The SolidWorks Geek

This should not come as a surprise to anybody but as of today I am officially “retiring” from writing for The SolidWorks Geek. This was not an easy decision to make but it has been something I have considered for at least a year. Shortly after Solidworks World 2011 in San Antonio, I decided to take a short break after finishing my SolidWorks Fundamentals DVD. At the time, I fully expected that after a short “vacation,” I would return to blogging with a renewed vigour. But sometimes life has a tendency to get in the way.

As many of you know, the past year and a half was a very difficult time for me. In fact, if you followed me on Twitter or Facebook about a year ago, you may have witnessed a bona fide mental and emotional breakdown. Although embarrassing, it was the best thing that happened to me. It forced me to seek the help that I needed and subsequently, I was diagnosed with Bi-polar Disorder. It took sometime but after working with a talented – and extremely beautiful – psychiatrist, I find myself happier then I have been in over 10 years.

Around the same time, my long period of unemployment was officially over when I joined a great company that gave me the opportunity to put my unique skills and ambitions to use. Unfortunately, even though the position was an great relief to my family, it made it incredibly difficult to return to blogging due to long hours and a very long commute. Even though I was confident that I would be able to continue my love of writing about SolidWorks and the 3D engineering industry, I had to make the difficult decision that my career and stability of my home life must come first.

That past four years have been the most amazing experience in my life. I went from being a quiet, shy and introverted no-name designer relegated to the dark, lonely corners of a the engineering industry; to becoming a semi-well-known, and respected psuedo-expert on 3D design and drafting. In four years I have been fortunate enough to do things that I would have never dreamed were possible. I worked with some of the most amazing and talented leaders in the industry that we all love. I wrote a book and recorded a DVD that I am extremely proud of and thankful for having the opportunity to complete. My experiences since starting The SolidWorks Geek have had a profound effect on me and for that I will be forever grateful.

Before signing off, I would like to acknowledge and thank the people who have made this long strange journey possible. Most importantly, I must thank my family. Without your support and understanding, I would never have been able to discover my love of writing. I know at times it was difficult to share me with a community you never knew existed, but you always were quick to make it possible for me to indulge my dreams. It was difficult at times to deal with my long hours of staring at a monitor and my many trips from home but you never once complained or attempted to prevent me. I do not know very many people who would have put up with so much and you made me appreciate how lucky I truly am.

Second, I would like to thank you: All of my supportive readers and the CAD community as a whole. Without you, none of this would be possible. Over the years I have spoken to, or corresponded, with many readers from all over the world. Prior to writing for the SolidWorks Geek, I was a nobody who was barely known outside of my own department but after a short-time of writing; I felt like a super star. I will miss being a voice in the community but I will always available to help whenever I can.

I cannot possible express my gratitude for all my experiences without acknowledging the support I received from everybody I have had the pleasure to work with at SolidWorks. You took a chance with a unknown blogger and opened up a world to me that I feel privileged to be part of. Thank you for accepting me in the SolidWorks family and for inviting me to four consecutive SolidWorks Worlds. And without the support of the social expert, Matthew West, I doubt many of my experiences with SolidWorks would not have been possible. He was my greatest supporter within the company. What started out as a working relationship has turned into a great friendship. I hope that the management at SolidWorks understand what an great individual that have within their company. I wish him only the best and I expect to someday hear about his promotion to CEO of SolidWorks.

What kind of asshole would I be if I didn’t acknowledge my fellow bloggers in the SolidWorks and Autodesk communities. With some rare exceptions, the blogger pool never treated me as competition but instead embraced me as one of their own. Over the past 4 years, many of you have become some of my best friends and I hope that will continue to be true for the rest of my life. I am not one that is known for having many friends since I can be very difficult to deal with at times, but you all looked past my eccentricity and accepted me for who I am. I love you all.

I must thank all of the supportive SolidWorks partners who have provided me with assistance when working on my various projects; including the blog, my book, and my DVD. Without your help, I couldn’t have possibly achieved the level of quality that I am so proud of. I do need to apologize to a couple of companies that supported me but I was unable to reciprocate. First, when I started working on my book, AMD provided me with an ATI FirePro which is probably the best video card I have ever used. Without the card, I would never have been able to create some of my most memorable images and videos in both my book and DVD. Second, I feel extremely terrible for my lack of review of an extremely useful and beautifully designed 3D mouse that I received a few months ago from Lexip. When I was first approached by Lexip, I thought the opportunity to review their new mouse would be a great way to return to writing but sadly it never come to fruition.

