SolidWorks Electrical

A couple of weeks ago, myself and a couple other members of our tech team made a visit to Waltham, Massachusetts and attended a special invite only training course on SolidWorks’ newest product offering, SolidWorks Electrical.  SolidWorks Electrical is a 2D dynamic electrical schematic creation software that can be sold as just that or bundled with SolidWorks Electrical 3D to allow for parametric updates between the schematic and the 3D model routes.  These two products together are sold as SolidWorks Electrical Professional.  We were given a crash course on how this 2D product fits into the market as well as getting hands on experience with the overall product solution.  Having a background with machine design for the plastics industry, I was very eager to see all of this work in action.  I was very surprised to see how many tools and symbols ship with this product, and the fact that this is all SQL database driven just strengthens the stability of this product.  We started off with some basic “how to” scenarios of adding in schematic symbols for a simple wiring diagram and then slowly built this design into a more complex schematic by adding PLC components.  Once we had the layout complete, we then brought all of this to the 3D cabinet and quickly placed all motor starters, PLC components and even some industry favorite WAGO terminal strip components!  To have the software walk you through the model insertion process as well auto-route all wiring was extremely easy and even a little fun.  The integrated library consists of over 500,000 standard electrical parts; you can create single-line and multi-line schematics and even offers direct import of existing DWG and DXF symbols with existing attributes and connections!  The symbol library has over 4,000 symbols and allows you to create custom 2D symbols as well.  I think the real power is that both the 2D schematic and the 3D routed models are Bi-Directionally linked in real time updates.  Make a change to the schematic, and the model will update!  This product will be offered for purchase very soon and you can learn more about this offering at www.solidworks.com/electrical or contact your CATI representative.

Thank you,

Brian Reel
CATI 

 

Using the Costing Tool in SolidWorks

The SolidWorks Costing tool helps you calculate how much it costs to manufacture sheet metal and machined parts by automating the cost estimation and quotation process.

The tool helps designers make design decisions based on the cost to manufacture, and helps manufacturers create quotes for customers. Whenever you change a design, you can see the new, updated cost immediately, along with a detailed cost breakdown. Additionally, you can generate automatic cost reports. To use this tool, you can go to Tools, SolidWorks Costing and select Sheet Metal or Machining Costing.

The Costing tool is driven by manufacturing and material information in templates that determine the manufacturing cost. In the templates you can specify the material used to create the part, the manufacturing processes (such as laser cutting, bending, or milling), and the associated costs of these materials and manufacturing operations. The templates also let you create custom operations such as packaging, ERP entry, painting, or cleaning.

The Costing tool is divided into two functional capabilities:

Sheet Metal Costing

Use the Sheet Metal Costing  tool for parts that are manufactured from sheet metal. To use this tool, the part must contain sheet metal features such as flanges, bends, and forming tools. Features such as holes and cuts are recognized as manufacturing cut paths for operations such as laser, water jet, and plasma cutting.

Machining Costing

Use the Machining Costing  tool for parts that are machined from solid block and plate stock material. Parts machined from blocks use manufacturing techniques such as milling and drilling. Parts made from plate use manufacturing techniques such as laser, water jet, and plasma cutting, in addition to milling and drilling

The costs calculated by the Costing tool are as accurate as the data in your templates. Although SolidWorks provides pre-populated templates, it is best to create custom templates based on your manufacturer's costs. It is recommended that you work with your in-house manufacturing departments and external manufacturing vendors to create custom templates that reflect actual costs.

A great way to get familiar with this tool is to go through the tutorials.  Go to Help, SolidWorks Tutorials, Productivity Enhancements, SolidWorks Costing.

Phil Whitaker

Technical Analyst

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#15)

Optimal Configuration & Conclusion

In looking back at the past 14 articles we have posted about Maximizing SolidWorks Performance one of the items we promised in our first article was to give you the two optimal configurations that gave us the best overall performance.

Before we get to the results lets recap what we tested in our previous articles:

• Windows Visual and User Settings


• SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal


• Graphics Cards


• Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins


• Processor Clock Speed


• Reducing Top Level Mates and Solving Subassemblies as Rigid


• Number of Cores and SolidWorks


• SolidWorks Graphic Settings (Image Quality and RealView Graphics)


• Network Storage and Anti-virus


• Level of Detail


• RAM and SWAP File


• Hard Drives


• Lightweight & Large Assembly Mode

In the list above you want to take note that of the 13 items we tested 8 of them are FREE.

