If you’re the sole user of SOLIDWORKS at your company or you’re a solo operator, choosing an installation method is straight forward: install SOLIDWORKS through the SOLIDWORKS Installation manager. But once you add a few more users or multiple sites into the mix , you really have to start thinking about the other methods that are available.

So what are the options?

1. The SOLIDWORKS Installation Manager
2. Command line installation
3. NVIDIA GRID VCA

The big question is… where do you start? Deciding which one to choose isn’t as easy as it may seem. Each way has its own strengths and weaknesses, and every company’s resources and implementation/installation goals are different. For me, determining which method gives the best bang for your buck is based on the following:

1. Who is going to be planning and organizing the installation, and what their experience/skill is with software installations/implementation/deployment?
2. How many client systems need to be installed and who is going to be executing the actual client installations?

For large companies who have essentially infinite IT resources with many SOLIDWORKS clients installations, and that want client installations to be completely automated, the command line installation is the way to go.

For small to medium companies with users that are familiar with and knowledgeable about the installation process – or have a part-time CAD administrator – individual installations enlisting the installation manager probably fits best.

For everything in between, it’s a toss-up. You’ve got a choice between the administrative image and NVIDIA GRID VCA. What tips the scale in one direction or another is whether the additional benefits of NVIDIA GRID VCA like accessing SOLIDWORKS remotely, security, on-demand performance, hardware consolidation/centralization or MAC, Linux, Windows XP or Windows Vista clients are important.

Now what? You have my recommendations, so what do you do next if you’ve been tasked with making the decision? My suggestion is that you start by reviewing the documentation available on all installation methods at support.hawkridgesys.com to get a broad sense of what each method entails. From there, start to define your goals and your decision criteria and engage with our technical support to help you come up with a plan. You can also talk to your account representative about having our professional services team put together a plan for you.

If you need additional information about how to come up with your criteria, more information about each of the installation methods or what it looks like to implement NVIDIA GRID VCA, check out our recent eLearning webinar on Simplifying Multi-User SOLIDWORKS Implementations: 5 Steps To Implement NVIDIA GRID VCA.

Watch the video here, or view / download the slide deck below:

By now you’ve heard about the new Style Spline in SOLIDWORKS 2014. If so, you’re probably wondering what makes it different from the spline that’s already available, why Style Spline may be useful to you, and when you may want to use it. In this 3-part series we’ll be answering those questions.

First, the Style Spline actually isn’t something new in the world of CAD. It’s an entity that’s been around for a long time, but is sometimes overlooked. It’s called a Bézier curve. This type of curve is commonly referred to as a “spline”, but it’s something a little different from the spline currently offered in SOLIDWORKS, classified as a B-Spline. Let’s take a look under the hood.

The math involved in calculating a Bézier curve uses a single polynomial called the Bernstein Polynomial. The curve is defined by the position of control vertices, or CV’s as they’re commonly called. Together they form the control polygon, or “hull” of the curve. Along the curve, there are no through points like you see on the current spline, so it’s considered “single span”. The degree of the curve, or the order of the underlying polynomial, depends on how many control points there are. The more control points, the higher the degree of the curve, the more complex you can make its shape. By looking at the control polygon, the degree of the curve is always equal to the number of CV’s minus 1.

B-Splines, on the other hand, use multiple polynomials to achieve their shape, and are a generalization of multiple curves. Think of a B-Spline as a series of overlapping, or connected, curves. The regions in between each through point are called “spans”, so it is possible to have multiple spans. The user can also weight the tangency and control the vector at each through point. These controls give a B-Spline the capability of making very complex curves very easily. If you show the control polygon on our B-Spline (RMB on the spline -> Display Control Polygon), things aren’t as straight forward as the Bézier curve. The degree and number of generalized curves that make up the overall shape is not controlled by the user, but rather by an algorithm that adjusts depending on how much control the user requests of the curve (curvature constraints applied at the endpoints, spline handle manipulation at each through point).

Note that as you pull on spline handles and apply constraints at the endpoints, the control polygon adds new CV’s. These new CV’s accommodate the extra degrees of freedom the user is requesting. It can also, however, allow the curve to get a little… unruly, shall we say? This added complexity can adversely affect the overall smoothness of the curve, introducing small deviations, bumps, and wrinkles which may not be immediately visible in the curve, but that can show up in the resulting geometry that uses the curve. If smoothness (aesthetics, ergonomics) is your goal, we want to keep the curve as simple as possible, adding complexity (more control) only when necessary.

Both curves have their advantages and disadvantages, and that’s what we’ll explain in Part 2 of the series. However, put simply, a Bézier curve is simpler than a B-Spline. This diagram is a good visual of the curves that are available in SolidWorks, in order of increasing flexibility, as well as mathematical complexity.

So what does all this mean? The reason SolidWorks added the Style Spline is not to replace anything that we currently have, but to provide something better suited for certain jobs. As you can see, the math involved is easier than a B-Spline, but more complex than a conic. It’s another tool in your toolbox, and the key is knowing when to use it and why.

Watch this space for Part 2 and 3 of the series. Want to see the Style Spline in action? Here’s a video – find more like this on our YouTube channel.

I recently worked on a customer project which involved answering the question, “How can I represent complex sub-assemblies or components that are part of a larger assembly using SOLIDWORKS Simulation?” The customer wanted to include ball screws and linear rails. These sub-assemblies include bearings, threads, and complex mounting geometry that would require a significant amount of time and effort to setup – and a significant amount of time to solve. Additionally, if I were to miss an element in the setup, the analysis could fail or the results may be invalid. One way to simplify an analysis that involves complex sub-assemblies or components is to replace them with spring connectors.

Replacing components with spring connectors allows you to:

• Reduce the number of components that need to be meshed, improving solve time
• Simplify the analysis setup, reducing the overall time necessary to execute the analysis

While maintaining the inherent stiffness of the components you remove by replacing them with an equivalent spring stiffness.

As an example, let’s take an assembly made of 2 plates with a spring in the middle. Including the spring in a linear static analysis with a 100 lbf load applied, the results show a displacement of 0.282 inches. To use a spring connector in this situation, the spring component is suppressed and replaced with a virtual spring that uses the stiffness data you have for the modeled spring. As you can see in the screenshots below, we can get the same displacements as the analysis that included the modeled spring.

Right: Results With Spring, Left: Results With Spring Connector.

Comparing the setup and solve time between the two studies:

• The setup time was short for both studies, but imagine if the spring was a more complex sub-assembly or component. It would require time to define contacts, material, and fixtures for all the elements in the sub-assembly or component. The setup time could be substantially longer.
• The solve time for the actual spring took 6 seconds to solve versus 2 seconds for the spring connector analysis.

A couple of other things to consider when using spring connectors:

• Make sure that the face selected for one body shares a common projected area on the face selected for the other body. If you don’t, SOLIDWORKS Simulation cannot create the spring and will display an error when you try to run the analysis. In the example above, the faces selected had the same area and were directly overlapping when looking at the top view.
• You can create split lines to separate the faces of each body in order to create a common projected area between them. In the example above, this technique would have been required if the spring was significantly smaller than the plates.

As you can see in this brief overview, spring connectors can help you obtain accurate results, while saving you time to setup and solve your analysis. Keep a look-out at this space for a follow-up blog article that covers using spring connectors to represent the ball screw and linear rail assemblies mentioned earlier, or join me on August 6 for my webinar: SOLIDWORKS Simulation – Representing Ball Screws and Linear Rails in Your Analysis.