I know that this can never make up for a full review of Lexip Professional 3D mouse but I do want to encourage anybody reading this to seriously consider purchasing this great product. I have been using my Lexip mouse exclusively at my job since my desk space prevents me from using my other favorite 3D mouse from 3Dconnexion. Even though I was skeptical that it would be a sufficient replacement of a separate 3D mouse I was quickly proven wrong. Not only was it great to have the 3D controls within the packaging of a standard mouse – the thumb control and tilt capabilities are incredibly easy to use – but the mouse itself is is comfortable to use. It is great for working with SolidWorks and Inventor but I find it especially useful for other programs such as Adobe Reader, MS Word and even Google Chrome. I love how I can switch between tabs on my browser just by flicking the thumb joystick from side to side. If you are in the market for a new mouse, you should give the Lexip mouse a serious look.

Now as my very last rambling post on The SolidWorks Geek is coming to an end, I am feeling an intense level of sadness to see an end to a great journey that has made me a better man. I cannot possibly thank everybody who has been a part of my blogging life and I know that I have missed so many great individuals and companies but even if I did not mention you, it doesn’t mean that I am not grateful for what you have done for me. And just because my life as a SolidWorks blogger is coming to an end, it does not mean that I will never be heard from again.

I will never give up on my writing. I am still writing almost everyday and I am learning more about the craft that I have realized that I love just a short time ago. Although it is true that I am more than likely done with writing about CAD and other non-fiction; I have started writing fiction. I am currently “attempting” to write my first novel. Even though my grammar still leaves much to be desired, I am getting better with every new sentence that I write. I expect that when I am finished with my first draft of the horror novel I am writing, I would have learned enough to make the novel well-written and terrifying story after the second draft. I hope that someday in the near future, you a will be able to say that you knew me when I was just a simple blogger.

In closing, I love you all. I hope to continue to hear from all of you. I am still on Twitter and Facebook and I look forward to hearing from you all. Also, even though this will be the last official post on The SolidWorks Geek – unless someone is interested in purchasing this site (hint, hint), along with swgeeks.com, and carrying on the SolidWorks Geek legacy – I will continue to keep the site up as long as I can. From the daily traffic the site still receives, even after not posting for over a year, it is obvious that many users worldwide still find my previous articles useful in their daily lives. This is my gift to the community that has given me so much.

Sincerely,

Alex R. Ruiz

The Former SolidWorks Geek.

Hey All,

This past weekend I sat down with Matt Perez and had a nice little chat about SolidWorks. Checkout the Audio Podcast and I will be hopefully uploading a video in the next couple of days once I am done editing. In the meantime, make sure you check out Matt’s website at http://www.solidworkslessons.info/

Download this episode (right click and save)

Listen to this episode

When the operating system within every individual begins its inevitable shut down process, some question should be asked about the life that you led. How one answers these questions will not gain them VIP access to the ultimate after-party nor will they cause you to stay after class with the other rule-breakers, the ones that I call my friends. These questions are merely meant for self-reflection and to remind us that our life is what we make of it. For in the grand scheme of things, we are all insignificant carbon-based lifeforms wandering around on a semi-spherical rock, circling an average star in the outer band of a spiral galaxy floating among billions of other galaxies in a soup of light elements and dark matter. Our life span, even if it were to equal that of the wise tortoise or the mighty redwood, would be but a glint of light in the unblinking eyes of time.

How we, as the current inhabitants of the third rock from the sun, live our lives does not matter to the universe. The universe has no memory, no scorecard, not even a wiki. When the time comes to press Alt-F4, you should be able to look at the following questions and be happy with your answers.

1. Did I make the most of my life?
2. Was I loved?
3. Did I love?
4. Did I leave the legacy that I deserve?

Don’t wait till your last service pack has been delivered and your product cycle is nearing its end. Look at the questions now. Think long and hard about your answer and ask yourself these questions at the end of each day.

Regardless of who we are or how we lived are life, most of us should be able to answer positively for most of these questions a majority of the time. There are some people who can answer positively to all the questions, all the time….they scare me. I think they just haven’t married yet.

If you cannot answer any of the questions positively, it does not mean that you are a bad person or broken in some way. Instead it means that you haven’t learned to recognize how others have impacted your life or how you have made an impact on the lives of others. Sometimes it is hard to see what is right in front of us through the dark cloud that may sometimes envelope certain times of our life. We just need an event to remind us. Something to guide us from the darkness like the lighthouse guides the lost sailor on a stormy night.