The first optimal scenario that we tested included all of the performance improvements explained above except Large Assembly Mode and Lightweight options.  The environment looked like this:

Hardware

• 12 cores @ 4.29Ghtz


• 24GB RAM - SWAP 48GB


• OS RAID 0 SSDs from Intel


• Storage OCZ Technology Revo Drive


• Nvidia Quadro 500 Graphics Card

Configuration

• SolidWorks Options Optimized


• Assembly stored local


• Addins off


• OS visuals set to best performance

Modeling methods

• Level of detail reduced


• Image quality reduced


• Realview Graphics off


• Top level mates reduced

The combination of the enhancements to our SolidWorks environment yielded some impressive performance results and we are able to appreciate the significance of utilizing a properly configured workstation with quality modeling methodologies.  Overall a performance improvement of almost 82% was realized. Our benchmark of just over 5 hours was reduced to just over 55 minutes. Adding Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode increased our performance an additional 11%, dropping the run time down to 22 minutes.

Conclusion

What we have found in our efforts conducting these tests is that improvement of a modeling environment must be approached at a system level rather than a specific component level.  All of the hardware, configuration, and modeling methodology options work in concert to establish the performance capabilities of a workstation whether it's good or bad.  Adding more processor power to a workstation that is short on RAM will help.  But the improvement that the stronger processor yields will be much greater if RAM is added as well.

Understanding these several aspects of a SolidWorks modeling environment and how they work together can make all the difference in ensuring that you get the full value from your hardware and software purchase.

Adrian and I plan on continuing our testing for the next SolidWorks World in 2013 so please keep checking back for updates. We are planning on creating some new tests and new ways to display the results. If you have any suggestions please add a comment to this or any of our other articles.

Please check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Maximizing SolidWorks Performance and links to each with their release date are listed below:

• Maximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper (7/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#1 Introduction (7/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#2 Windows Visual and User Settings (7/12/12)


• MSWP-12-#3 SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal (7/17/12)


• MSWP-12-#4 Graphics Cards (7/19/12)


• MSWP-12-#5 Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins (7/24/12)


• MSWP-12-#6 Processor Clock Speed (7/26/12)


• MSWP-12-#7 Reducing SolidWorks Mates and Rigid Subassemblies (7/31/12)


• MSWP-12-#8 Number of Processor Cores (8/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#9 SolidWorks Graphic Settings (8/7/12)


• MSWP-12-#10 Network Storage and Anti-Virus (8/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#11 Level of Detail (8/14/12)


• MSWP-12-#12 RAM and SWAP File (8/16/12)


• MSWP-12-#13 Hard Drives (8/21/12


• MSWP-12-#14 Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode (8/23/12)


• MSWP-12-#15 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (8/28/12)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager

Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director

Windows 8 & Solidworks 2012 Test Drive

 

   I just had to. With the Release to Manufacturing of Windows 8 already here I had to take it for a test drive. It is available as an evaluation copy from the MS website. It was a 2.5gb downloaded .iso file which when put onto a bootable USB stick, (because really who uses a DVD player anymore?) installed with out any issues on an older Dell M6300 in less than 10 minutes.

The thing that is striking about the interface is the massive overhaul by Microsoft. It is definetely a bold move and in my opininon a good one. You can definetely tell that it is aimed at a multi-platform arena. Tablets, touchcreens, phones, and desktops will all get a taste of it. All of the usual driver issues that have usually have plageued MS for quite some time seem to be absent. The OS was actually pretty lightweight and nimble. The one thing that will get everybody upset is the new "Metro" style interface.

I have been a Xbox live subscriber for quite some time because I have teenagers that like to game. The interface has actually been on the Xbox for quite some time, so it really wasnt a shock and I was already used to it. SolidWorks ran very well with no crashes in my testing and I did no tweaking whatsoever. I couldnt even tell you what video driver was running. With the majority of businesses all converted over to Windows 7 now and the official retirement of XP immenent, Windows 8 will be quite a large task to sell the corporations on as far as an upgrade is considered.

The price point is going to be a reported $40 for the upgrade to Windows 8. That is now sounding like Microsft is really starting to listen to there customer base. Now give me a Microsoft Surface tablet to run the full-blown Windows 8 and SolidWorks and we will be talking game changer. Gauranteed.

