SolidWorks 2009 Task Pane…Do You Use It?

How many of you use the SolidWorks Task Pane? No, I mean really use it. For the first couple of years that I used SolidWorks I didn’t even have it turned on. We didn’t use the Design Library at that time and I never really explored the other features that it had to offer. Since then I have used it almost exclusively in my daily design processes. It is such a hidden tool that I don’t think gets utilized as much as it should. We have 1 guy in our engineering department that NEVER uses it, he doesn’t need to use the Design Library that we have set up and thus he hasn’t looked into many of the other functionality. In this article I want to break down what all of the tabs have to offer and what you can do with each of them. You may have more or less tabs on your Task Pane depending on your SolidWorks product but this will cover the basic Task Pane. The picture above shows the location of the unmovable Task Pane in its standard collapsed state.

Tab #1 – SolidWorks Resources

This tab has all kinds of valuable resources to offer. The first group titled “Getting Started” offers 5 main options. The top 2 are standard SolidWorks buttons; New Document and Open a Document. Both of these can also be found in your ‘File’ pull down menu but if you always start with the Task Pane open like above it is right there for you. Quick, easy access to the 2 commands that you execute 97% of the time you open SolidWorks. The next option is Tutorials which is a link to the 39 tutorials that SolidWorks packaged in your install. These are a great resource for some of those design processes that you don’t do everyday but you run into from time to time. The next option is What’s New. This is a link to the PDF file that is available as each new major release. The first time that you fire up the updated major release (i.e. SolidWorks 2009) you should immediately take some time and browse around the PDF document. It shows you and offers some hands on training off the new features that are included in that release. The last button in the group is General Information which is a link to this web page which is the Technical Support page of SolidWorks.

The next group is titled “Community” and it offers you 4 quick access links to SolidWorks websites. Here are the links:

• Customer Portal – This is the main web page for any SolidWorks user. This is almost anything and everything that you will need in regards to SolidWorks.
• Discussion Forum – This is a great place to help other users out or post a problem that you may be running into and wait for the quick responses that will be coming in to help you out.
• User Groups – These meetings are great for SolidWorks users to network with each other face to face and hear GREAT presentations from some of the leading SolidWorks presenters.
• Latest News – This is a link to ALL of the SolidWorks Corporation RSS Feeds. Check some of them out to stay up to date with what is going on at SolidWorks.

The 3^rd grouping in this pane is called “Online Resources”. This offers some great, quick resources for you to use during the middle of your designs. The first option is a search box to find custom manufacturers. What it does is search the SupplierSource website for whatever entry you put in the search box. This is great to use for the times when you have a part that you know your company can’t manufacture and need to outsource it. The next option is a link to the SolidWorks Partner Solutions website so that you can browse for that perfect add on to your SolidWorks package. The last option in the group is a link to the SolidWorks Labs webpage so that you can keep tabs on what SolidWorks is working on for future add ons and programs.

And finally on the bottom of the SolidWorks Resources tab you will see the Tip of the Day box that is chocked full of tips that you can cycle through. All in all this tab has more useful links than you can shake a stick at. Check it out sometime and you will be amazed at how useful it can become in your daily design processes.

Tab #2 – Design Library

The 2^nd tab from the top is the “Design Library”. It offers you some important and key trees that you can expand. The 1^st tree is the SW Library Features which is the Design Library that you have created for your company or the default one that is given to you with the software. The next tree that is in the list is the Toolbox (which you can see I don’t have activated in my screen shot above). The Toolbox is often used for your standard nuts and bolts and fasteners in general which we don’t include in our assemblies very often. The next tab in the list is the 3D ContentCentral tab which gives you quick and easy access to the supplier and user submitted models. To browse around 3D ContentCentral without having SolidWorks activated you can follow this link. The 4^th and final tree in this list is the SolidWorks Content tab expandable list which provides links to folders that include Blocks, CircuitWorks, Routing and Weldments. I can honestly say that I have never used this list because it doesn’t pertain to our industry but I can definitely see where it would be extremely useful to have this at your fingertips when designing products that use some of these features.

Another key feature of this tab is the toolbar on top of these expandable trees. The first button lets you quickly add an open part to the Design Library. The second button lets you add an entire folder to this tab which is a very nice option (see below). The 3^rd button lets you create the SW Library Features tree and the 4^th button lets you refresh all of these folders.