As a father of four amazing kids who will grow up to be great generals in the geek army, I know that I am loved and that I have definitely loved. I cannot be more proud of all of my kids and I am secure in knowing that my legacy lies within them. I have never forgotten that, nor will I ever forget. But one cannot cheat when answering these questions by filling in the bubble next to the most obvious answer. Sometimes “(c) Both ‘a’ and ‘b’ are correct” is the correct answer.

Every year, around this time, SolidWorks World makes it easier for me to know how I will respond to my own exit interview. Every year, as the pre-show buzz grows from a whisper to a defining rumble in the SolidWorks community, memories of past SolidWorks World are moved from cold storage backup and placed right on my mental desktop for daily reflection. I begin to think about the many amazing people that I have met through out the years in the community. I start to look forward to reconnecting with some of my closest friends in the world but only see once a year. I recall funny experiences and sometimes chuckle out loud prompting strange looks from the old lady in front of me while I wait in the line at the bank.

As my departure day for SolidWorks World grows near, my excitement builds to an unimaginable level. The night before leaving I am like an 11 year old boy on x-mas eve who cannot sleep because he is thinking about getting a red rider BB gun. Without fail, by the time I set foot onto the plane, I am utterly exhausted and sleep deprived but I am too damn excited to care.

This year, at SolidWorks 2011 in San Antonio Texas, I reconnected with my fellow bloggers, writers and other media types. I enjoyed quality time with my two brothers separated at birth: Jeff Mirisola and Matt Lorono. I swapped stories with some of the coolest geeks you can ever meet. I even met some members of the community who where obviously off of their meds because they refereed to themselves as “fans” when they introduced themselves to me.

I had an amazing week and I have every member of the SolidWorks community to thank for it. Whether you were in San Antonio with us or you just followed along with your tweets and messages, you all made me and the other bloggers definitely feel loved.

I am writing this on the plane as I leave San Antonio and the women sitting next to me is a nervous flyer. I wish I can share with her my personal secret for not being scared. I would tell her that if I were to join Richie Valens, Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper; I would be happy with my answers to the four questions. Being a father, blogger, writer and the geek overload has been the best thing that I have ever done with my life and I cannot wait until February 2012 to do this all over again.

Find out about what I have been up to and why I haven’t been writing any new post. Check out the video for all the details. Watch the Video on YouTube

Or check out the SolidWorks Geek Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSWGeek

Time are tough. Just ask any of the estimated 15.1 million unemployed Americans. Unfortunately, last week I joined the ranks of the unemployed and now find myself scouring various job boards for the perfect position. Of course a good job hunter would leave no stone unturned and I figured I had a rare opportunity to reach out to some of the best engineers and designers in the world that read this site. Who you know can often play a major part in finding that “perfect job” and I am hoping that one of my loyal geeks might have a good lead or two.

Most of my readers only know me as The SolidWorks Geek, a individual who is passionate about the CAD industry and enjoys sharing tips and tricks with SolidWorks users around the world. That is true, but unfortunately blogging and writing does not pay the bills. That is why I am looking for a full time position that would be a good fit for my unique set of skills and experience. I currently reside in Orange County, California and unfortunately I am unable to relocate due to family obligations. However, I love traveling and I am not opposed to any position that may require me to travel anywhere in the world as much as necessary.

So what do I do? I actually have a varied set of skills that can be extremely valuable for any company. I will list a few highlights of my skills here but if you would like a more detailed list, check out my Linkedin page at http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexrruiz or email me for a copy of my resume.

Mechanical Design

When I started my career I was just a young kid who loved 2D drafting. I was a very good drafter, in my opinion, and I caught the eye of some great designers and engineers who showed me the ropes. Within a couple of years of starting my career, I was fortunate enough to be trusted with the task of designing and modeling various products. Over the years I have worked for many companies that designed products for aerospace, medical, automotive, solar power, and meteorological applications. Using AutoCAD, AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop and SolidWorks, I have designed machined parts, injection molded parts, sheet metal components, and electrical components. Even though I have worked in many fields and I am comfortable within any industry, I have concentrated on the medical device industry for the past 10 years and it is my strongest area.

Drafting and ASME Standards

Technical drawings are what attracted me to the engineering field and I continued to improve my knowledge of every aspect of their creation. To me a drawing is not something can be taken lightly and I am actually a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to the content of a drawing. Whether I am creating a drawing on my own or I am assisting others in the creation, checking or control of drawings; I am not one to take shortcuts that can ultimately result in costly mistakes. I am always a very vocal advocate of correct and complete drawings. There have even been times when other designers, engineers or drafter have hidden every red pen just to keep me from adding too much color.