 

 

Todd Werginz

CATI

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#14)

Lightweight & LAM

The use of Lightweight and Large assembly mode made a tremendous impact in our testing.  These tools allow a user to open an extremely large assembly without bringing in all of the computational data that defines it.  The user gets the visual of the model without the over head of the math behind it.  The user will then resolve the portions of the assembly that they would like to work on.  The data for just that portion of the assembly is loaded into RAM and the user has the best of both worlds; the ability to work on a part or sub-assembly within the context of the greater assembly while dealing only with the overhead of the portion they are specifically working on.  The testing we did involved very large assemblies where Lightweight mode can have its most pronounced effect on performance.

 

 

If you remember from our first article; our test baseline had a runtime of 5:01:35 and we measured time for the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling, Rebuilds, Switching Sheets, Saves and Closes.

After we changed our SolidWorks settings for Light Weight and Large Assembly Mode our macro ran in 0:34:18, this had a noticeable effect in all the areas we measured.

This change gained us a savings of 4:27:17 or 88.6%.

Please check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Maximizing SolidWorks Performance and links to each with their release date are listed below:

• Maximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper (7/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#1 Introduction (7/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#2 Windows Visual and User Settings (7/12/12)


• MSWP-12-#3 SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal (7/17/12)


• MSWP-12-#4 Graphics Cards (7/19/12)


• MSWP-12-#5 Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins (7/24/12)


• MSWP-12-#6 Processor Clock Speed (7/26/12)


• MSWP-12-#7 Reducing SolidWorks Mates and Rigid Subassemblies (7/31/12)


• MSWP-12-#8 Number of Processor Cores (8/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#9 SolidWorks Graphic Settings (8/7/12)


• MSWP-12-#10 Network Storage and Anti-Virus (8/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#11 Level of Detail (8/14/12)


• MSWP-12-#12 RAM and SWAP File (8/16/12)


• MSWP-12-#13 Hard Drives (8/21/12


• MSWP-12-#14 Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode (8/23/12)


• MSWP-12-#15 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (8/28/12)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager

Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director

Northern Illinois SolidWorks Users Groups to Host SolidWorks CEO Bertrand Sicot

The Chicago SolidWorks User Group (CSUG), the Chicago West SolidWorks User Group (CWSUG) and the Rockford Area SolidWorks User Group (RASUG) are holding a joint meeting Wednesday, August 29, 2012 from 5:00pm to 9pm at GAME PAZZO in Downers Grove, IL.

The featured speaker will be Bertrand Sicot, CEO of SolidWorks. Bertrand is visiting as part of a national tour of SolidWorks Users groups. This is a good opportunity to hear Bertrand's vision for SolidWorks.

Richard Doyle, SolidWorks Community Manager and Ed Eaton from the Dimonte Group will also present.

AGENDA:
5:00-5:30PM Sign-in and networking.
        Food served. Pizza & soft drinks courtesy of ESPO Corporation
5:30-9:00PM Bertrand Sicot - SolidWorks CEO
        Richard Doyle - SolidWorks User Community Manager
        Ed Eaton - Chicagoland SolidWorks Expert

Denny Bahl, CSUG President has requested everyone RSVP to csug.info@gmail.com before 08/27/2012. 

GAME PAZZO is located in the Meadowbrook Shopping Center at 2011 63rd Street, Downers Grove, Illinois 60516. Game Pazzo will also be providing free video game play after the presentations.

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#13)

Hard Drives

When choosing hard drives our choices are almost unlimited and we need to keep in mind that hard drive speed affects every area of SolidWorks modeling particularly when a single hard drive is being used for file storage, OS operation, and SWAP.  For our tests we had 3 different hard drive types; standard 7200 rpm, solid state, and a PCI express Revo card.  We also had 4 different test configurations; single drive, separate drives, RAID1 (2 drives mirrored) and RAID0 (2 drives striped).

We had a lot of options as to how to run our tests and in our tests we have found that the most pronounced performance improvement is experienced when switching from standard hard drives to solid state hard drives.  This is mainly due to the heavy use of SWAP in our baseline test.  This underscores the need to view performance for SolidWorks from a system perspective rather than from a component level.

Switching to the Solid state hard drive improved our benchmark performance by a little more than 47% of total run time.  Further improvement of another 16% was realized by storing our working files separate from our OS and SWAP file on a Revo solid state PCI-e card.

If you remember from our first article; our test baseline had a runtime of 5:01:35 and we measured time for the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling, Rebuilds, Switching Sheets, Saves and Closes.

Even though a single solid state drive was the bulk of our change and probably the most cost effective; we ran our optimal set up for this test and our macro ran in 2:13:23, this had a noticeable effect in all the areas we measured.