In Part 1 of this series we looked at how the Style Spline (Bézier curve) differs from the B-Spline and other curves that were already available in SOLIDWORKS prior to 2014.

Here are the main points as to why this kind of curve is useful to a CAD user:

Control
The only way to control a Bézier curve is by manipulating (dragging) its control vertices (CVs). Right now it’s the only way to even sketch the curve in SOLIDWORKS, by placing a series of points. To make the CVs more useful when it comes to shaping or constraining the curve, construction lines are added in between each CV during curve creation. Therefore, controlling this curve is as simple as controlling a series of lines. This is something with which every SOLIDWORKS user is familiar. Users can drag a CV in any direction to change the shape of the curve, or you can drag a construction line to drag two CVs at once. And since the curve is basically controlled by lines, it can be mirrored, which makes shaping either the seed or the mirrored instance very easy to do.

Also, this curve can be symmetric on itself by simply applying symmetric relations to the CVs around a center line. This is much harder to do with a B-Spline. While you can make the through points symmetric to each other, you cannot do the same with the spline handles (they must each be fully dimensioned and/or constrained individually if you want perfect symmetry).

Constraining the curve is very simple because, again, it’s as easy as locking down a bunch of points and lines. Dimensions and relations may also help in shaping the curve, and makes it possible to configure and control the shape with equations.

The B-Spline, on the other hand, has a few extra controls to help shape the curve. These controls are very powerful, and can help the B-Spline quickly achieve some very complex shapes with much sharper changes in curvature. However, these controls can sometimes be the downfall of the curve. Spline handles are very useful, but they’re not natural to the curve. They are something that most systems implement to help users shape the curve, however there is some serious number crunching going on the in the background. Once you begin pulling on handles at different points of the curve, it’s adding more degrees of freedom to the curve. It can become awkward quickly, since there’s a lot of math going on to honor all the tangent weights and vectors and keep all of the spans flowing smoothly from one to the next. Although it’s a great way to quickly achieve a shape, it can sometimes lead to undesirable or confusing behavior, or make the curve difficult to constrain.

The B-Spline also has the ability to be shaped by its control polygon as well (RMB on the spline > Display Control Polygon), but this is something that cannot be referenced. This means you cannot constrain the polygon sides or CVs in any way like you can with the Style Spline, so you’re strictly eyeballing it.

Continuity
Shaping the Style Spline is very intuitive and easy to do. One difference from that of a B-Spline is that adjusting the CV locations to shape the curve is not as local, meaning that each CV has a wider influence over the entire curve on a Bézier curve. This is why a B-Spline is better suited for creating tight curves. However, one area where the B-Spline can fall short is maintaining continuity. As you shape a B-Spline, especially if you are using spline handles, curvature continuity across each through point can become interrupted. If a smooth curve is important to you, and your shape is not very complex (i.e. rapidly changing or alternating curvature, tight turns), then the Style Spline is the way to go. Something you can try yourself would be to create the same shape using each type of curve and the available controls. Once you’re finished, turn on the curvature combs (RMB on the spline > Show Curvature Combs or Show Curvature in the PropertyManager) and inspect the curves. Then, attempt to further shape each curve and note the result on the curvature combs.

The curvature of the Style Spline will always be more smooth and continuous. Actually, it’s pretty hard to get any abrupt change in curvature on a Bézier curve.

Quality
Finally, another reason why the Style Spline curve might be better suited for the job is due to quality. As mentioned previously, the math is easier, the degrees of freedom are simpler and more transparent, and constraining it is fast and easy. It has the potential to be less prone to problems. If a B-Spline was used to create geometry that isn’t too complex, you may end up paying the price due to the fact that there are probably more degrees of freedom in the curve than are necessary to get the desired shape. Therefore, you may end up in a situation where the curve is prone to those previously mentioned inflections or wrinkles, when upstream changes are made.

This is why a Bézier curve makes a great bridge curve in most situations. An example of this is when you have two open-ended pieces of geometry that need to be connected or bridged with a smooth blend. Also, since there aren’t handle weights or angles to worry about, it’s easier on the solver.

Watch this space for Part 3 of the series and be sure to check our YouTube channel to see a video of the Style Spline in action. 

In the first article in this three-part series, we discussed how the new Style Spline (Bézier curve) in SOLIDWORKS 2014 is different from the existing spline type (a B-Spline). In the second article in the series, we talked about why Bézier curves matter, and where, as a SOLIDWORKS user, you would want to use them. In this article, we get even deeper into the functionality of the Style Spline.

The Style Spline in SOLIDWORKS 2014 has some additional commands and options of which you’ll want to be aware. Knowing that they exist, what they do, and how to use them will help you create and shape the curve faster and easier.

First, when sketching the curve (which is done by placing its CVs) it’s not only possible to infer tangency at the first endpoint, but you can also infer Equal Curvature. The first CV sketched, which is the curve’s first endpoint, controls the first degree of curvature called contact, or C0 continuity. The 2^nd CV controls the 2^nd degree of curvature, which is tangency, also called C1 continuity. The 3^rd CV controls the 3^rd degree of curvature, or Equal Curvature, also called C2 continuity. Therefore, you will see a 2^nd inference line when sketching the 3^rd CV of the curve. If you snap to it, an Equal Curvature constraint will be applied at that endpoint once the curve is complete. No other curve currently in SOLIDWORKS can do this. Not too shabby!

If the Style Spline terminates on the endpoint of another entity, hold down the [Alt] key as you double click to end the curve in order to automatically apply a tangent relation at that endpoint, otherwise it will be coincident. If you want Equal Curvature at that endpoint, you will still need to apply this manually.

When sketching the curve, automatic relations between the CVs and other geometry in your sketch or model are not created. The only exception is at the endpoints of the curve. The reason is due to the fact you are sketching the curve by its CVs; the shape of the curve you end up with most likely will not be final. The CVs need to be free so that the user can drag them to keep shaping the curve. If desired, you can manually constrain the CVs after the curve has been completed. You can do this with relations, dimensions or both. You can also constrain the construction lines between the CVs.

When dragging CVs to shape the curve, hold down the [Ctrl] key if you don’t want them to snap to other geometry in your model. This temporarily disables automatic relations, and will prevent the CV from accidentally getting locked to a vertex, line, or edge in the background.

Once you’re finished creating the curve, you can still adjust the degree of the curve. By doing this, you are adding or removing control. This can be done via a spin box in the PropertyManager, or manually by adding (RMB > Insert Control Vertex) or deleting CVs one at a time on the polygon. However, if any CV (other than endpoints) is constrained at all, the spin box will be greyed out. This is to keep the curve from jumping abruptly since all the CVs are not free to adjust in order to maintain shape. In this case, you can still control curve degree manually by deleting or adding CV’s via the RMB menu command.

There is a checkbox in the PropertyManager called Local Edit. This setting is to aid the user when working with multiple Style Splines that are connected, yet not fully constrained. You may have one or two main curves that represent the primary surfaces on your model. Connected to those curves may be other, smaller curves for some secondary surfaces. There are times, when shaping the secondary curves, you may not want to affect the shape of the larger curves. Enabling the Local Edit setting on a particular Style Spline will prevent any CV adjustments from affecting other Style Splines to which it is connected. This option is currently only available for Style Splines.