DESIGN LIBRARY TIP – A trick that I learned at a presentation given by Matthew Cummins was to add the project folder that you are working in to the Design Library tab. This allows you to quickly drag and drop components from that project into your project assembly as you are working on it.

Tab #3 – File Explorer / SolidWorks PDM

This tab is your main tab for file management. Whether you are using either of the SolidWorks PDM programs or not this is your tab to manage your SolidWorks files. There are 3 expandable trees in which ever file management system you are using. The first is Recent Documents which lists the last 9 (at least in my version) documents that you had open. This is nice because I have it quite often that I am switching back and forth between models all day long and I always seem to just close the one that I need to reference next. This is a very handy feature. The next tree is Open in SolidWorks which lists all the the SolidWorks files that you have open. If you don’t like the way that Ctrl+Tab works or you don’t like to always have to go into your pull downs you can access all of your open SolidWorks files right here. The next tree is the Desktop. This acts as a quick way to get to your desktop and whatever files you may have laying around on your machine or in a network location. By using this tree to open files instead of the Open command you can drag components into your assembly straight from this tab. If you are running one of the SolidWorks PDM packages (Workgroup or Enterprise) you will also have access to the Vault from this tab.

FILE EXPLORER TIP – We currently do not use any sort of a PDM software so I like to make sure that I have a shortcut on my desktop to the folder where ALL of our CAD files are located. This way when I expand my Desktop tree I have quick access to all of my CAD files without having to cycle through all of the network locations.

Tab #4 – Search

This tab serves 1 purpose. When you search for a file in the search bar at the top of your SolidWorks window your results are shown in this tab. Quite simple and straight forward!

Tab #5 – View Palette

This tab is only available when you are creating or have created a SolidWorks Drawing file. From this tab you are able to quickly drag views into your drawing from this View Palette. You also have the options at the top of this tab to Import Annotations and Auto-start projected view. We don’t have Drawing templated set up with predefined views because they vary so much from drawing to drawing at our company so I use this tab exclusively when I create drawings. This was one of my favorite new features that came out in SolidWorks 2008.

Tab #6 – Appearances / Scenes

This tab is a new addition in SolidWorks 2009 that enables you to easily add appearances and scenes to your models. Everything in regards to these items has been consolidated into one location which is this tab. Very handy when working with PhotoWorks renderings.

Tab #7 – Custom Properties

This tab is also a new feature in SolidWorks 2009 which is a spot where you can build a custom custom properties form so that you can easily add custom properties to your SolidWorks Parts and Assemblies. As you can see I have not had the time to set this up “officially” yet but I have had the chance to experiment with it and it is AWESOME! I am really looking forward to implementing this at the company that I work at. Of any of the new features in SolidWorks 2009, besides the performance gains, I have heard the most praise for this new tool. Make sure you at least try it out and see what it can offer for your company.

CONCLUSION

The SolidWorks Task Pane is a great tool if it is utilized correctly. If you don’t already use it give it a shot. Try to use it for a couple of weeks and see what you think. You will never know just how much it can benefit you until you use it.

Feel free to drop me a comment if you would like to add anything to this post or if you have a question about the SolidWorks Task Pane.

It’s All About Making Life Easier

Today I ran into an issue that became very frustrating while doing some detailing. This is not something that I do every day so when it became a nuisance I had to do something about it.

A while back I had a blog post about customizing the calloutformat.txt file so that the Hole Callout dimensioning tool would work according to your own company standard (who doesn’t have their own little way of dimensioning, right?). When I set this up for my company I made it so that my drill callout would follow the following format – ‘hw-diam’ (hole diameter) DR. This was great but I would have to go in and manually change the decimal dimension for the hole diameter to a fraction and I we would always have to manually type in a drill callout that was either a number drill or a letter drill.

So today I asked the question to some of the SolidWorks “experts” that I know and I quickly got an answer from Jeremy Regnerus who works for SolidWorks. The solution to my problem was quite simple after I saw it and was a little ashamed that I didn’t know it already. Anyways, I thought it would be good to post it so that if anyone else is struggling with the same thing they can fix their file also. So here is how you do it step by step.

1. The first step is to open up SolidWorks and find out where you Hole Callout Format File is. To do this go to Tools > Options > System Options > File Locations > Hole Callout Format File and then see where it says the location of this text file is and shown below.

2. After you figure this out you will need to go to Windows Explorer and find this file as shown below. If you haven’t done so already it is always a good idea to create a copy of this file before you do any modifying to it. Just be sure to name your copy something different than the original and make all of your changes to the original final named calloutformat.txt.