This change gained us a savings of 2:48:12 or 55.8%.

Please check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Maximizing SolidWorks Performance and links to each with their release date are listed below:

• Maximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper (7/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#1 Introduction (7/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#2 Windows Visual and User Settings (7/12/12)


• MSWP-12-#3 SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal (7/17/12)


• MSWP-12-#4 Graphics Cards (7/19/12)


• MSWP-12-#5 Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins (7/24/12)


• MSWP-12-#6 Processor Clock Speed (7/26/12)


• MSWP-12-#7 Reducing SolidWorks Mates and Rigid Subassemblies (7/31/12)


• MSWP-12-#8 Number of Processor Cores (8/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#9 SolidWorks Graphic Settings (8/7/12)


• MSWP-12-#10 Network Storage and Anti-Virus (8/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#11 Level of Detail (8/14/12)


• MSWP-12-#12 RAM and SWAP File (8/16/12)


• MSWP-12-#13 Hard Drives (8/21/12)


• MSWP-12-#14 Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode (8/23/12)


• MSWP-12-#15 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (8/28/12)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager

Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director

Configurations VS Display States in Assemblies

Configurations and display states are very powerful tools to control how your SolidWorks assemblies look. It is important to understand the differences of what you can control with each of them.

Configurations control assembly feature, part, and sub assembly suppression. Dimensional changes for mates and reference geometry, alternate part translation and rotation, and the current configuration of existing parts and sub assemblies. In this example I am showing a configuration change for an assembly. The second image has one part suppressed, one changed mate dimension, and the crank has been rotated.

Display States control whether are part is shown or hidden, the shading style (i.e. shaded with edges or hidden lines removed), transparency, and the color. The easiest way to see how the current display state is controlling your assembly is to expand out the display pane. Each column relates to the four controllable display states. In my next example I am showing a display state change. The crank assembly has been hidden, the color of the bracket has changed from blue to gray, the upper yoke shading style is now hidden lines, and the lower yoke is transparent.

I would also like to note that when mass properties are calculated for an assembly hidden parts are considered; suppressed parts are not.

Jordan Nardick, CSWE

Technical Analyst

CATI

Preset Custom Properties

Did you know that presetting custom properties in your templates is even easier in 2012.  You can now create blank custom properties.   Therefore we can add the custom properties that we want in each part and save that into the various templates.  This way you will not forget, or have to manually add the property each and every time.  In the previous versions we had to add blank spaces as a value holder.

 

 

Simple things about solidworks sketch fillets

Fillets can be created at the 3d level using the fillet feature and the 2d level using the sketch fillet command.  Sketch fillets do reduce the number of features in the tree and provide the same basic control as any constant radius fillet. 

To apply any fillet you can select a vertex or any two lines that intersect.  This can be considered general knowledge if you come from an auto cad background.  The extra function that was dropped into the command is that the lines do not have to intersect.  Here I selected the the angled and horizontal lines and the sketch fillet command will apply the radius and close the loop at the same time.

Ketul

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#12)

RAM and SWAP File 

RAM

When determining how much RAM is required for a workstation it is most important to know the requirements of your model and the methods you are going to use.  There is a potential to over buy, so it is also important to note that any amount of RAM over what is required will be unused.

The graph above depicts that, for our environment and model, anything over 10GB of RAM is enough.  Anything under 10GB forces the workstation to begin paging.  The more the workstation pages the slower it runs.

The most important thing to remember is that it is cheaper to over buy RAM than have your designers and engineers waiting for a computer.

SWAP

SWAP (a.k.a. Virtual Memory or Page File) and RAM work hand in hand when there is not enough RAM available in the workstation.  Where it is always recommended to have enough RAM to avoid using SWAP, it is also recommended to have a SWAP file configured.  Without a SWAP file a workstation will become unstable as it approaches the limit of installed RAM.

When configuring a SWAP file you have 2 options; letting the system manage the SWAP file for you vs. configuring the SWAP file yourself.  By default, the OS is set to manage the SWAP file.  This can be detrimental when using SolidWorks.

The graph above not only shows that our test ran 10 to 13 percent slower when the system began accessing the system managed SWAP file, but that it became unstable and the benchmark would not complete.  SolidWorks began displaying warnings that the system was running low on memory until it eventually crashed.