CAD Management

In recent years, I have made the transition from full time designer to that of a CAD systems administrator. I still enjoy getting down in dirty with a troublesome model or creating new designs but most companies have found it was better for me to share my experience with others to make a stronger team. I have installed and managed multiple installations of SolidWorks Workgroup PDM and Enterprise PDM. I have written multiple drawing standards for at least 6 different companies. I have even taught classes on SolidWorks and PDM usage within a corporate environment. I am not a project manager and honestly my brief experience in that area has not been pretty. But if you are looking for someone that can mentor designers and drafters, set up company standards, manage the various CAD systems, provide training on modeling and ASME standards, explore and implement new technologies, and make it easier for your engineering or design team to create… I am your man.

Misc. Skills

Lastly, I would also like to mention my various other skills and technologies that many of my previous employers had found to be extremely useful. I am a geek. I admit it wholeheartedly. Not only do I love engineering and design but I love all kinds of technology. I have worked for a couple of companies where my job in design or drafting evolved into something completely different. I have worked as an IT manager, Web Designer, Graphic Artist and I even created over 200 interactive dynamic PDF forms for companies. I also enjoy writing, of course, but I am still hesitant to market myself as a writer or even a technical writer. However, if you need someone that can string a few words together, I have written many guides and instruction manuals over the years.

Thank you for allowing me to take this time to sell myself; hopefully it will not be in vain. If you or someone you know may be interested in speaking with me, please feel free to email me at blog@theswgeek.com.

As you might have noticed, I am pretty excited about SolidWorks 2011 but then again I am a geek and I get excited about new zombie books, sci-fi movies with lots of explosions and any new gadget that comes on the market. With previous releases of SolidWorks I usually only covered a few of my favorite enhancements in one article but I actually had sometime this year to cover more than usual. I have been playing with SolidWorks 2011 and I love many of this years enhancements but I have not had an opportunity to use 2011 in a production environment.

In the past I was excited about some enhancements such as the magnifying glass, numeric sketch input and mouse gestures. But when it came time to actually creating parts, assemblies and drawings at work; some enhancements never caught on with me. However, on the flip side, other recent enhancements such as Instant3D, the Shortcut Toolbar and the Dimension Palette have become as important to me as my Android phone. It is really hard to say what enhancements will be among my favorites a year from now but honestly all the enhancements I have written about over the past couple of weeks have potential.  So let us see what today’s candidates are, shall we?

Opening Models with Referenced Toolbox Components

I am a big fan of using the Toolbox for common hardware and I have been for the past few years. Unfortunately it seems that I am in the minority.  I can understand why many would not care for the Toolbox especially with some of the strange errors that can be directly related to the Toolbox and how it is set up. One of the issues I have experienced and I know is pretty common is how SolidWorks handles an assembly that was created with a different installation of the Toolbox. This is common when receiving assemblies from outside sources, when opening a legacy assembly that was created with a different installation or even when trying top open an assembly that was created by a user that may not be using the network installed toolbox.

In SolidWorks 2011, the process of opening assemblies that contain Toolbox components that were created with a different installation has become easier. When an assembly is opened that contains components from a separate version of the toolbox, the components will automatically be located in your toolbox.  The cool thing is that this ability is enabled automatically. However, if you do need to update your settings for any reason to enable or disable the ability to locate Toolbox components in your own library, you can select or deselect the Make this folder the default search location for toolbox components in the Hole Wizard/Toolbox section of your System Options.

Weld Beads

Last week I spoke briefly about the addition of weld tables in drawings. I also mentioned that I am far from an expert on welding so I may not be able to give the new weld bead tool the justice it deserves but I will try my best. In the past weld beads can be added in assemblies but they were created as in-context components and I know, from my previous sessions of experimentation, it was sometimes a tricky thing to do…at least it was for me.

With the new Weld Bead tool in 2011, adding welds to weldment parts and assemblies, and multibody parts just got easier… even for a novice like me.  I have played around with the new weld bead tool and I have to admit it is extremely easy to use.  The weld applied to the model is a simplified representation and doesn’t actually change with the type of weld selected and it doesn’t effect the mass properties of the part but  it also doesn’t seem to effect the size of the model. In the documentation the benefits of the simplified weld beads are listed:

• Uniform implementation in parts and assemblies
• Compatibility with all types of geometry, including bodies with gaps
• Lightweight, simplified weld bead display
• Inclusion of weld bead properties in drawings using weld tables
• Smart weld selection tool for face selection of weld bead paths
• Association of weld bead symbols with weld beads
• Handles that assist in defining weld path (lengths)
• Inclusion in the weld folder in the FeatureManager design tree

While I have playing with the tool I found that the Smart weld selection tool made things so much quicker and easier than actually selecting each edge individually. I can imagine that this will make adding welds to very large and complex weldments less time consuming and resulting in better use of time and money.