3. Once you open this you are ready to change your Hole Callout standards. If you are using more than 1 Hole Wizard standard you will need to do this to each standard in this file. The name of the standard will be found where the green box is below. As you can see below in the orange boxes, in all of my plain holes (or drill holes) it will dimension it as the diameter of the hole in my standard 3 place decimal. This is where I want it to call out either a fractional drill, number drill or a letter drill.

4. In order to do this all you need to do is change it from calling out the hole diameter (hw-diam) to call out the fastener size (hw-fstsze). Pretty simple huh?

5. That’s it! Now your Hole Callout dimensioning tool will look like it does below depending on your style that you set up. (Thanks to Jeremy for this screen shot.)

Note that you can also change this on a per drawing basis by selecting the Variable button inside the Dimension Text box and then selecting Fastener Size. This will insert the fastener size into your callout for this dimension ONLY!

CONCLUSION

Disaster averted! My stress level decreased rapidly today after I got this figured out and I soon became the hero of our design group when I filled them in on what I had fixed in our system files.

Thanks again Jeremy for helping me out with this and also to Jim Byrne who helped me out but just a touch after Jeremy sent a reply back.

What’s All The Discussion About…PDM?

Last week I discussed whether or not our company needed to implement some sort of a PDM tool in a blog post titled “PDM…Do We Need It?” Since I did this post I have noticed a lot of discussion on other blogs and a lot of comments on my own blog about PDM software and implementation. This is a tool that I never heard too much about other than on Devon Sowell’s blog PDM Solutions. I knew it existed but it never seemed to receive too much discussion in the SolidWorks community. This is a very intriguing tool and seems to have caught the attention of a lot of users out there.

One comment on my blog that instantly caught my attention was from Pete Yodis. His comment was as follows:

“I’d be asking SolidWorks some questions about their plans for WorkGroup. There is nothing listed for being new in 2009 and not much mention of the product on their new website. It begs the question, what’s the future hold for the product? As someone who setup, maintains, and administers my company’s WorkGroup vault that now contains 12,300 unique file names and 33,000 unique document revisions it is something that I would like to know. What’s the plan SolidWorks, and why no information? Some speculate that it will eventually be Enterprise Lite, but I’d rather know the plans and not speculate. I’d like to know what’s happening with the product that houses the 10s of thousands of files we have in there.”

This comment made me a little curious as to what was going on and I wanted to figure out what the future holds for PDMWorks WorkGroup before I invested my time and efforts into something that would not be available in a year. I emailed an employee at SolidWorks that I know and I quickly received a phone call from him letting me know what he knew about the situation. This is what I was told. This year as Pete mentioned there were not very many enhancements made to PDMWorks WorkGroup, this is not because they are going to discontinue it but because they are focusing on PDMWorks Enterprise which is their flagship software for PDM management. I understand this completely, as a company why would you invest time and money into a free tool that you package with your software when you can be spending the same time and money on making your add on flagship product even better. It makes perfect sense to me now. Not saying that I like it, but I understand. As a company that only has 3-4 designers it is not worth it for us right now to use a product like PDMWorks Enterprise but instead we can use what is available to us with a product like WorkGroup. I was also told that PDMWorks WorkGroup will still be supported like it always has been but you just won’t see the enhancements that you have in the past. As for Pete, I hopes this answers your questions and can ease your anxiety over all of your models in WorkGroup.

What does all of this mean for myself at the company that I work at? Well, add it to the list of CAD Administration things that I need to implement. The list is growing rapidly so I will need to see when I get to it. I guess prioritizing my list is not too far off in the distance and I see this implementation being towards the top of the list.

Earlier I mentioned that I have seen a lot about PDM lately in the SolidWorks community. Check out these links to see what others are saying about it.

Devon Sowell - 2009 WorkGroup PDM In 11 Steps (a must see for anyone looking to implement this in the near future)

Lenny Kikstra - Evaluating PDM Software

Lenny Kikstra - PDM In Plain English

Also, check out the comments from my post “PDM…Do We Need It?”

Should I Implement SolidWorks 2009 At SP0?

My answer is quite simple…YES, as long as your customers allow you to!

