Notes on SWW 2009

General Sessions this year focused on a variety of different
customers and their successes with SolidWorks. Folks also spent a lot of time
talking about rapid prototyping and how it improves the design process

The General session
on Wednesday focused on SW2010. Some of the highlights included:

·       
Heads-Up dimension edit tool for changing all
aspects of a dimension including tolerances, notes, & precision.

·       
New Interface for creating Reference Planes that
make them easier to create.

·       
Improvements in Assembly Mirroring with better
mate control and positioning

·       
Ability to show a list of components in an
assembly based upon cost and then sort those components by that property and
also the ability to hide components that do not fall into a specified range.

·       
New balloon utility in drawings that gives you
more options and control over balloon text and size

·       
Drawings have the ability to drag and drop one
note onto another and the 2 notes will join together if there is any numbering,
or bullets will continue.

·       
Multi-body sheet metal parts so you can have
more than 1 sheet metal feature in a single part file and the ability to add
welds between those bodies

·       
Sheet metal parts also have the ability to do a
quick preview of the flat part

Presentations were
well received

Backdoor/Redneck Work Arounds had 200-300 people in
attendance one of the attendees was from the SW Blog Site SolidSmack and he was
posting to his blog while we were presenting

Blog Posting of Backdoor Work Arounds

http://www.solidsmack.com/solidworks-world-tech-session-common-solidworks-issue-and-how-to-fix-them/2009-02-09/

CATI Link to SWW presentations

http://www.cati.com/sww09.htm

Design Tables the
Complete Story had about the same number of people in it as Back Door Work Arounds and I spent a
lot of time after the presentation talking with different users about their
different situations and even learned some new things to add to my presentation
for later.

Sketching – The Good,
The Bad & The Ugly was a hands on presentation and this was my first
year of doing a hand on presentation and while it did not go 100% as planned I did
have all 32 computers filled along with the 10 additional seats filled and had
people sitting in the aisles watching the presentation and talked with some of
the attendees later on and they were happy with what they learned in the
presentation.