 

Another factor that should be considered when contemplating SWAP is hard drive speed.  The tests above were run with the SWAP and the OS residing on 2 Intel solid state hard drives configured as RAID 0.  If we then switch the SWAP file to a single 7200 RPM standard hard drive; the performance hit is pronounced.

Comparing the workstation with 6GB of RAM, the slower hard drive increases the time to complete the benchmark by 250%.  With 8GB of RAM, the benchmark time to complete increased 160%.  Once the workstation starts using SWAP, the speed of the hard drive becomes even more important.  Again, it is best to avoid the need for SWAP in all circumstances and configure a workstation has enough RAM for your models and ample room to grow to the potential of your future designs.

If you remember from our first article; our test baseline had a runtime of 5:01:35 and we measured time for the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling, Rebuilds, Switching Sheets, Saves and Closes.

Even though 10GB of RAM was sufficient for our assembly we ran our optimal set up of 24GB of RAM for this test and our macro ran in 2:16:41, this had a noticeable effect in the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling, Switching Sheets, Saves and Closes.

This change gained us a savings of 2:44:54 or 54.7%.

Please check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Maximizing SolidWorks Performance and links to each with their release date are listed below:

• Maximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper (7/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#1 Introduction (7/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#2 Windows Visual and User Settings (7/12/12)


• MSWP-12-#3 SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal (7/17/12)


• MSWP-12-#4 Graphics Cards (7/19/12)


• MSWP-12-#5 Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins (7/24/12)


• MSWP-12-#6 Processor Clock Speed (7/26/12)


• MSWP-12-#7 Reducing SolidWorks Mates and Rigid Subassemblies (7/31/12)


• MSWP-12-#8 Number of Processor Cores (8/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#9 SolidWorks Graphic Settings (8/7/12)


• MSWP-12-#10 Network Storage and Anti-Virus (8/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#11 Level of Detail (8/14/12)


• MSWP-12-#12 RAM and SWAP File (8/16/12)


• MSWP-12-#13 Hard Drives (8/21/12)


• MSWP-12-#14 Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode (8/23/12)


• MSWP-12-#15 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (8/28/12)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager

Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director

SolidWorks' Hidden Document Properties

CATI's monthly contribution to the SolidWorks Blog was posted today. This month I chose to write about the SolidWorks' Hidden Document Properties. The article is based upon a call we got on the support line earlier this month and talks about the different values that you can set before you save out a template. Those new values then become default for future part, assembly and drawing files.

To view the article use the link below.

http://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/2012/08/solidworks-hidden-document-properties.html

Default Values                                            New Custom Values

 

Thanks for viewing

Josh Altergott

CATI Support Manager

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#11)

Level of Detail

There are many opportunities to display minute levels of detail with SolidWorks.  Displaying this high level of detail while working with large assemblies or very complex geometry will be detrimental to performance.  We have found that this issue occurs most frequently with components that are downloaded from vendors that have made their models available for easy access and configuration over the web.  It is essential that designers remove any excess detail from parts and assemblies as soon as they are downloaded in order to avoid these issues. 

If feasible, CATI suggests:

• Reduce the level of detail to outer walls and mounting points.


• Save assemblies as parts.


• Combine solid bodies.


• Turn surfaces bodies into solid bodies.


• Delete any unneeded surface or solid bodies.


• Export and reimport files to reduce the number of features in a file.


• SolidWorks Defeature tools for parts and assemblies

There are other ways to achieve a detail free vendor part and these are just some of the ways we have used to remove excess details.

  

High levels of detail can also be found in manufactured components.  Commonly, this is found in the form of threads being modeled into bolts and screws. Extruded text and extensive patterns are also some of the culprits that introduce these issues.  When this level of detail is required, it is a good idea to have a configuration of the part or sub-assembly that suppresses the detail for use in larger assemblies.

If you remember from our first article; our test baseline had a runtime of 5:01:35 and we measured time for the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling, Rebuilds, Switching Sheets, Saves and Closes.

After we reduced the detail in our SolidWorks models our macro ran in 3:24:13, this had a noticeable effect in all the areas we measured.

This setting gained us a savings of 1:37:22 or 32.3%.

Note: These changes can have a larger or smaller effect on each users performance depending on how many over detailed parts are being used.