We’re also happy to report that this curve works in 3D Sketches as well. Creating it in 3D is just as easy and works the same way as creating a series of lines. When dragging CVs to shape the curve, we strongly recommend that you use the 3D triad (RMB > Show Sketcher Triad). This helps greatly by constraining the free drag to X, Y, or Z directions, or XY, YZ, and XZ planar directions. You can assign a hotkey to the triad to speed up your workflow. Better yet, add it to your Mouse Gestures.

Hopefully now that you’ve digested this series of articles, you can fully take advantage of the benefits of the Style Spline and recognize the right situations to use it.

Learn More:

Read Taking a Deep Dive into the Style Spline in SOLIDWORKS – Part 1

Read Why Bézier Curves Matter – The Style Spline in SOLIDWORKS – Part 2

Watch the Style Spline in action on YouTube

Flow Simulation is a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool that operates directly inside of SOLIDWORKS. You’ll need both SOLIDWORKS and SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation installed, with the Flow Simulation add-in enabled, to follow along with this guide.

The first step is to get the geometry ready. For this cold plate, lids are needed at both ends of the cooling tube. This allows the inside of the tube to be defined as a separate internal fluid volume.

Next, I’ll create the Flow Simulation project using the Wizard. From the Flow Simulation menu, I’ll select Project, Wizard. I’ll name the project “Conjugate Heat Transfer” and choose to use the current configuration.

I’ll set my unit system as SI (m-kg-s) and change the unit for temperature to °C.

The analysis type is External because we want to consider the air surrounding the model. I’ll turn on Heat conduction in solids and Gravity, and confirm that Y component -9.81 m/s^2 is the correct direction and value for this analysis.

Air (Gases) and Refrigerant R-123 (Real Gases) are pre-defined and can be added as the project fluids. I’ll make sure that the checkboxes are set so that Air (Gases) is the Default Fluid.

Aluminum is pre-defined under Metals and can be set as the default solid.

I can accept the default value of 0 micrometer for Roughness and assume smooth walls.

And I’ll accept the default values for the initial conditions.

I’ll keep the Result resolution relatively low to start with and set it to 3, and I’ll enter 0.007874 m for the Minimum gap size and 0.000889 m for the Minimum wall thickness, which correspond to the inner diameter and thickness of the tube. I’ll click Finish and work my way down the Flow Simulation analysis tree.

The automatically generated computational domain is bit larger than I need so I’ll right-click Computational Domain, select Edit Definition, and enter the following values.

A fluid subdomain needs to be defined to set the fluid inside the tube as the refrigerant. I’ll right-click Fluid Subdomains and select Insert Fluid Subdomain. I’ll select an internal face of the tube, set the checkbox next to Refrigerant R-123 (Real Gases), and enter 101325 Pa and -5 °C for the Thermodynamic Parameters.

Next up are the boundary conditions. I’ll right-click Boundary Conditions and select Insert Boundary Condition. I’ll select the inner face of the inlet lid and define an Inlet Mass Flow with the parameters shown below.

And I’ll insert another boundary condition on the inner face of the outlet lid and define a Static Pressure as shown below.

A surface source can be used to generate heat at the top of the plate. From the Flow Simulation menu, I’ll select Insert, Surface Source. I’ll select the top surface of the plate and enter a Heat Generation Rate of 200 W.

The last thing to do before running the project is to define the goals. I’ll right-click Goals, select Insert Global Goals, and select the Max checkboxes for the Temperature (Fluid) and Temperature (Solid).

And that’s it. The project is ready to run. I’ll right-click the project name, select Run, ensure that the checkbox for Solve is selected, and click the Run button. This initial setup is a good start for this problem, but it’s of course a great idea to refine the setup after running the analysis and taking a look at the results.

Once the analysis is complete, there are many ways to investigate the results. As an example, I’ll create a cut plot to view the temperature of the coolant in the tube. I’ll right-click Cut Plots and select Insert. I’ll set my plot halfway through the tube, 0.0275 m above the Top Plane, and choose to show Temperature Contours.

The plot shows that the coolant rises from its initial temperature of -5 °C to a maximum of about 80 °C by the end of the tube.

Better performance, especially at the left half of the cold plate, could likely be achieved by reducing the temperature increase of the coolant, so increasing the flow rate through the tube might be a good idea. SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation allows for changes to the design and analysis to be cycled through at the same time and it shouldn’t be too long before an improved cold plate is nailed down.

I hope you found this conjugate heat transfer example useful. If you have any questions, please leave a comment and let us know.

Have you ever wanted to bring a large assembly into SOLIDWORKS Composer without creating a link to the top-level assembly in SOLIDWORKS? It’s possible! SOLIDWORKS Composer allows multiple assembly files to be compiled into a single SOLIDWORKS Composer document, and to do it, you need to use SOLIDWORKS Composer Projects. Using Projects, each sub-assembly just below the top-level assembly can be imported into a single Project and assembled together. This breaks the tie to the top-level assembly, and allows smaller updates to be made to the independent sub-assemblies without having to update the entire thing.

Bottom line? SOLIDWORKS Composer Projects add complexity to structure and workflow. Using Projects gives you greater control over what gets updated, as well as the ability to import multiple assemblies referencing multiple configurations.

When using Projects, the best practice is to plan out your file structure for file storage. There will be a Project “top level” file, your SOLIDWORKS files, and a series of files created for each specific item that is being imported into the Project. Each unique file being imported should have its own folder, as there will be multiple files associated to it. The file structure below is for reference. You should decide on a naming convention and structure before beginning your new Project.

The process below describes in detail how to set up SOLIDWORKS Composer Projects. Click on the pictures for a larger size and more detail.

STEP 1

Create and save your SOLIDWORKS assembly. Be sure to close SOLIDWORKS; Windows file permissions will not allow the file to be open in multiple programs during Import. After import, the file can be open in both programs.

STEP 2

Open SOLIDWORKS Composer and import your SOLIDWORKS assembly.

• File > Open
• Navigate to the first SOLIDWORKS part or assembly you wish to bring into Composer and then select it – but don’t open it just yet

Note: This process needs to be repeated for each specific assembly, individual part, or specific configuration you wish to update independently in the final Project.

STEP 3

With the assembly selected, click on the SOLIDWORKS button on the lower portion of the open pane. Select the particular configuration you wish to import. Once you have the desired configuration selected, click on “open” to load that specific configuration.

STEP 4

STEP 5

Save each part as a SOLIDWORKS Composer Product (*.smgxml). Once all files have been converted to Products create a new SOLIDWORKS Composer Project. Click File > New Project.

A Project is a multi-file format consisting of one or more SOLIDWORKS Composer product files and a project (*.smgProj) file. The *.smgProj file is an XML file that references the top-level *.smgXml, *.smgView, and *.smgSce files that comprise the project.

Projects organize your SOLIDWORKS Composer files into folders and let you share references. For example, two projects can share the same .smgXml, .smgGeom, and .smgView files but have different .smgSce files. Projects also let you import multiple subassemblies even when you do not have the main assembly file. Click OK and a dialog box will open, asking to select the first Product for the Project. At this time, multiple Products can be selected by holding down [CTRL] and selecting each SMGXML.

SMGXML files – or Products – can be imported into the Project at any time.

STEP 6

Once your Project is created, you can now add your SOLIDWORKS Composer Products into the project and control which configuration you want to display under the assembly tab.In the example on the left, the Project is called ROOT and currently there are 2 assemblies (configuration 2 & configuration 3) under ROOT. Notice that only configuration 2 is active and displayed right now. There is also the option to go into each configuration and select the each part individually.