Smart Weld Selection Tool in the Weld Bead PropertyManager:

Making Selection using the Smart Weld Selection Tool:

New Weld in Place with Weld Symbol:

This small introduction does not even come close to giving the Weld Bead tool the attention that it deserves but, like I said, I am still learning. I am hoping that I will be able to write something a little more detailed at a later date as soon as I become more familiar. I would, in the meantime, love to hear what you think about the weld bead in SolidWorks 2011. Is it really as cool as it seems?

Are We There Yet?

If you have read each part of this series, I take my hat off to you. These long series can sometimes be hard to follow and I know each article has been spaced out perhaps a little too far. Well, the good news is that we are almost finished. Next we will be covering some of the enhancements to Enterprise PDM, which is one of my favorite subjects outside of modeling and drawings. Until then… have fun geeking out.

Well here it is, part 4 of my rambling descriptions of some of my favorite enhancements in SolidWorks 2011. In case you missed them make sure you check out the first three parts of this series. In part one I cover some enhancements including conditional statements in equations, walk-throughs and decals. In part 2, I talk about the new defeature tool and some enhancements to FeatureWorks. In part 3, I begin exploring drawing enhancements by covering one of my favorite tools: The Dimension Palette. Today we are going to continue the tour with more enhancements that were made to drawings in SolidWorks 2011.

3D Drawing Views

Has this happened to you? You are working on a drawing and the predefined views of the referenced part don’t quite give you the view you are looking for. Then you notice that up in the Heads Up Display Toolbar there is a button called 3D Drawing view that lets you rotate the model to view all possible angles. Just when you think think you are in luck and you have found the perfect view of your part, the view resets after you click the green check mark. Frustrating, to say the least. Well now that button finally gives you the functionality that I am sure everybody has been praying for.

In SolidWorks 2011 when you click the 3D Drawing View button, you will be rewarded.

Now when you are in the 3D Drawing View mode you will see new and changed functionality of buttons in the floating toolbar. The most important change is unlike in earlier versions clicking the green checkmark will actually set the drawing view to match the view of the model after rotating. To cancel the view and reset to its orgininal orientation all you have to do is click the red X. Next there is the addition of a Save The View button that will allow you to create a named view that is then available for use elsewhere on the drawing. I am sure that I am not the only to think “It’s about time.”

Weld Tables in Drawing

Until recently I never needed to do many drawings for welded components but my current job uses a lot of weldments for various areas of a Solar Power Concentrated Photovoltaic System. This has allowed me to become a little more familiar with welds and when I heard about the addition of weld tables in SolidWorks 2011 I instantly saw how this could be a huge time saver for our designers. Weld tables can now be inserted into drawings to summarize the weld bead data for the referenced welded assembly.  The default weld table template includes the weld size, the weld symbol, weld length, weld material and quantity of each weld bead in the assembly. The table template can then be modified to include additional information that may be listed in the weld bead custom properties such as weld cost and weld time.

Hide Bodies in Drawing Views

The ability to hide components in a drawing has been available for sometime but if you were making a drawing of a multi-body part you would have to rely on configurations in order to hide bodies in a drawing. Now to make it so much easier in creating drawings of multi-bodied parts you can hide bodies in the drawing simply by right-clicking the body and selecting Show / Hide → Hide Body. I am confident this will definitely come in handy for me, I hope that is the case for you.

Show Model Colors in Assembly Drawings

Okay I will admit it not every enhancement in SolidWorks 2011 makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. In fact, this one I actually don’t really like and I included it in my list just so I can rant a little about it. SolidWorks 2011 now gives the user the ability to show the model colors of a part or assembly in a drawing. This means that if each part in an assembly has a different color assigned to it, the lines of the drawing view will reflect the color. Now don’t get me wrong. This can be helpful in some rare cases but my fear is that some designers and drafters will try to sneak this past their checkers in production drawings. I constantly have to reject drawings that have shaded views but now I have to update our company drawing standards to forbid the use of this ability in our production drawings. You may be wondering why I am so much against colors and shaded views in drawings. That is a valid question. The main reason is how drawings are printed, copied or shared. Colors and shaded views may look great on the screen but they don’t always hold up when printed on black and white printers, copied in black and white or even faxed. It is just a pet peeve of mine but I can’t be the only one. Am I? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

More to Come…

We are nearing the end of my favorite enhancements in SolidWorks 2011. I think we will be able to finish this in two more post. So make sure you keep checking that RSS feed and please let me know what you think about my views on SolidWorks.