Please check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Maximizing SolidWorks Performance and links to each with their release date are listed below:

• Maximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper (7/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#1 Introduction (7/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#2 Windows Visual and User Settings (7/12/12)


• MSWP-12-#3 SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal (7/17/12)


• MSWP-12-#4 Graphics Cards (7/19/12)


• MSWP-12-#5 Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins (7/24/12)


• MSWP-12-#6 Processor Clock Speed (7/26/12)


• MSWP-12-#7 Reducing SolidWorks Mates and Rigid Subassemblies (7/31/12)


• MSWP-12-#8 Number of Processor Cores (8/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#9 SolidWorks Graphic Settings (8/7/12)


• MSWP-12-#10 Network Storage and Anti-Virus (8/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#11 Level of Detail (8/14/12)


• MSWP-12-#12 RAM and SWAP File (8/16/12)


• MSWP-12-#13 Hard Drives (8/21/12)


• MSWP-12-#14 Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode (8/23/12)


• MSWP-12-#15 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (8/28/12)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager

Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director

DriveWorks Webinars - Register Today!

The DriveWorks Webinar Marathon continues.  Register for one of the upcoming installments.

All webinar times are 10am-11am Central Time. Be sure to list CATI as your SolidWorks/DriveWorks Reseller.

- Aug 16, 2012 - DriveWorks Specification Flow Fundamentals Register Now!

- Aug 23, 2012 - DriveWorks Specification Flow Approval Process Register Now!

- Aug 30, 2012 - How to Deploy DriveWorks Pro to the Web Register Now!

Can't make it to one of these webinars?  Check out the DriveWorks Solo Headstart Webinar on Wednesday August 15th, from 10am-11am Central Time.  Register Now!

 

Jim TeDesco
Marketing
Computer Aided Technology, Inc. 

Response to Comment from Maximizing SolidWorks Performance - OS Visual and User Settings

The following comment was posted to our article Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#2) OS Visual and User Settings.

“Personally I must let AERO running, because of graphical problems inside of SolidWorks otherwise!” (Posted by: Florent)

This comment is correct. According to SolidWorks, “Using basic or non-Aero themes, Windows disables certain 3D acceleration settings to conserve resources. Disabling these settings can have a negative impact on SolidWorks performance. Basic or non-Aero themes are intended for use with PCs which do not have dedicated GPUs, to reduce the overall load on the CPU. However, in PCs with dedicated GPUs, Basic or Non-Aero themes can hinder overall performance.”

The biggest problem I have seen is documented in Solution S-037418 - When panning, zooming and rotating a model in Windows Vista® or Windows 7, what can cause a graphical problem whereby only a small rectangular area of the display is refreshed? The rest of the graphics area freezes.

We have had several users report this graphic issue, as shown below.

The Solution

The most likely cause for this is utilizing a basic or non-Aero theme in Windows Vista or Windows 7. In Vista, please enable the Vista Aero™ interface and in Windows 7, please choose an Aero™ enabled theme.

Additionally, there is SPR# 594031, which is an enhancement to allow SolidWorks to check if AERO is enabled before each start, which would improve overall user experience and performance.

Neil Bucalo
Technical Analyst
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

Create your own backup

Make your own “backups”

 

A lot of us take advantage to Solidwork’s ability to create a backup file. I know I have screwed things up on a file and saved it before I realized…..Time to call I.T. to go get a backup. For users that take advantage of the Solidwork’s backup setting, there is no need to call I.T.  – But what if you have your backup set to 1 and you don’t realize your screw-up until you open the file again? The backup is overwritten with the bad file.

I take advantage of the built-in windows service VSS  - Volume Shadow Service. This is an outstanding feature in Windows that has saved me time and time again. So what is it?

VSS is part or Windows 7 system protection. You can access it through control panel/system/system protection.

 

Select configure to enable it. You will notice that there are only local drives listed. To use shadowing on a network drive, this must be enabled on the server side.

 

Under here is where you can select your options. Notice the “Restore Previous Versions of Files”

So, with this turned on, how do you get your files back?  - It is a simple a browsing. Simply browse to a file or directory to restore, right click and select properties. You will see a “Previous Versions” tab

 

 

You will see all the restore points that can be restored. If no versions are listed, this means that the file has not been changed. You can also restore deleted files in the same manor.

 

This obviously works with all files, not just Solidworks.  – it has save me many times…Once should be all it takes!

 

 

 

 

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#10)

Network Storage and Anti virus

Network Storage

One of the principle benefits of working with SolidWorks is the ability to share data and have multiple people working on an assembly at the same time.  This type of cooperative environment requires network storage of the data.  Using this data across a network can greatly damage productivity when compared with using the same data locally.  There are many factors involved that would contribute to performance in this comparison so results will differ greatly based on speed of the local hard drives, the network, the sever, and the server's hard drives.  However, it is fair to say that working with files from the local hard drive will be significantly faster than going over the network.  This is one of many factors that make utilization of Enterprise PDM imperative for so many companies.