STEP 7

To add a Product: Right click on the top level project and scroll down to Product > Add Products.At this point you will navigate to the *.smgxml files that you have saved as for each configurations earlier.

• Select any Product .SMGXML to import into the Composer Project file

STEP 8

To update the Project you must update the Products. Think of the Top Level Project as a container of links, linking to the Products. Once a Product updates it will also update in the Project.

• Open a Composer Product file .SMGXML
• Update by going to File > Update > select original SOLIDWORKS file for update, pick the configuration and select update
• Close and reopen the Project; the updated Product will show now show in the Project.

Note: Each Product has to be updated independently unless using Composer SYNC Enterprise.

Every year, on the third day of SOLIDWORKS World, I can’t keep up. My fingers, my camera, my phone – they all fail as I furiously try to capture the sneak peek at the next release’s enhancements and new features. Invariably I miss a few, get blurry photos, and only manage to fire off one or two tweets to the Twittersphere before the show is over and Bertrand is telling us all when and where to join him for the next SOLIDWORKS World.

These misses are likely because I’m turning to someone like our SOLIDWORKS Product Manager, Todd Domke, for the inside scoop on why we all should be excited. (Other than the fact that the SOLIDWORKS Product Management team has dressed up like Batman and they’re all making more CAD-POW puns than when the Marketing team at the Ridge gets a little punchy, of course. Because CADMAN and Rib-in, you guys.)

When Beta rolls around, I’m usually poking the engineers with sticks and trying to get them to tell me if any of their SOLIDWORKS World hopes and dreams have come to fruition (more often than not, they have). The Friday after Labor Day, you can find me pinned to my Twitter feed to see what the bloggers and press have to say. And finally, when SOLIDWORKS goes live with their Launch site, some lucky engineer finds me lingering at their door or hunting them on instant messenger, wanting to know all the things they dig in the newest release of SOLIDWORKS.

2015 is no different.

My victim this year was Todd Domke, our aforementioned SOLIDWORKS Product Manager. Todd is a staple in our Southern California offices, and a familiar face to many of our customers who’ve attended previous Launch events. As the Product Manager for SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD, every year Todd works closely with the Launch presenters to develop an overview that covers as many enhancements as possible. I still find it really incredible that all of these enhancements are driven by customer requests – hundreds of updates and improvements so that everyday users can do their jobs better and faster.

It turns out that Todd is the most excited about three things: Variable Patterns, SOLIDWORKS Model Based Definition (MBD), and new costing tools.

Variable Patterns

Complex patterns, faster and with less effort

This improvement translates to all kinds of parts design. In the past, creating complex patterns could be laborious. There were a lot of clicks, a lot of extra work and additional sketching. Those days are gone. As Todd says, “Variable Pattern tables add flexibility to your design, so you that you can make complex patterns faster, and with less effort. Now, they’re just as easy as any other type of pattern.”

SOLIDWORKS Model Based Definition (MBD)

The design environment of the future

“I’m a big believer in the paperless design environment, and I’m thrilled to see SOLIDWORKS taking the lead and looking towards the future,” Todd told me. SWMBD standardizes output and gives you control to customize templates while maintaining your organization’s standards.  Because you bypass traditional 2D processes and communicate clearly to the manufacturer with 3D output, MBD helps to eliminate potential problems.

New Costing Features

Design for cost upfront and avoid rework

When I asked Todd about Costing, his first response was “Weldments – amazing. Costing was made for this!” It’s not just weldments. New in 2015, there is also support for cast metal components, plastic injection molding, and 3D Printing. “Now, you can spend less time doing bidding and more time designing.”

As Todd and I wrapped up our conversation, he said, “I think I might say this every year, but I really, really mean it this time: this is the best release I’ve seen in a long time. From the general enhancements that everyone can enjoy to the industry-specific functionality to overall performance improvements, there’s something in this release to satisfy the spectrum of SOLIDWORKS users.”

But don’t take it from me and Todd – come see SOLIDWORKS 2015 in action at one of our SOLIDWORKS 2015 Launch events, or visit the SOLIDWORKS 2015 site to explore these and even more new features.

Watch this space and our YouTube for more in-depth technical reviews and how-tos on the 23^rd release of SOLIDWORKS, and follow us on Twitter for the latest SOLIDWORKS 2015 news: @Hawk_Ridge_Sys or look for #SW2015 or #SW2015Launch.

When using SOLIDWORKS Plastics, injection pressure, air trap and weld line locations, sink marks, and fill time are all some common things that are considered when designing plastic parts. However, clamp tonnage (the force imparted by the injection machine on the mold halves to keep them from separating during the injection process) is often overlooked by novice plastic designers. Let’s look at two reasons why you should design with clamp tonnage in mind:

Reason #1: Undersizing Your Machine

When the clamp force supplied by your injection molding machine is insufficient to manufacture the part you have designed, you may get some flash around your part.

What is flash? During the injection process, pressure builds up within the mold and the injection molding machine has to counteract that pressure by applying a clamping force. If it can’t produce enough force, the mold halves can open slightly and molten plastic can flow into unintended places. This unwanted plastic is called flash.

Reason #2: Oversizing Your Machine

Okay, so why not just run the part on the biggest machine you can find? Well, let’s consider running a part on a 610-ton machine. You may be avoiding flash in your part, but typically the larger the injection machine the more it will cost to run.

So like the title says, size matters. Using a tool like SOLIDWORKS Plastics will allow you to accurately calculate the clamp tonnage required for your part so you can pick an optimally sized injection machine.

Recently I helped a manufacturing company prove to their customer that a part could not be molded, because the required clamp tonnage was too high. I’ll be presenting a webinar on September 24^th highlighting that project, titled You Can’t Mold That Part – Here’s Why – click here to join the webinar.

It had been several years since I participated in any SolidWorks Beta contests. I was always busy and when they stopped handing out cash and started handing out graphics hardware, I wasn’t really motivated. This year however I was assigned to try and drum up interest for the internal Hawk Ridge bet contest and they brought the cash prizes back… So obviously this year I was back to competing.

Since I didn’t have time to get in the trenches and win by bug hunting, I knew the only way to get my name on the board was to go for the rendering contests. There were four PhotoView360 rendering contests this year, basically one entry a month June through September.

The first step in rendering is figuring out which models to use, so I went down into the original Webinar Wednesday vault and grabbed a few favorites:

I also wanted to do some design in SOLIDWORKS 2015 to kick the tires so I crossed two ideas from the past:

Picking the models is a good start, and in June I went with the mini-jets. I settled on just the two mini Mig 19s.  Now I needed to run through the typical rendering workflow:

• Appearances
• Camera
• Scenery
• Lighting
• Preview
• Adjust
• Render

The model has aluminum appearance with some matte red and black paint. A Plexiglas canopy shows a couple of masked, helmeted guys; most the appearances in this scene are on the pilots.

The camera angle needed to give the models a dynamic feel and hide the fact that there is a stationary turbine in a plane that is supposed to flying. I used a telephoto lens for a good vanishing point and moved the models into position to show only the hub of the turbine clearly.

I tried a few sky backgrounds, but settled on this sunburst. I used a rooftop scene with the picture as the background. I knew the rooftop scene has a sunrise in the reflection; by spinning the scene to make the sunrise in the scene be on top of the sun in the background made the lighting, especially on the canopies.