There is always a lot of discussion this time of year about whether to install the latest SolidWorks version at SP0. Other years I would probably say it is on a per company basis whether it is reasonable for them to upgrade immediately or not but not this year. SolidWorks focused on performance a lot this year, as you have probably already, compared to other years. This is why I feel the need for companies to upgrade immediately. Now I know what you are going to say already…but what about all of the bugs that come with SP0? I feel this year, and I believe it is the normal opinion in the SolidWorks community, that this year there are not as many bugs as in years past, actually very few compared to other years. Yes, there still are bugs, but I hate to tell you that even if you wait until SP1 or 2 or 3 or 4 you will experience some glitches at some point. I don’t believe there is a computer program out there (CAD or non CAD) that does not have a single bug in it, this is just something that you deal with while working on a computer.

With the focus more on performance this year it meant a lot less on the “really cool” new features that usually cause the majority of the bugs from my experience. What you will gain in performance with SolidWorks 2009 SP0 will more than make up for the little glitches that you will experience from time to time.

A lot of the talk about performance this year is based around 3,500 plus component assemblies but even if you don’t run into assemblies like this on a regular occasion you will still see the improvements. Assemblies of that size is not very common in the company that I work in but when I tested the software in beta and pre releases and now SP0, on my home computer, I noticed a huge difference on just the day to day performance lags that I experienced in the past. These areas range from SolidWorks load time to modeling to assembly performance to huge improvements in the area of drawings. This is why as soon as I receive my DVD’s for SolidWorks 2009 I am going to implement it at our company. You can’t afford not to, remember…TIME IS MONEY!

Now I understand that some of you work with customers that dictate what release of SolidWorks you work with and that in itself is a totally different situation. I feel if you are in that situation however that you should at least let them know about the performance increases that they will see in this release. You never know, they might decide to make the switch right away also.

If you would like to see some of these increases in action check out this video and see for yourself: Get Your Job Done Faster.

So to answer this post title again…absolutely YES! If you have any questions please feel free to comment or contact me. I would love to see everyone experience these performance gains right away.

PDM…Do We Need It?

To begin I want to use the disclaimer that I have never used PDMWorks Enterprise and I have dabbled with PDMWorks Workgroup every now and then but have never officially set anything up. So I ask myself the question…Do we really need it to be efficient in our daily activities or is it just going to add more work for the designers when they are working on a project?

During the “What’s New In 2009″ presentation at the SolidWorks 2009 Press Launch Event in Barcelona, Spain I began to notice some cool functionality that really caught my eye. Mark Schneider and Neil Cooke were working side by side on models during the presentation showing some of the new functionality and while they were swapping files and updating each other’s files I kept noticing this pop up box that would appear telling them what had changed in the model among other information. Now that we have moved into our new building and all of the engineers are no longer sitting in the same open room with our backs to each other the need for a better way to communicate has presented itself to us. So again I ask myself…Is it really worth it, even in a 4 person engineering department?

The answer is a resounding YES! The ability to communicate design changes, control revisions, roll back designs to previous revisions and provide a better audit trail are just a few of the reasons why this has become necessary for our company to investigate. I am not saying that we are going to jump in with both feet into the PDMWorks Enterprise package, but I think that PDMWorks Workgroup will be a start for us in the process of making our workflow among our designers smoother than it is right now. The benefits of a program like this are immense when you begin to look at it closely. I want to go over a couple of the big “selling points” for me personally on having a PDM program such as this.

DESIGN COMMUNICATION

How many times have all of us opened a design that we did originally and things were changed but you have no idea what was changed or what was affected because of it. This happens a lot in a multi user environment I believe. With a PDM solution such as Workgroup or Enterprise you can now let the other designers know what you changed, when you did it and why. A tool like this would eliminate your searching through the design, then searching for the other designer who changed it the design and then waiting for him or her to remember what they did 1 month ago or longer. Wouldn’t it be easier to just have a screen that pops up and tells you the information that you need? This is not only a time saving feature but a feature that will improve your daily design and updating process’s.

REVISION CONTROL

Have any of you opened a file that you made and notice a change right away that you didn’t make but the revision is the same as was in the previously? I have and it is very frustrating because how do you know what version you are supposed to be using and if it is part you manufacture it can quickly turn into a headache for the rest of the company to try and determine which part is to which print or model. In our case it can be a costly problem because of how we interact with our CNC machinists who are basing all of their programming off of our models. The PDM products that SolidWorks offers, and I am guessing the other PDM software’s that are out there, will allow you to automatically roll revisions when you make a design change.