Our testing showed a 16% performance degradation from our baseline when operating over the network.  This loss in performance can be greater or less depending on the configuration or your network, number of user on your network, hard drive type on the server and client machines.

Anti-Virus Scanning

When accessing files over a network it is common that they are being scanned for viruses either by the client, or the server, or both.  This scanning does have an impact on SolidWorks performance.  Exploring alternative means of scanning for external threats (or making exceptions for SolidWorks extensions in scanning) can have a big impact on performance if operating in a shared network environment.

When virus scanning was active on the server only, our benchmark ran 13% slower than when working over the network without scanning.  When virus scanning was active on both the server and the client, our benchmark ran 18% slower than when working over the network without scanning.

Overall if we add both of these tests together to have our files stored on the network and we have antivirus scanning going on both the server and client machines our macro ran in 6:52:00 if we compare this to our test baseline which had a runtime of 5:01:35 that is a performance loss of 1:25:35 or 26.8%.

Please check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Maximizing SolidWorks Performance and links to each with their release date are listed below:

• Maximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper (7/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#1 Introduction (7/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#2 Windows Visual and User Settings (7/12/12)


• MSWP-12-#3 SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal (7/17/12)


• MSWP-12-#4 Graphics Cards (7/19/12)


• MSWP-12-#5 Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins (7/24/12)


• MSWP-12-#6 Processor Clock Speed (7/26/12)


• MSWP-12-#7 Reducing SolidWorks Mates and Rigid Subassemblies (7/31/12)


• MSWP-12-#8 Number of Processor Cores (8/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#9 SolidWorks Graphic Settings (8/7/12)


• MSWP-12-#10 Network Storage and Anti-Virus (8/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#11 Level of Detail (8/14/12)


• MSWP-12-#12 RAM and SWAP File (8/16/12)


• MSWP-12-#13 Hard Drives (8/21/12)


• MSWP-12-#14 Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode (8/23/12)


• MSWP-12-#15 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (8/28/12)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager

Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director

Quick Tip for Assembly views

Sometimes you may find that you want to create a part view on an assembly drawing for reference or for tech pub documents. There are a few ways to do this.

Sure we can always dig up the model and insert a new drawing view of the part. But what happens if the assembly you are using is going to be saved off to it's own project? Or what if it is a weldment or multibody part?

For the assembly style try this. Go to the assembly model, right click on the part you want the drawing view of and choose isolate. This will hide the rest of the parts. There will be an isolate toolbar that pops up, on that bar there is a save icon.

This will allow you to save it as a display state. You can return to your original model by choosing the exit button, this turns the other parts back to show. Or if you created the display state you  may need to choose your original display state.

For multibody parts we probably would use a relative to model view from the drawing views pulldown menu. This works pretty good but may take a few attempts to get whatyou want if you are new to the command.

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#9)

SolidWorks Graphic Settings (Image Quality and RealView Graphics)

SolidWorks has the capability to display designs vividly with extremely high image quality and RealView Graphics.  While these features allow for a very pretty model and extremely high resolution, in general, they are not needed for everyday modeling.  Higher Image Quality is intended to give better visual definition of very small components or components that contain very fine detail.  The effect of this is a model that takes longer to calculate its visual data and a significantly larger file size.  The former affects rebuild and repaint times while the latter affects model opening, closing, and saving.  Both affect the amount of RAM required which amplifies the performance hit. The best place to change the Image Quality setting is at the assembly level and selecting the option to propagate that through to all the sub-assemblies and part components.

The other options that has an impact in our overall performance are RealView Graphics and Shadows in Shaded Mode, You can turn off RealView Graphics and Shadows In Shaded Mode in the View (heads-up) toolbar  as shown below.

If you remember from our first article; our test baseline had a runtime of 5:01:35 and we measured time for the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling, Rebuilds, Switching Sheets, Saves and Closes.

After we changed our SolidWorks graphic settings our macro ran in 3:36:00, this had a noticeable effect in all the areas we measured.

This setting gained us a savings of 1:25:35 or 28.4%.

Note: This setting can have a larger or smaller on each users performance depending on how high their Image Quality was set or how many parts were using RealView Graphics.