So I had the first 4 step of the work flow done. But the preview and adjust really aren’t two steps – we’re talking hours upon hours fidgeting with position, light, appearance and everything else until you finally get a good photo realistic rendering. Even then it isn’t even done. I look at rendering on different screens, through a projector, on my tablet and continue tinkering until it gets dialed in and voila…

The way the light hits the plane on the left while the other plane appears shaded by the cloud really makes this believable. But what’s the point of Beta if you’re not trying to push the limits of the software? PhotoView360 had issues in the past with transparency on top of transparency, especially when there is background involved. The way the cloud shows through both sides of the bubble canopy on the right really looks tight.

This was entry number one and got me 4^th place. I really wish SOLIDWORKS would post the winners like they did in the past so I could see what the others were up to and what the judges are looking for.

I would go more into detail about all the appearance and camera work I did here, but entry two failed to place in the contest at all, so I’ll just show it and move on. (I think the problem is no one knows what these are: they’re motorized skateboards, and you put your feet through the holes in the middle of the wheels.)

For Beta 2, I actually had some breathing room in my schedule to do some modeling. As far as beta goes 2015 was nice and stable for me and I was able to move around as well as 2014. The new parent/child pointers in the history tree surprised me, but proved useful once I accepted them.

For the project I did a little research on ground effect vehicles to get a better, less rickety, look for the old skyak. I also copied and pasted the serpent art off the dragster nose. This version of the skyak is less a floating ultralight, and more seaplane-meets-airboat.

Again, I start going through the workflow over and over again as usual, but this time with a particular challenge. Could I get believable water to match the ocean in the tropical beach picture? For this effect I modeled the water as a component and gave it the overall appearance of still water. This made the plane look like it was sitting in a block of glass, so more changes were needed. On the bottom face of the water model was assigned the appearance of still water 2D to give the illusion of sun on submerged sand. For the top face I assigned blue glass and gave it the azure color.

But it still looked like it was stuck in a frozen lake in Minnesota, more than lapping in the middle of the Pacific. I used the freeform tool on top face to actually model the wavy surface.

This effort netted me 4^th place (again?) in the August competition.

The last rendering was going to be of the Humvee Fire Truck, which already had tons of appearance detail. I just had to find a fire fighting background and make it believable. For a smoky scene like this the bloom feature in PhotView360 has to work. And just like the transparency issues I mentioned, the bloom has had many releases where the setting didn’t do a blooming thing. I’m happy to report that Beta 3 did bloom correctly, so well in fact I had to change out my chrome door handles because they were blooming too.

To get the model to look like it belongs that there is a lot of trickery that you might not notice right away. The passenger window is made of glass but it has a decal on it. The decal is a screen capture of one of the trees blocked by the truck in the background picture. Also, black or gray rubber tires looked out of place on a vehicle that is clearly off pavement. The appearance of the tires was set to rubber, but an image captured of the ruddy ground in the picture was applied to the rubber. When wrapped like a sphere around the tire it looks like it has been driving along a dry dirt road to reach this scene.

I also had some consulting from our Reno engineer Tyler Braginton, who has actually fought fires with the aid of some off-road vehicles. Advice on some of the scaling of nozzles and those sorts of things helped out – but what really helped was his collection of pictures of a real Humvee fire truck (only four wheels L)  with fire fighters standing near it that really, really helped. I used a wide angle lens on this to force perspective on this scene so the scale of the truck worked with the 2 guys in the picture.

This got me 4^th place for September. (4^th place again? Again?)

Keep watch on this space for more about SOLIDWORKS 2015, and join me along with the rest of the team in Reno, NV for our SOLIDWORKS Launch event this October. If you aren’t near Reno, check out the full Launch schedule for a location near you.

Fall is always a great time of year. Football is in full swing, the World Series is around the corner, there will be snow in the mountains soon, and, of course, new features in SOLIDWORKS Simulation are unveiled.

This year, SOLIDWORKS 2015 has a new tool called Shell Manager which will drastically reduce the time it takes to define shells and simplify the modification of them in your next simulation.

Shells are ideal for the analysis of high aspect ratio parts such as sheet metal or components with one dimension, the thickness, significant smaller than the other two. It seems like just yesterday that SOLIDWORKS 2013 provided the ability to Render Shell Thickness in 3D, improving the visualization of results during post-processing. Earlier this year ilyn our blog Render Shell Thickness in SOLIDWORKS Simulation, we discussed this enhancement as well as some basics of using shell elements in an analysis, a nice resource to review if needed. If you have already been using shells, or perhaps found them too tedious to setup in an analysis you will want to read on to learn more about the Shell Manager.

I will be using the Shell Manager anytime I have more than a couple of shells in an analysis. The on-screen feedback and single location to control many properties of my shell definition is a welcome change from having to select each shell individually if changes are required. Now, I only have to right click on a body or previously defined shell in the Simulation Tree and choose to access the Shell Manager tool. I can enter and/or modify the definition using the property manager or I can input parameters in tabular form at the bottom of the screen. All of the same shell definitions are available through the new tool such as type, thickness, and offset, but now I can also easily define the material in the same interface.

As I create more and more shells in my model, I can always check to ensure my definitions are accurate using the Shell Manager. The Preview Offset allows me to verify that the shells accurately represent my 3D model, while the “Color by:” choices of “Thickness” and “Material” allow for on-screen visual feedback to show which material is used on which shells or if all of my cross-member shells are the proper thickness.

The increased feedback and input options are great during shell definition, but the real time-saver is when I have design changes that I want to quickly implement in my analysis. I can now group shells with the same definition together using Shell Groups. This provides one location where I can change the type, material, and thickness of multiple shells with one dialogue box instead of modifying each individual shell. In my example, I have 3 Shell Groups to modify instead of the 7 individual shells – imagine the time-savings if I had 30 shells in my model that are now in just 3 Shell Groups. An awesome efficiency improvement for SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2015. Bring on the design changes, I am ready!

I’ll be showing new features like this at our SOLIDWORKS 2015 Launch events in Las Vegas, Reno, Northern California, Southern California, Portland, and Seattle in just a few weeks. Join me and the rest of Team Hawk Ridge for the Launch event, which includes a networking hour with drinks, food, and prizes. My counterparts in Canada will visit Winnipeg, Toronto, Vancouver, Saskatoon, Calgary, and Edmonton. Click on the location nearest you for more details.

Also, please keep an eye on our YouTube channel for an upcoming video demonstrating this new tool and other enhancements for SOLIDWORKS 2015 as well as great tips and tricks for all of the SOLIDWORKS Products.

Every time I address a group of engineers about the idea of “going paperless” at least one (if not all) will sneer and say, “Hah, there is NO WAY you can get rid of the paper (2D) drawing”. In the words of Nobel Prize winner George Bernard Shaw I will reply, “Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it”. After all, 20 years ago people said that there was NO WAY that cars would drive themselves, that the cellular telephone would replace over a dozen commodities (including the phone), or that “selfies” and “twerking” would actually become a “thing”.

I guess my point is: We really have no idea what the future holds, all we can do is try to prepare ourselves for it.

As a CAD Applications Engineer I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of Model Based Definition (MBD), Digital Product Definition (DPD), 3D Product & Manufacturing Information (PMI), paperless or whatever else you call it (no, these terms are not fully synonymous… However, they achieve the same objective: no more paper). I have found that like most new ideas, the biggest form of resistance (leading to failure) simply comes from the fact that it is new and not fully understood. After all, if you are already successful at what you do then why fix something that isn’t broken? Hence the phrase “that is the way we have always done it” (sarcasm alert!). Because of this resistance I think that it will be quite a long time before model based definition / paperless product definition is fully implemented and accepted, but that does not mean that it isn’t advantageous to start your own transition early on.