Technical drawings are, in my opinion, the most important part of engineering but often the most overlooked. A good drawing tells the complete story on how a product, tool, structure or other design is to be manufactured or assembled. It may be pretty unpopular for a 3D designer to say but I absolutely love 2D drawings. In fact, my love for technical drawings is why I entered this field over 17 years ago when I was just 18 years old. To me, a good drawing is not only important but can also be considered a work of art. That is exactly why every year when SolidWorks announces their enhancements to drawings, I pay extra special attention to the details and imagine how they can be helpful in creating a better drawing faster and with the some level of preciseness required to properly delineate the design.

This year, I believe that SolidWorks did a great job with their enhancements to the drawing creation process. Today I want to begin my tour of my favorite SolidWorks 2011 drawing enhancements with the Dimension Palette. The dimension palette became my favorite drawing tool introduced in 2010 and I am more than happy to see the it was not excluded from the over 200 enhancements in 2011.  Hopefully after reading this you will have the same level of excitement that I have about these great new tools and enhancements.

Dimension Palette Display

This first one is not actually new to SolidWorks 2011 but some users may not be aware of the changes to how the Dimensions Palette is displayed in later versions of SW2010. The dimension palette is a recent addition to SolidWorks drawings. Since coming out last year, I have encountered surprisingly  few users who actually liked it. I believe one of the main issues with it is that many users where frustrated with the palette because it would obscure areas of the drawing when a dimension selection was made. Luckily since SP3 of SW2010, instead of the palette popping up every time a dimension is selected, a rollover button appears to the upper right of the pointer. To show the Dimension Palette, simply move the mouse pointer over the button. You can then click on the palette to pin it allowing the palette to remain visible even if you move the mouse pointer too far away. Then after you are finished using the palette,  you can make it disappear by moving the mouse pointer outside of the graphics area, clicking the graphics area or by using some other means of canceling the current selection.

Dimension Palette Rollover Button: 

Alignment Options in Dimension Palette

Whether you manually add dimensions to a drawing or you import annotations from the part, the dimension layout can sometimes getting a little scary and hard to read. Manually arranging dimensions for more complex components can time consuming and tedious at best especially when importing dimensions and annotations from a part. That is exactly why the new alignment options in the dimension palette promises to be my most used enhancement in SolidWorks 2011.

Available on the dimension palette, there are eight new buttons that are used to change the layout of your dimensions. Even though all eight are extremely useful, the new Auto Arrange Dimensions is by far my current favorite.  The eight new buttons are as follows:

Auto Arrange Dimensions

As I mentioned, the Auto Arrange Dimensions has got to be my favorite of the new alignment tools in the Dimension Palette. Call it laziness but anytime SolidWorks introduces a new tool to make my life easier I fully support it. If you read my book (which judging by the sales of it no one actually read SolidWorks 2010: No Experience Required
) you would know that I love importing dimensions from the part being documented. The problem is that sometimes the dimensions as they come in from the part can look they were just added during an earthquake. Now cleaning up those dimensions became a less time consuming task.

After selecting the dimensions to be rearranged and moving the mouse pointer over the roll over button, selecting the Auto Arrange Dimensions button the dimensions will be rearranged as follows:

• Spaced from smallest to largest
• Aligned and centered, if possible
• Spaced with the offset distance defined in the drawing’s document properties
• Adjusted to avoid over lapping
• Staggered, if necessary.

Space Evenly Linear/Radial

Sometimes as you are adding dimensions or just updating legacy drawings, the dimensions spacing can vary which can make the drawing look a little sloppy and sometimes difficult to read. After selecting more than one dimension in a view, clicking the Space Evenly Linear/Radial button will equally space the dimensions between the two dimensions spaced farthest apart. Not only will this work on horizontal and vertical linear dimensions but it will work on all sorts of dimensions even those that are radial such as features on a round component.

Align Collinear

The Align Collinear button does exactly what it sounds like, it aligns all of the selected dimensions horizontally, vertically, or radially.

Align Stagger

The Stagger button is another new tool that I enjoy. As dimensions are laid out next to each other the dimension values can sometimes run in to each other which can make them difficult to discern. To save time from manually arranging the dimension values, you can select the dimensions and click the button on the Dimension Palette. The dimensions will then automatically be staggered above or below the adjacent dimensions making them easier to read.

Top , Bottom , Right and Left Justify Dimension Text

The remaining four buttons are used to align the dimension values along the top, bottom, right or left depending on the needs of the drawing view. It should be pretty straight forward so rather than bore you with the details I’ll just show you what the result is by using these buttons.