DESIGN ROLLBACK

Who has ever made a design change and after the first run with the new design has determined that the original design was still better? So now what do you do? Remodel it back to the original design? Do you try to re-associate an archive of that file back into the assembly it belongs to? There are probably hundreds of different ways that companies handle design changes and how they currently keep previous designs (if they do). This is another nice aspect of SolidWorks PDM solutions. It will automatically do this for you. No more trying to figure out how you did it the last time, where you saved the archived model, how you named it, etc. etc. etc. This is a very nice feature, especially when you have multiple people working on the same project and you run into the times when you would really like to see what the last design looks like.

BETTER AUDIT TRAIL

I am not going to touch on this one too much because I think that the title speaks for itself: Better Audit Trail. We are currently in the process of getting TS16949 certified after achieving our ISO 9001 2000 certification. As anyone knows that has ever been a part of such a process you will appreciate as much help as you can get for when you get audited.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion I am really looking forward to sitting down with this some more and setting it up at our company (when I get time). I am planning on attending some of the breakout sessions at SolidWorks WORLD in February that deal with these solutions. The more information the better is the way that I look at it. If you do not currently use a PDM program I highly suggest that you look into this as well. PDMWorks Workgroup comes with the SolidWorks Professional license and higher so you may already have it and just need to set it up like myself.

I want to thank Devon Sowell, Brian McElyea, Josh Mings and Ben Eadie for discussing this with me at the SolidWorks 2009 Press Launch Event. They are the ones that really got me thinking about it and I appreciate it. Be sure to check out all of their blogs and see what they have to say about SolidWorks and its partner and add on products.

SolidWorks Installation Manager vs. Manual Download

Seeing this is the time of year that everyone starts running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get all of their SolidWorks installs updated I figured that it would be a good time to break down the pros and cons of the SolidWorks Installation Manager and a manual download and install. They both have their benefits and both seem to have a good group of people that are convinced that it is the best way. I am here to hopefully give you an unbiased opinion on both ways. I will make this statement before I get going, I am not convinced yet that 1 way is the hands down best way to download and install the software because both can make good cases.

SolidWorks Installation Manager (SWIM)

The SWIM is a great tool, when it works correctly. In the past many users, including myself, have experienced many issues while downloading and installing SolidWorks using the SWIM. Recently, I again decided to give the SWIM a chance and I decided to use it to install SolidWorks 2009 SP0 on my home computer. It was flawless! Soon after you start the SWIM it will ask you a few simple questions with probably the biggest one being what is you serial number. A few questions later it will begin downloading all of your software automatically for you. The nice thing about it is that it will scan your system and your serial number and determine would products you are entitled to and what programs you already have on your system. You don’t have to worry about it. You will have the option to decided what SolidWorks programs you would like to install (i.e. SolidWorks Explorer, eDrawings, DWGeditor, etc.) before it downloads and installs them. Once it has begun to download you are free to go get a cup of coffee, throw your feet up on the desk, put your hands behind your head and watch the magic happen. It will download and install the software automatically with only a few interruptions in between wondering what to do with your SolidWorks Data and so on. Like I said, this is a very nice tool if you are looking for a relaxed installation that you can count on while you are busy doing something else. Take note that the actual download time does not differ a whole lot doing it this route compared to the manual download, but it does pick out exactly what you need.

Manual Download

The manual download method is more of an “old school” method of downloading and installing SolidWorks. By doing a manual download from the web you are required to know more about your software package and your computer in general than you would if you were using the SWIM. For someone that is unsure of what they need or what they should have, the manual download is not the best route for you to go. As you can see above you have a list of files that you need to individually download into an install folder or onto your desktop. It is broken down into Required Prerequisite Downloads, Required Update For Core SolidWorks, Required Updates If These Components Are Installed, Optional Updates among other. What always gets me is that for some of the Required Prerequisite Downloads when I go to install them it says that I already have a later version of the software on my system. Kind of confusing because the only place I would have gotten it before was from a previous SolidWorks install. I guess this just goes to show that you have to have an idea of what you are doing and how to react to some of the messages you will get while you are using this method. Unlike the SWIM method of downloading and installing, you will also need to unzip and then install all of your downloads. This can turn into a very tedious project but in my eyes it is a more complete way of installing the software as long as you know what you are doing.

Conclusion

My conclusion is going to be short on this one. You have to decide for yourself what is going to be the best method for you and your company. I personally am going to continue to use the SWIM as long as I can and as long as I don’t run into any more problems. The SWIM tool seems to be a focus of the SolidWorks development team to try and improve it as much as they can so that it becomes the fool proof method for updating your version of SolidWorks. I like the general concept of the SWIM but there are still bugs in it that need to be fixed, hopefully they are fixed for the 2009 SP0 release (which it looks like they are according to my first install of it). Check it out for yourself and find out what you like the best.