Case in point: Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) is a practice that is well over 50 years old (some of the founding principles originated circa WWII). However, it is STILL not fully understood or used by many companies. But why is it still around then? If proper use of GD&T did not allow designers and manufacturers to save time and money, don’t you think it would have faded away by now? The truth is that GD&T is a great tool when properly implemented. It has, however, suffered from the same type of fear, uncertainty, and doubt that occurs today with paperless product definition.

As with GD&T, paperless product definition is gaining popularity because large industry shakers have already started the process. Particularly I am talking about the Aerospace & Defense industry, which is one of the largest sources for manufacturing and R&D (also one of the first to implement GD&T). Companies that work somewhere along the supply chain in aerospace and defense are actually being forced to implement some form of paperless model definition (see Boeing’s D6-51991 Requirements). What I see from Boeing suppliers in particular is that they have an initial struggle with compliance due to investment in hardware, software, and training. However, once implemented they experience increased productivity, increased scalability, faster turnaround times, and more efficient communication due to the ease of use of 3D data (read more money in your pockets).

So what does SOLIDWORKS have to offer for someone looking to go paperless? New for 2015, SOLIDWORKS Model Based Definition is an integrated drawingless manufacturing solution for SOLIDWORKS 3D design software. You can define PMI directly in 3D, present 3D data in a clean and structured fashion, and customize 3D output templates. SOLIDWORKS MBD makes it easier to comply with industry standards (like the Boeing ones I mentioned earlier), as well as collaborate with all of the internal and external stakeholders.

Join me in October for a SOLIDWORKS 2015 Launch event to get a firsthand look at SOLIDWORKS Model Based Definition. I’ll be presenting SOLIDWORKS 2015 along with my colleague David Torick in our US locations, and Glenn Whyte and Jordan Winger will host the events in Canada. Keep an eye on this space for a detailed blog series about SW MBD and going paperless. If you have any questions about going paperless, drop us a line at info@hawkridgesys.com – we’re always happy to help. After successfully 86-ing the paper drawings, I am sure you will find yourself moving from the resistant “this is the way we have always done it” to the newly enlightened “this is the way we should have always done it”.

Are you currently using paperless product definition? Please share your thoughts and experience in the comments section!

This is the first in a 5-part series for the Top 5 Things You Should Know About SOLIDWORKS Composer. This post covers the important features in the Transform Tab. The entire video series can also be found on our YouTube channel.

The Transform Tab

At the top of the Composer UI there are several tabs. All features in Composer are located in these tabs and are organized according to their function. For instance, the Transform Tab includes all features that have anything to do with moving a part or an assembly. This blog covers the select tools you need to know to be effective with Composer.

1. Copy Transformation
2. Translate
3. Rotate
4. Restore Neutral Position

Copy Transformation is one of the most used tools in Composer, and in my opinion the most important. When you move multiple items within Composer it’s easy to forget to grab all the components. In Composer this is not a problem, select what you want to move and move them. Later, if you discover you missed something you can simply select it, then select the Copy Transformation button and then select one of the items that was previously moved. The new item will translate to the exact same position as the previous, which saves a bunch of time.

Translate is the second most used tool in the Transform Tab. This tool is used to move anything along a linear path. If you hold down [ALT], you can select any linear edge within the assembly to translate the selection along. When using Composer correctly, this tool is the second most used since multiple Copy Transition actions are based off of a single Translate action.

Rotate is commonly used to spin items such as screws or to rotate a component along the axis of another. When using Rotate, if you hold down [ALT], you can select any circular edge within the assembly and rotate your current selection around that edge.

Restore Neutral Position is very important but is one of the most difficult features to understand if not explained correctly. I will try to do my best to simplify this explanation. When assemblies and parts are imported into Composer from SOLIDWORKS, Composer records all meta data and location of components from the SOLIDWORKS file. The meta data and location information can be recalled at any time. The Restore Neutral Position button in the Transform Tab specifically looks at the location of components. When pressed, the current selection will jump back to the location specified by SOLIDWORKS. This means exploded views can easily be turned into step-by-step assembly instructions by telling the parts to go back to where they belong.

Translation of Rim model using Restore Neutral Position

Translation of Foam model using Restore Neutral Position

Translation of Tire model using Restore Neutral Position

You can watch the first video in the series here.

Machinable Jaw Blanks or “soft jaws” are a repeatable and effective work holding solution for odd-shaped parts. In this article I will discuss a simple but effective method in CAMWorks for getting toolpath to cut your jaw blanks for most parts. When I say most parts, I mean any part that only requires the outer profile to be cut into the jaws. For really nasty parts that require more advanced fixturing, you may want to actually create a 3D model of your fixture and get toolpath like you would any other part. However, this method is so simple that it doesn’t require any additional modeling and can be performed on your original part file.

Okay, so let’s dive in how to do this. I have an oddly shaped part that after the first operation looks something like this:

In order to complete the part I am going to have to hold on to the profile that has been cut during the first operation. So rather than square jaws, I need my vice to have jaws that look more like this:

The first thing I need is a plane to sketch on that represents the depth that this part will sit inside the jaws. In this case I have .0625” that I can hold onto, but I like to leave a little clearance between the tool and the vice, so I will offset a plane .05” off the face that will eventually sit flat on the bottom of the finished jaws.

Now I will need to capture the part profile on a new sketch on this plane I just created. There are lots of ways to get this job done, in this case I used the Intersection Curve sketch tool (completed sketch shown in blue).

Once the sketch is completed I will switch over to my CAMWorks feature tree and create a new configuration. You don’t have to do this, but I like to do it to ensure that I keep the toolpath for my fixture separate from the toolpath for my part.

In this new configuration I will create a setup that references the plane I created moments ago. I will double check the direction to make sure it points towards the face I referenced when I created the plane. On this new setup I will define a pocket feature that uses the sketch I just created a moment ago as my base entity. Then I will choose the bottom face of the part (again, the one I used to define my reference plane) as an up to face end condition.

That’s it! Now just create toolpath for this pocket like you would for any other pocket. You will probably want your Z=0 point to be on the reference plane somewhere; that way you can index off of the top face of your jaws. Keep in mind that if you simulate toolpath, the simulation will be inaccurate because your jaw blanks look nothing like the stock used to machine the part from. Here is an image of the part in the completed jaws after a roughing operation has been performed to remove the stock that would hide the part from view:

Like I said before, this method may not work for all situations, but it is quick and easy, and I find it to be acceptable for most parts. Take a look at the video below if you would like to see this process in action. Happy Machining!

Articles posted in this blog are typically focused on the use and application of tools for the creation and development of products, and rightfully so.

In this case I would like to take the opportunity to focus on teamwork, one of the 5 core values here at Hawk Ridge Systems. One of our own, Paolo Olmos, (pictured here) recently got married and it was democratically decided that the best way to celebrate this momentous event would be to hold his bachelor party in Las Vegas, Nevada, and by jumping out of a perfectly good airplane at 13,000 feet above the desert… We had a magnificent plan guaranteed to result in a story to tell for a long time to come. What we couldn’t have known, and what our faces indicate in the photos of this blog article and associated video, is how each of us would react when faced with the reality of what we were about to do and just how much trust this adventure would demand of us all.