Top Justify:

Bottom Justify:

Right Justify:

Left Justify:

Next Stop…More drawing Enhancements

Rather than give you one long article about drawings, I have decided to break it up into a few separate post. Even though I am having a blast writing this, I understand that if I was to put it all into one article you can miss something important. Coming real soon I will continue this series. Stay tune and don’t hesitate to share with me your take on this year’s release of SolidWorks.

Today I will continue my long winded tour of  some of the over 200 enhancements in SolidWorks 2011. With so many enhancements it is impossible for me to cover everything, so instead I am highlighting some of the areas I am particularly excited about. I am not listing these enhancements in any particular order but I am trying to maintain some logical grouping just to make it easier to follow. Today I want to cover a couple new features in parts and assemblies before I jump into drawings in the next couple of days.

Defeature

Sharing models with SolidWorks users outside of your organization can sometimes be a scary prospect. In today’s world of “Be Evil” corporate philosophies simply sharing a model with a partner or vendor can result in intellectual property being stolen.   Unfortunately there are times when it is necessary to share your parts or assemblies with others. For example, maybe someone may need to know how your product fits in their assembly, or your packaging supplier would like the 3D geometry for their design practices or maybe you want to allow customers to download simplified representations of your products from your website. In the past you may have needed to create simplified versions of your models or even just bite the bullet and pray that your designs do get intercepted by the wrong people but now you can quickly and easily create simplified versions of your data using the new Defeature function. The Defeature tool, available in the Tools toolbar or in the Tools menu, allows you to create a new file that contains a simplified version of your product that can be shared with no fear.

Automatic Recognition of Draft Features in FeatureWorks

FeatureWorks, which is available in SolidWorks Professional and SolidWorks Premium, is a cool little utility that is used to recognize features in imported geometry and converts them into SolidWorks features that can be edited. Since it was introduced, I have found it helpful for me when I needed to modify models created by outside sources that used other modeling packages including Inventor, Catia and ProE. FeatureWorks has been a lifesaver in many instances but it has also been the object of my scorn at times. It is almost like the product development team is hearing my cursing when I am using FeaturesWorks because each year they surprise me with something new.

SolidWorks 2011 made great steps to quell my frustration with FeatureWorks with the automatic recognition of draft features. Many of the models I would get from outside sources are designed for the injection molding process which means they would more than likely contain drafted surfaces. This was a problem when I needed to make a modification to a feature such as changing the depth of a hole or decreasing the height of a boss. If the feature in question had a draft, which should be the case for nearly every feature in a molded component, FeatureWorks would just ignore the geometry during Automatic Recognition leaving an imported body in the FeatureManager Design Tree. Drafts can be recognized by FeatureWorks when using the Interactive Recognition Mode but I always struggled with this mode especially with models I wasn’t too familiar with. This would leave only one option to me, adding a feature to fill in a hole or cutting off a feature then creating the feature again with the updated parameters. As you can imagine, that was a real pain in the hind quarters on complex models that required more than a few updates.

Now with SolidWorks 2011, when recognizing features, FeatureWorks will understand that a feature or face has a draft angle applied to it and it will make the feature available in the FeatureManager Design Tree. Sometimes it is the littlest things that can make a geek shed a tear of joy and this is definitely one of those cases.

Combine Like Features in Automatic Feature Recognition

This one is another example of how SolidWorks understood my pain and gave me a big hug. Like I mentioned in my previous rant, I have a love-hate relationship with FeatureWorks. One of the things that always left me feeling like a jaded lover was how FeatureWorks handled features that were the same size. A very common example of this is when FeatureWorks recognized a part with multiple filleted edges that share the same radius. Prior to this release, each fillet would have its own feature in the FeatureManager Design Tree which you can imagine can get very long on some more complex parts. It maybe a minor thing but it still gets my heart racing thinking about my trees that were 2 miles long filled with just fillets. Those days are forever gone and I couldn’t be happier now that FeatureWorks will combine like features during automatic feature recognition. This means even if your model has 10 fillets that the same radius, there will only be one fillet shown in the FeatureManager. Whoever came up with that gets a big high five from me.

Even more to come…

Now that we got some of my favorite part enhancements covered, we will be jumping into one of my favorite subjects: drawings. Over the next couple of days, you will see how SolidWorks 2011 will make your drawings even easier to create but don’t wait till then to find out for yourself. If you haven’t already done so, install and play with the new version. And if you are as much of a geek as I am, take a look at the What’s New PDF that can be downloaded on the SolidWorks website.