Creating And Validating A Dataset

This is a SolidWorks Technical Tip that SolidWorks had on their website in the middle of June for public consumption. I believe that during the overhaul of their website this document was deleted or misplaced. I wanted to take the opportunity to repost it because I think that it has very important information for upgrading to the latest version of SolidWorks (new release or service pack). I take no responsibility for what this document says and likewise I take no credit for it either. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

___________________________

SolidWorks Technical Tip

Creating and validating a dataset

Solution ID: S-023889

Applies to: SolidWorks

Version: All Versions

Category: Administration, Installation, Best Practice, Tech Tip

Created: 06/10/2008

Last revised: 06/10/2008

When moving to a new version of service pack of SolidWorks software, you should have a test dataset that can be used to insure a smooth transition to the new version or service pack.

There are infinite ways to create and edit SolidWorks documents, and some of these elements can be unique to your company. When preparing for any software update, you should do some level of validation testing in your environment to insure the upgrade goes smoothly.

One way to prepare for any software migration is to create a sample of representative data (dataset) and processes to insure the new software works the way you intend to use it. The process side takes into consideration the way your designs are created and edited.

Creating a dataset

When it comes to validating your data and methodologies, more is not better. What you are looking for is different types of design processes, file types, and input that would make a dataset unique:

• Different design processes and methodologies examples of this include:
  • In-context design
  • Configurations and design tables
  • Use of Hole tables
  • Drawings and annotations
  • Sheet metal design
  • Exploded assembly views
  • Use of different feature types
  • Complexity of design
  • All document types used should be included (parts, assemblies, drawings, formats, design library parts)
• Different organizations within your company
• Different design groups
• Use of imported data
• Different SolidWorks setting, formats, and templates
• Previous problems or issues
• Use of different languages
• New SolidWorks features or functions

As the organization of your data or the way you use SolidWorks changes, so should your validation test methods and datasets change as part of an ongoing process.

The size of your dataset should be kept reasonable in size (~2-3GB) so the files can be tested and transferred, if necessary, easily. It is prohibitive to maintain and test all of your SolidWorks data. Choose wisely and keep it up to date.

Documents added to the dataset should be clean and not contain (after a forced rebuild using Ctrl-Q) FeatureManager design tree warning or errors for part and assembly features, mate groups, and drawing views. If there are issues with a design, clean the problem up before adding the document to the validation dataset.

Validating the dataset and process

Once your datasets and design validation methodologies are created, you will need a way to test this information.

To validate your representative dataset:

• Convert Files - This will open the documents and convert them to the new version of the SolidWorks. This Task Scheduler (Convert Files) will report any issues with the document. This only will find the simple problems and does not provide a forced rebuild or anything outside of the ability to open the document.
• Macros - Creating a macro to test documents can be effective but are harder to create and maintain. These macros also offer only limited coverage to the different features, functions, and processes used.

To validate design methodologies:

A pilot group is one way to validate your processes and methodologies is to have a small test group pilot the new version or service pack doing real work. This is the best way to insure the way your organization uses SolidWorks is acceptable in the next version/service pack.

This is easier to do in a service pack as the data is compatible to the older service pack, while a new version is not backward compatible. Also, it is not recommended to perform production work in a beta version as the possibility exists that the files may not be compatible with the final version. While this is rare, it is a possibility.

The pilot group should validate:

• Design processes and methodologies
• Any add-in applications
• Data management tools, workflow, etc.
• Printing and plotting
• Any other custom macros or programs that are used by SolidWorks
• Test cases - Create simple checklists to run through design scenarios, common practices, etc. These checklists are simple to create and can be used by the pilot or beta test group to insure consistency in your validation testing.
• Macros - Some processes can be repeated by creating macros. This will require some level of understanding of VB (Visual Basic). A good start to these macros is to record a macro and use that as a basis for the test. One thing you will find is the macro recorder does not record all the functions to automatically re-run the test. Some editing of the macro will be required to make it run.

Conclusion

Creating a good, representative dataset is useful for insuring a smooth transition between new versions and service packs. Remember it is quality not quantity when creating the dataset.

The processes and methodology validation is also important to insure all applications and tools work as intended. Also remember to update your datasets and design process validation as new processes, design groups, new SolidWorks functionality, or other application changes occur.