And so, on the morning of 8.23.2014 we headed out. This is a short account of that experience from my perspective. Edited video footage of the event can be seen here.

There were 7 of us: Paolo Olmos, his brother (and Best Man) David, Jared Conway, Chris Ma, Gabe Crisologo, Silvio Perez, and yours truly. (That’s me, climbing into the cabin.) Each one of us – with the exception of David – represent different parts of the Hawk Ridge Systems Team: Simulation Services, Applications Engineers, and Customer Service.

Several of the articles on this blog have been written by the young men on this adventure. Their field of study is responsible for making this experience possible. It is my hope that they apply that knowledge about their experience towards subsequent blog articles, because not only can they describe it, they can analyze it.

To be honest, when faced with the realities while filling out the paperwork on the shuttle ride to the tiny airport in the desert, siting in the small aircraft like sardines, exhibiting nervous faces, employing controlled breathing… I had serious doubts about the sanity of what we were doing.

“At 42 I should really know better than to be doing this…”

Hey look, Hoover Dam!

As Chris Ma was about to jump from the plane, I thought of something my mom used to say.

“If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?”

…“Sorry mom, but yes, today YES!”

And all of a sudden we were…

…Upside-down watching the bottom of the plane I was just in Hawks

… Screaming Hawks

… Laughing in the face of peril Hawks

… Holy $%&^! Hawks

… What could possibly go wrong? Hawks

… Flying high Hawks

… WooooHoooo! Hawks

…Touching the sky Hawks

… The greatest team I’ve had the pleasure to work, walk, run, dance, cross the sea,
fly above this amazing Earth, laugh, and cry with Hawks

The same variability of chance that introduces the risk also creates the reward. Any number of things beyond our control and within it could fail at great peril to ourselves and others. A litany of reasons for why NOT to do something is always present. And yet we did it. For me it has to do with the group being greater than the sum of its individual parts in spite of the fear, and for all of us it has everything to do with the greatness of this team and the fact that anyone of us would do anything for each other.

 

Special thanks to:

• David Olmos, Best Man and organizer
• Elizabeth Kinsey, Hawk Ridge Systems Blog Editor.
• Sky Dive Las Vegas and the skydiving instructors http://www.skydivelasvegas.com/

This is part 2 of the 5 part series for the Top 5 Things You Should Know About SOLIDWORKS Composer. It covers the important features in the Author Tab. The entire video series can also be found on our YouTube site.

The Author Tab:

At the top of the Composer UI there are several tabs. All features in SOLIDWORKS Composer are located in these tabs, and are organized accordingly to their function. For instance, the Author Tab includes all features that have anything to do with adding 2D elements into your Composer project. This blog covers the select tools you need to know to be effective with Composer.

1. Arrow
2. Circle
3. Image 2D
4. Path > Create associative path from neutral
5. Label

Arrow replaces the need for excessive amounts of text in assembly, disassembly, and operational processes.  By holding down [ALT] and hovering the mouse over circular edges linear arrows are places to show directional movement. If you can put something visual for people to reference it eliminates the need to specify the process in writing and best of all language translation.

Circle is much like Arrow and highlights certain areas of interest.  Instead of pointing at something or trying to specify it in text, simply circle it for reference.

Image 2D is very handy. Items such as wiring harnesses, shop layouts, or really anything you don’t want to model can be inserted as as an image. Photos, renderings, screenshots, and drawings can be brought into Composer as an image and placed to finish telling the visual story.

Path > Create associative path from neutral snaps a line from the current selection back to where it came from; this line remains associative to the selection so it will move with it in the future. Paths can be modified in the properties to specify color, style, and layer depth.

Label is basically a SOLIDWORKS Annotation: once attached to a model it automatically displays the part name. Like Path, labels can be adjusted in the properties to specify color and even what meta data of the attached part / assembly it is referencing.

Related – SOLIDWORKS Composer Top 5 Things You Should Know #1 – The Transform Tab

Easy Macro Introduction

There is a huge amount of capability available to the user from the SOLIDWORKS APIs. Basically, most everything we have available in the graphic user interface (GUI) is also available through the API interface.

But there are some road blocks that prevent most of us from dipping our toes into the API waters. First, it’s programming. If you haven’t done much programming, it can feel like a daunting task to get started. Second, it’s not just programming – it uses Microsoft’s Component Object Model (COM), which can seem even more daunting.

Rather than trying to spend a lot of time up front trying to understand everything about programming and COM before writing anything, the intent of this article is to jump head first into the shallow pool by showing the steps to write a simple macro using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). We have some excellent earlier blog articles that go into more detail about the concepts being used. Feel free to jump to those SOLIDWORKS API articles for reference.

So, let’s get started…

Tree Display Settings

This is a simple macro that is a convenience, rather than trying to automate a repetitive task.Looking at an assembly document you have probably noticed, and then ignored, the string of text off to the right of component names in the assembly feature tree, right? By default, this is showing the configuration name and display state name of the components. Seeing this information is occasionally useful, but much of the time, it’s just cluttering the screen and taking up valuable virtual real estate.

The commands to turn this ON and OFF are pretty well buried… and they take some fairly precise mousing to hit. Also, these commands are not available in the ‘Customize’ command for assigning a keyboard shortcut. Let’s create an easy macro and assign a keyboard shortcut to it for quick access.

Create a New Macro

This is a perfect case for using a macro assigned to a keyboard shortcut. It’s actually a very simple macro to record or write. There are separate commands for the configuration name and display state name. Let’s do the display state name for this example, and write this one from scratch, rather than recording it. It makes cleaner code.

To create a new, blank macro, just follow these steps:

1. Open an existing assembly document with some components in the tree
2. Select the Tools/Macro/New… command. A Browse dialog box will open asking you to give the macro a name and save it to some location. Call it ‘DispStateTreeDisplay.swp’ or whatever you like. You will want to save this in a convenient folder somewhere on your local C: drive. I have a ‘MACROS’ folder under ‘C:\SWX_COMMON’
3. Make sure the ‘Save as type:’ drop down menu is set to ‘SW VBA Macros (*.swp)’

When you hit the ‘Save’ button, the VBA Editor pops up – don’t panic. There are only a few lines of code to write. Here’s what the screen should look like:

Just type in the following lines (or better yet, copy and paste them from here):

‘ **********************************************************

‘ * Show or Hide Display State name in Feature tree

‘ * Same as right-clicking the top of the feature tree and

‘ * selecting ‘Tree Display/Show Display State Names’

‘ * Works like a toggle. Run macro to turn it on or off.

‘ ***********************************************************

Option Explicit

Dim swApp As SldWorks.SldWorks

Dim Part As SldWorks.ModelDoc2

Dim swFeatMgr As SldWorks.FeatureManager

Sub main()

Set swApp = Application.SldWorks

Set Part = swApp.ActiveDoc

Set swFeatMgr = Part.FeatureManager

If (swFeatMgr.ShowDisplayStateNames) Then

swFeatMgr.ShowDisplayStateNames = False

Else

swFeatMgr.ShowDisplayStateNames = True

End If

End Sub

The green text is code that already existed in the new macro. You can leave that text there and add the new, or delete out the existing text and replace it with the text above.

Explanation of the Code

Comments

Any time you see a single quote mark, ‘ , anything that comes after that mark on that line is a comment, meaning that it does not get run as an instruction – it’s ignored by the code. It’s there for us humans.