Early last week SolidWorks rolled out their 19^th release of the world’s most popular 3D mechanical design software, SolidWorks 2011. Last month I was lucky enough to be treated to a firsthand look of this year’s release when SolidWorks flew me to Concord for their annual press event and I am excited to finally share with you some of my favorite things about SolidWorks 2011.

You would think that after 19 versions there wouldn’t be anything to get excited about with SolidWorks but there are actually over 200 enhancements to the core SolidWorks program and other areas such as Enterprise PDM, PhotoView 360, SolidWorks Simulation and more. In addition to the new enhancements, the performance, stability and memory usage has been refined to improve your overall modeling experience.

There far too many enhancements for me to cover today but I want to highlight some of my favorites. Hopefully now that my extended vacation is over I will have a chance to cover more of these and other enhancements in detail. Until then, if you haven’t already done so, make sure you download SolidWorks 2011 and find out for yourself why I am so excited of this package.

Save As and File Properties Buttons

Sometimes it is the littlest things that can have a big impact on your daily use of SolidWorks. For me it is the availability of two new buttons for the Standard Toolbar, Save As and File Properties. These are two commands I use a lot in my day job and being as lazy as I am it is extremely useful to have these two buttons available with a single click rather than a couple of extra clicks digging through menus. To add the buttons, click Tools -> Customize -> Command and add the buttons to the Standard Toolbar.

New Ways to Search for Help

If you are reading this, you more than likely already know about the wealth of knowledge that is available for free online. Among the blogs, knowledgebase and the SolidWorks forums, many common and even obscure issues can be resolved without the need to call your VAR. Unfortunately I have met hundreds of users that are completely unaware of these resources. For that reason, I was excited to see the inclusion of some of these resources in the SolidWorks Search. In addition to being able to search for files in the search field in the Standard Toolbar, you can now search in SolidWorks Help, the knowledgebase and the user forums for all things SolidWorks.

Conditional Statements in Equations

I suck at math. Growing up as a child of technology I have been spoiled by computers and calculators and it has had an effect on my computational skills. I am sad to say that I am actually guilty of counting on my fingers and toes even at the ripe age of 35. That is why I love equations in SolidWorks. Equations save me from the embarrassment of getting a figure wrong when I am working on complex components and they have proven to be a very valuable took in my arsenal. That is why I was as giddy as a schoolgirl when I heard that conditional statements were going to be supported in equations.

Granted, the conditional statements in equations are not at the level of a programming language but it is still a good start. In equations, the iif function can be used to suppress or unsuppress features in components based on an expression using the syntax iif(expression, truepart, falsepart). Hopefully at a later date I will be able to cover this topic in more detail. I feel like the iif function is too awesome of a function to really do it justice in this article.

Share Variables among Models

Another enhancement to equations is something I have been wanting for as long as I have been using them: the ability to share variables and equations among models. Very often equations and variables that you use on one part can also needed on other parts either within the same assembly or in completely independent parts. Before 2011 there was no way to share variables or results of equations among the various models which could result in values not being properly updated on all required models as a design changes.  With this release that is no longer an issue since now you can create a single text file that contains equations and variables that can be referenced by multiple documents in SolidWorks in the Equations dialog box.

Walk-Throughs

Every once in a while there is a new feature introduced by SolidWorks that you never knew you needed. Since my day job usually only includes the design of smaller parts, I never needed the ability to do a walk-through. But as luck would have it, about the same time I learned about the new ability to create videos of 3D walk-throughs in SolidWorks 2011 I had a request to create such a thing for a project I was working on. For most of us who design parts we will never really need to use this function but if you create plant layouts or something of the like, you can explore the site in SolidWorks from the view of a person walking through. Using the Add Walk Through function available in the Lights and Cameras section you can define motion constraints, camera heights and other parameters to create a virtual simulation that can then be recorded to a movie file to share with others outside of the SolidWorks environment. This can come in handy for presentations or when you just want to show a potential client what is expected when your design becomes a reality.

Decals Available in SolidWorks Standard

Prior to this release Decals in models were only available to users of PhotoWorks. Decals are image files that can be placed on models to represent things such as logos, stickers, or other artwork that maybe applied to a finished component. If you were not a PhotoWorks user, your model may not be able to truly represent what a finished part may look like and sometimes that could lead to confusion. Now the ability to add decals to parts is available to all users of SolidWorks in the DisplayManager by clicking View Decals.

…But Wait There is More…

As you can imagine this list is not even close to being complete and I am currently working on more items I want you to get excited about. More coming soon! I promise.