, Wolverine, Merrell, Track ‘n Trail, CAT, Bates, Harley Davidson Footwear, and Patagonia Footwear. Wolverine is using SolidWorks surfacing capabilities to design and reverse engineer the soles of these shoes. It was really cool to see some of their products and to realize just how much work is involved in designing these up for production. Their processes were very similar to what was shown on the main stage at SolidWorks WORLD 2009 by New Balance shoes. This again cemented the fact to me how diverse and broad the capabilities of SolidWorks really are. Thanks to Chris Peterson for showing us just how they are using SolidWorks at Wolverine World Wide.

The day ended with some great conversations over dinner with Mike and Marc. Thanks to everyone involved in making this a really great day for me. To read what Mike had to say about the day you can check out his blog post here.

The rest of the week included some birthday parties for family mixed in with a busy work environment right now made for a busy week for me. This week started off much the same for me. I have started something new in the West Michigan area for a hand selected group of SolidWorks CAD Administrators. I have formed a group called “SolidWorks CAD Admin Focus Group” which is 6 SolidWorks Admins from this local area that are going to meet once a month or so for lunch or dinner and discuss anything and everything related to managing a group of SolidWorks licenses and managing the SolidWorks system. These discussions range from VAR’s and VAR support to macros that we use to add on products that are used to templates to what ever you can think of behind the scenes in SolidWorks. We had our first meeting on Wednesday and it was everything plus more of what I expected from this group. There was great discussion and what was planned on around 1 1/2 hour lunch turned into closer to 2 1/2 hour lunch break. This group is going to be VERY beneficial to me and hopefully the others to bounce ideas off of and form relationships with. I will definitely keep you informed of how this group goes in the future.

There you have it, March Madness RockSolid style! Hopefully I will be gaining some time to post more here coming up now that things have calmed down SLIGHTLY, that is other than the real March Madness that I am always interested in. So to close all I can say is GO BLUE!

Mar 16 2009

only 322 days until…

Well, the answer is the CSWP event at SolidWorks WORLD 2010. You ask yourself why I am bringing this up in March? Well I stumbled across the photo below (the source of this photo is probably laughing right now as they read this) and had to share it. Are we getting a sneak peak at the details of the 2010 CSWP event or not?

Disclaimer: I have NO details on this event and it is nothing more than me stirring the pot. But, if it would become true, I am claiming the title of first to blog about where the event was going to be held.

My tip of the day to all of my readers: start planning today to attend next years event. Start saving a little bit every week that will allow you to go to Anaheim next January/February. It is an awesome event that gets better EVERY year and you will want to make sure you are in attendance in 2010. If nothing else, where else can you see the CEO of a major company ride a pink scooter on stage in front of a sumo wrestler. Priceless!

Mar 9 2009

3 dudes gone 3d…absolutely hilarious!

What do you get when you combine 3 designer dudes, an awesome cad package, and an office setting? An absolutely hilarious online show that seems to have a “The Office” feel to it. SolidWorks today released a set of 3 online clips for the soon to be popular online show called “3 Dudes Gone 3D”. This is a show that you will NOT want to miss, it is absolutely hilarious.

Instead of me trying to explain the show to you, just go check it out for yourself. You will not regret it if you are a fan of “The Office”. The only downside of this show in my opinion is that the clips are only 3-5 minutes long and not a 30 minute show. Very funny! If you like what you see make sure that you register in the upper right hand corner for future episodes.

Enjoy!!! http:\\www.3dudesgone3d.com

Mar 4 2009

model section views & drawings…make them work together

Yesterday and today I ran into some problems when I updated an assembly and it dealt with how we create our assembly drawings. The way that we make a drawing of our assemblies is outlined in the steps below.

Create a new configuration of the assembly
Make an assembly level cut that will give us our desired drawing view
Make a drawing of the sectioned assembly configuration

For the most part this process has worked well for us in the past but we run into some problems occasionally when we modify an existing assembly. When you add features (that are in the portion of the assembly that is being cut away for the section configuration), SolidWorks seems to have a hard time with any relations that may have been added. For example, I have an existing design that has 2 plates that are bolted together. Down the road I decide that I really need to bolt the 2 plates together in 1 more place. So I edit the components, add a counterbore in 1 of the plates and a tap in the other with a relation that is keeping the 2 features tied together. Are you following me? Here is where the problem happens. These features are in the portion of the assembly that is being cut away for my sectioned configuration and drawing. When I switch to my sectioned configuration I now have an error in the plate that has the relation in it for the counterbore and tap that I added. Now, I noticed that you only get these errors IF you added features after the assembly cut has been created. So now what? I can either delete my assembly cuts, which MAY result in me having to redo a portion of my drawing that is already created or I can run into my computer with a forklift and not have to worry about it for a little while.

Well, I think I may have found a fix today after playing around with it for a little while. Below you will see an image of my 2 configurations that I am working with.

These 2 configurations have already been created and a drawing has been made of the section view. The best that I can tell, in order to have your assembly work OK with features that are added after you have your assembly cut done already you need to roll your ASSEMBLY FeatureManager bar up above the assembly level cuts for your section view. I show a before and after image of your FeatureManager bar below so you can have an idea what I am talking about.

BEFORE

AFTER

Once your bar is rolled back as shown in the “AFTER” image above you can edit your assembly and it will react to your edits correctly.

How do you make sectioned views for your parts or assemblies for your drawings? I do realize that you can create section views in drawings but I do not want to have a view in my drawing that I am not going to print, and I only want to print the section view. If you have other ways of doing this that have worked well for you please share.

I hope this helps anyone that has struggled with this in the past.

Mar 4 2009

make the flyout toolbars work for you

A couple of weeks ago I read an awesome post about how to customize the default SolidWorks Flyout toolbars that was written by Randy Simmons who is an Application Engineer at 3DVision Technologies.

Now I use Flyout toolbars almost exclusively on my Shortcut Bar so that I can pack as many commands into that tool as possible. Well, today I was creating some drawings and needed access to the Dowel Pin Symbol. I checked out my Annotations Flyout and what did I find, well almost everything BUT the command that I needed. I know I can access this through Tools > Inserts > Annotations > Dowel Pin Symbol but that requires me to leave the area that I am working in more than what I would really like. So what did I do? I used Randy’s post to help me customize the Annotations Flyout.

To check out for yourself how to do it follow this link to the 3DVision Technologies blog and see what Randy has to say. Enjoy!

RockSolid Perspective – Jason Raak

Monthly Archives: March 2009