How To Successfully Implement SolidWorks 2009

In an effort to focus on more CAD Administration items here at RockSolid Perspective I thought that this time of year would be the perfect time to begin this process. As most of you know by now, SolidWorks 2009 SP0 is available for download on the Downloads and Updates page inside of the SolidWorks Customer Portal. I have already downloaded this version on my home laptop for testing and to get a feel for all of the new features that are available in this release so that I am familiar with it before I distribute it to the other users at my company.

Step 1: Determine When You Want To Upgrade!

This is often a heavily debatable topic that surfaces on discussion forums and at user group meetings. Most companies like to wait until SP1 or even SP2 before they update their software because of the bugs that can surface in SP0. Usually the bugs outweigh the benefits of the new features so companies hold off until the majority of the issues have been resolved. Last year SolidWorks 2008 seemed to have a high quantity of issues throughout the first couple of service packs which resulted in multiple SPX.1 releases. There were even companies that skipped the 2008 release all together because of these. In regards to the 2009 release I believe that the switch should come as soon as possible as long as it doesn’t interrupt your ability to work with your customers data. SolidWorks 2009 appears to me and others and the most stable release that SolidWorks has had in a long time and the performance gains that are included in the software warrant an immediate upgrade.

Step 2: Have The CAD Administrator Test The Software Before Implementation!

A good practice to get into is to have your company’s CAD Administrator do some testing before just throwing the software out into production. 1 common way to do this is to develop a dataset of some of your models. Back in June SolidWorks offered a tech tip about how to create and validate a dataset which I found very useful and informative. However, when SolidWorks updated their website they seem to have deleted the page that it was on so it is no longer available (at least I cannot seem to find it anywhere. I am happy to announce that I printed this off when I saw it and I will re-publish it in an upcoming blog post so that it is once again available to everyone. This is a great way to test the software with some of the unique operations that your company uses before finding out that there is an issue after everyone has been switched over to the new release. Once created this dataset can be used repeatedly for upcoming releases and can be added to whenever you feel the need to check additional things during your internal testing period. This is also a good tool to use when beta testing, which I suggest everyone participate in, so that the bugs that you may encounter in SP0 can be fixed long before it hits the web.

Step 3: Determine The Timing Of Your Partner Product’s SP0 Release!

At the company I work at we also run CamWorks which is our CNC programming software. After some research I found out that CamWorks 2009 is not going to be starting beta testing until October of this year. I would never endorse upgrading your CAD software while your CAM software or any partner product is still in beta. This step may have the most input into when your company is ready to make the switch from SW 2008 to SW 2009.

Step 4: Determine Where To Install SolidWorks From?

There are 2 options for downloading SolidWorks 2009 SP0. The first route is to use the web and download it from the Customer Portal’s Downloads and Updates page. This is a great spot because it gives you the ability to download it on demand as soon as it goes live to the web by SolidWorks. However, as with any software that you download from the web there is always the chance that the download can get interrupted or become corrupted so that there are issues that become visible during the install. This is even worse if you are using an admin image because by the time that the problem comes around there could be a lot of users that have downloaded it already and will need to reinstall the software possibly. The other option is to wait until you receive the DVD’s that SolidWorks ships to your doorsteps every year. The downside of this is that you have to wait a couple of additional weeks after the web download is available to get your hands on the smoking hot new release of the software. I personally prefer this method as it ensures you a clean install (as long as the DVD’s are not corrupt somehow) and therefore a smooth transition from 1 release to the next.

Step 5: Clean Up Your Systems!

This is a very important step in implementing SolidWorks so that your down time is held to a minimum. A quick thing to do right away is to save all of your settings onto your desktop so that you can quickly retrieve them once the new software is installed. You can do this by using the Copy Settings Wizard that SolidWorks packages with each release. To find this tool you need to go to Start>Programs>SolidWorks 2008>SolidWorks 2008 SPX>SolidWorks Tools>Copy Settings Wizard. Now before you get all DVD or download/install happy be sure to uninstall the previous version of SolidWorks that is on your system (as long as you can without interrupting your customers data translation) so that you can start with a nice new and fresh version of SolidWorks. This step can go for all of your partner product updates too. Once you have uninstalled the software be sure to go into your registry and delete all forms of SolidWorks registry keys that you can find in there. This will get rid of all forms of data that your computer likes to keep for you behind the scenes.