DIM and SET statements

Generally, the DIM statement is for telling the computer to set aside some memory to be used by a variable or ‘object’. It stands for ‘Declare in Memory’. The ‘SET’ statement puts the data for the object allocated by the DIM statement in that memory location (see the blog article SolidWorks API Building Blocks – Part 2 for more information on this). In this case, those DIM and SET commands are used for COM objects. In the case of our macro, here’s what that means: it’s like telling the computer where to find the command that you want to use, which, in this case, is the command to show or hide the display state in the feature tree.

Rather than put all of the commands and data available with an application in one big bucket, they set up a hierarchy – like a folder structure – to help organize them. If you look at our blog article SolidWorks API Building Blocks – Part 3, it is basically describing this folder-like structure of where SolidWorks has logically organized commands. This is a simplification, but for this simple macro, these DIM and SET statements are just giving us access to the command that we need. You can use the API help file to figure out which ‘bucket’ a command resides in to use in your macro.

Showing and Hiding the Display State

The actual turning on and off of the display state from the feature tree is done in the IF and ELSE part of the code. Anything that is a simple ON or OFF is specified as either TRUE (ON) or FALSE (OFF). So the IF statement is just asking if it is TRUE (ON) – and if it is, then make it FALSE. Otherwise, it must already be FALSE, so make it TRUE. Pretty simple. The only tricky parts are finding the command in the Help file, and the fact that we begin each command with the name of the object that has the command. In this case ‘swFeatMgr.’

Keyboard Shortcuts

Now we’re ready to set up our keyboard shortcut. Make sure you have identified your MACRO folder in ‘System Options/File Locations/Macros’.

1. Select the ‘Tools/Customize’ command and then select the ‘Keyboard’ tab of the Customize dialog box.
2. Select ‘Macros’ from the ‘Category’ drop down list. There should be a ‘New Macro Button’ row in the table.
3. Click on the browse button (the three dots) and browse out to one of your macros you just saved.
4. Now, click into the ‘Shortcut(s)’ column and type an unused key or key combination to your liking. I have ‘u’ for Display States.

Voila! Turn the display of this information on and off with just the press of a key on the keyboard. You can create another one to show or hide the configuration name, too. Same macro, just use ‘ShowComponentConfigurationNames’ instead of ‘ShowDisplayStateNames’.

Note: The state of this command is saved as part of your assembly templates. So if you don’t want this ‘on’ by default when you create a new assembly document, turn it off in your assembly templates!

If you’re interested in learning even more about SOLIDWORKS API, you might also want to check out our online course – SOLIDWORKS API Programming.

In an article earlier this year, I introduced our support and training partnership with San Jose State’s Formula SAE team. We’re excited to announce that we have extended our partnership for their 2014/2015 campaign and have added CAMWORKS to their capabilities alongside SOLIDWORKS, SOLIDWORKS Simulation, 3D Printing, and Workgroup PDM.

In addition to that announcement, I wanted to share some of their success from their Formula Car in the 2013/2014 campaign. As I mentioned in the previous article, the vehicles are judged on many different aspects and while you may have a fast or agile car, if you can’t sell it or explain how it was designed you’ll have a tough time achieving a top spot in the overall standings. As you can see below, the SJSU team did a great job balancing all aspects and ended up with great results in all of the major events.

FSAE Michigan (Michigan International Speedway | Brooklyn, MI) 120 Teams Competing

Formula North (Barrie Molson Center | Barrie, Ontario Canada) 21 Teams Competing

FSAE Lincoln (Lincoln Airpark | Lincoln, Nebraska) 107 Teams Competing

Check out their debrief for more information and their Facebook page and flickr page for more pictures of their team, their car, and the events.

We’re looking forward to seeing what they do this year and hopefully to get a chance to take SR-6 out for a spin. *WINK* *WINK*

Sometimes the vast library of weldment profiles included with SOLIDWORKS just doesn’t have the special profile I need for my project. I was mocking up a layout of a conveyor system for a shop the other day that I planned to use a purchased conveyor system for the design, and wanted to figure out the amount of conveyor rails I would need. In SOLIDWORKS, I used a layout sketch in an assembly to define the parameters of the shop by importing the floor plan into the layout sketch, inserting blocks that represented the machines and workstations, and adding sketch entities to define the path the conveyor would meander through the shop.

Once the layout was defined, I then inserted the machines, work benches, and structural frames that would serve to support the conveyor system into the assembly, mating them to the blocks and sketch entities of the layout sketch. (Parametrically speaking: the layout sketch now can be modified to locate everything in the shop, including the lengths and orientation of the conveyor system.)

Once the models were placed in the layout sketch, it was time to place the rails of the conveyor on the supports. I needed to create a custom weldment profile to represent the rails. The system I was planning to use provided me with the necessary specifications of the rails and my approach was to use weldment cut list in SOLIDWORKS to help me define the amount and lengths of the rails that I would need. The system uses 12 gauge formed steel C-channel for the rails that measure 1.5” X 7”.

Here’s how I created the custom weldment profile:

I sketched the initial geometry in a SOLIDWORKS part, then turned it into a sheet metal part using the 12 gauge selection from the gauge table in SOLIDWORKS.

 I selected the end faces of the sheet metal part and converted the edges to a new sketch.

 Then using [CTRL-C]/[CTRL-V], I copied and pasted this into a New Part File, and using Fully Define Sketch in SOLIDWORKS, I fully defined the profile.

It’s important to note that when creating a custom weldment profile or modifying an existing weldment profile, careful consideration is taken for how the profile might be used. When a weldment profile is inserted into a sketch for creating structural members in the weldment part, SOLIDWORKS locates the profile using vertexes in the geometry. A sketch point must be inserted in the profile for insertion points that are not located at a vertex. In my example here, I have added a construction line with a sketch point at the midpoint, for illustration purposes.

The final thing to do is to save the sketch as a Library Feature part. The following steps need to be taken in order to ensure success:

1. Select the sketch that contains the desired geometry in the Feature Manager Tree.
2. Select File, Save-As, and select Save as Type: Lib Feat Part (.sldlfp).
3. Browse to the folder that holds your current SOLIDWORKS Weldment Profiles, or a folder that you have specified. (The later choice requires that you add that folder path to the Weldment Profiles search path in Tools, Options, System Options, File Locations, Weldment Profiles).

When completed, the Feature Manager Tree in the Lib Feat Part should look like this image:

Notice the icon at the Top Level of the tree, it indicates that this is a Library Feature. Also, notice the icon of the Sketch1 at the bottom of the tree, it has a green “L” superimposed on it. This is a result of selecting the sketch first before Saving As a Lib Feat Part. THIS IS VITAL IN ORDER FOR THIS TO WORK AS A WELDMENT PROFILE.

I chose the approach of converting the edges of a sheet metal part for the basis of the profile because sometimes, you may find an extrusion or something downloadable from an online source and want to use that as a weldment profile. This example demonstrates how to do that.

Now that the weldment profile is ready to use, I return to my assembly and insert a New Part to be created “In Context” of the assembly, and use my new profile to layout the rail sections in my shop mock-up. Because these are weldment parts, I am able to use the cut-lists to determine how much conveyor I will need. Because they are created in the context of the assembly, I can use the Layout Sketch to size and position my shop to a configuration that will work – before I spend the money on my conveyor.

You may also want to check out this blog my colleague Holly Cheek wrote about configurable weldment profiles.