Disclaimer: Do not go into your registry and alter it if you are not comfortable doing so and do not realize the consequences that could occur because of it.

Step 6: Prepare Yourself For The Install!

Something that you will want to check before you begin to install the software is whether or not you will need to turn off you anti-virus protection program first. SolidWorks has finally released a list of tested anti-virus applications that it will support during installs. To find this data you will need to visit the Anti-Virus page in the System Requirements and Graphics Cards section of their web page. If your anti-virus protection program is listed with a green check mark next to it you will not need to do anything to your anti-virus in order to install SolidWorks successfully.

Step 7: Install Your Software And Distribute It To Your Company!

Once steps 1-5 are completed and completed successfully you should be ready to install the software. Whether you are doing a group of individual installs or an admin image you are ready to install it successfully. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy all of the SolidWorks install process goodness.

Step 8: Attend And Conduct An Internal ‘What’s New In SolidWorks 2009′ Seminar!

The last step in this process is a critical one. This step can be done before step 7 also so that you are ready to rock and roll as soon as your computer is ready for SolidWorks 2009. Most if not all VAR’s (SolidWorks resellers) will offer 1 or multiple What’s New In SolidWorks 2009 seminars throughout the month of October and into November. Make sure your CAD Administrator attends this event and possibly takes another user from the company with him so that you can see what is all included in this release. These seminars are great opportunities to see the new version, interact with your VAR and interact with other SolidWorks users in your area. Be sure to take good notes during this training session so that you are able to go back and train the rest of the users in your company the same things that you saw and learned. This will ensure a smooth transition between SolidWorks 2008 and SolidWorks 2009.

If you are unable to attend this event on the day it is scheduled be sure to watch your local user group website because many of these will have a presentation in an upcoming meeting covering many of the new highlights of SolidWorks 2009.

Only Loading What You Want = Quicker Load Times

Over the past 4 weeks I have been working on a rather large progressive die assembly for my company so much to my delight I quickly picked up on a tool that Jeremy Regnerus of SolidWorks Corp. mentioned in passing at our July 15 WMSWUG meeting.

How many of you have ever had to make a quick update in an assembly but the assembly was so huge that it took you longer to open the assembly than to actually make the change. Here is where the tip comes in, you can actually load a “preview” of the model and actually select only the parts in the assembly that you need to work on. What this does is only load those parts that you selected into memory and everything else is just there. All of your mates stay intact during this process but the components aren’t bogging down your system. Here is how you accomplish this.

Step 1: File>Open and browse to the assembly that you need to work in and single click it.

Step 2: Check the box at the bottom of the window that says Quick View/Selective Open

Step 3: Notice that the now there is a popup that appears in the upper left hand corner of your work window that lets you select either to open the Selected components or All components displayed (using display states and show/hide).

Step 4 (Only if you checked Selected components in Step 3): Ctrl select the components that you need to work on either in the working window or in the feature manager tree and then click the Open Selected button in the Selective Open popup window.

Step 5: Another popup window will then appear that notifies you that when ever you decide to show an additional component from here on out it may take longer to show these components because it is actually loading that component into memory at that point.

Step 6: Now you have only the components loaded into memory that you selected in Step 4.

Once again I want to thank Jeremy for pointing this out to me and the other attendees at our SWUG meeting.

Templates That Aren’t Empty? I’ve Heard It All Now!

Do you have the need or desire to show components in your assembly templates? Well you can but it may not be as easy as you think. SolidWorks seems to be doing a really good at making sure that your assembly templates are completely empty other than some reference geometry.

To start off SolidWorks does not allow you to make a template that references another template already. For example you can not have an assembly template with a part in it the was created from a part template, some sort of a cross reference there I guess. So here is how you can work around this issue.

Step 1: Open Assembly and mate in components as you desire
Step 2: Save completed Assembly as an assembly file (.sldasm)
Step 3: Rename completed Assembly to the file extension for your Assembly templates (.asmdot)
Step 4: Move renamed Assembly into your Document Templates folder

Now you will be able to use this template like the others that you already have set up. However, there are a few drawbacks that I have seen. The first is that when you go to save that template it does not automatically switch to the .sldasm extension but instead you have to manually switch it, which can become a nuisance if you are used to the way that the other template react. The other is that it always puts you in the folder where the template is stored so you need to cycle through more files in order to save it off into the correct location.

Try it out for yourself to see if it fixes what ails you. Also, if you have other workarounds for this same issue please share, I would love to hear them.