Please check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Maximizing SolidWorks Performance and links to each with their release date are listed below:

• Maximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper (7/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#1 Introduction (7/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#2 Windows Visual and User Settings (7/12/12)


• MSWP-12-#3 SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal (7/17/12)


• MSWP-12-#4 Graphics Cards (7/19/12)


• MSWP-12-#5 Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins (7/24/12)


• MSWP-12-#6 Processor Clock Speed (7/26/12)


• MSWP-12-#7 Reducing SolidWorks Mates and Rigid Subassemblies (7/31/12)


• MSWP-12-#8 Number of Processor Cores (8/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#9 SolidWorks Graphic Settings (8/7/12)


• MSWP-12-#10 Network Storage and Anti-Virus (8/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#11 Level of Detail (8/14/12)


• MSWP-12-#12 RAM and SWAP File (8/16/12)


• MSWP-12-#13 Hard Drives (8/21/12)


• MSWP-12-#14 Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode (8/23/12)


• MSWP-12-#15 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (8/28/12)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager

Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director

Select All – Filtered

New to SolidWorks in 2012 is the select all command. This follows in suite with how SolidWorks quick key commands mimic Windows commands such as ctrl+c for copy or ctrl+v for paste. In this case the quick key command is ctrl+a. Well let’s take this a little further.

What if I use the select all command on a part with a filter applied?

Well the select all command takes effect but with regard to the filter that is currently applied. So if you have filter faces applied and use select all, all the faces of the part will be selected. Same will happen if you have filter edges or filter vertices applied. Below are examples of these filtered select all commands at work.

Enjoy

Nicholas Jansen CSWP

CATI – Applications Engineer

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#8)

Number of Cores and SolidWorks

The number of cores that a workstation has is critical for use of SolidWorks -- but only to a point.  Since SolidWorks can only take advantage of 2 cores itself, the numbers of cores needed is determined by how many other activities the workstation is going to need to perform while SolidWorks is operating.

The graph above reveals that when SolidWorks is the only application running on a workstation, anything more than four cores is simply overkill.  We recommend that before purchasing a new machine you evaluate your daily use to make sure you are getting all that you need from a single multi core processor.  If you are utilizing the workstation for SolidWorks Simulation Products, Photoview360 or other applications that can take advantage of multiple cores then it may be worth the investment in a second processor to gain the additional cores.

If you remember from our first article; our test baseline had a runtime of 5:01:35 and we measured time for the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling, Rebuilds, Switching Sheets, Saves and Closes.

We saw an improvement of 6.4% going from 1 to 2 cores, we gained another 1.2% going from 2 to 4 cores, and an additional improvement of 1.1% going from 4 to 12 cores.

Overall we saw a 7.6% improvement gain going from 1 to 4 cores and 8.7% going from 1 to 12 cores.

If we take the best case and run our macro with 12 cores our macro ran in 4:04:54, this had a noticeable effect in the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling, and Switching Sheets.

This change gained us a savings of 0:56:41 or 18.8%.

Number of Cores and PhotoView360

If you are Photo Rendering, multiple cores are essential.  This graph illustrates very well the impact that additional cores can have on a render job.  The most dramatic increase in performance is between one and four cores when the curve seems to "flatten out".

This can be a little misleading because the dramatic 64% improvement between four and twelve cores is overshadowed in this graph.

Viewing the result between 4 and 12 cores only can give a more accurate visual of what can be expected when adding a second processor and significantly increasing the capabilities of a workstation.

Please check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Maximizing SolidWorks Performance and links to each with their release date are listed below:

• Maximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper (7/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#1 Introduction (7/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#2 Windows Visual and User Settings (7/12/12)


• MSWP-12-#3 SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal (7/17/12)


• MSWP-12-#4 Graphics Cards (7/19/12)


• MSWP-12-#5 Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins (7/24/12)


• MSWP-12-#6 Processor Clock Speed (7/26/12)


• MSWP-12-#7 Reducing SolidWorks Mates and Rigid Subassemblies (7/31/12)


• MSWP-12-#8 Number of Processor Cores (8/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#9 SolidWorks Graphic Settings (8/7/12)


• MSWP-12-#10 Network Storage and Anti-Virus (8/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#11 Level of Detail (8/14/12)


• MSWP-12-#12 RAM and SWAP File (8/16/12)


• MSWP-12-#13 Hard Drives (8/21/12)


• MSWP-12-#14 Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode (8/23/12)


• MSWP-12-#15 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (8/28/12)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager

Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director

SolidWorks Electrical is Here!

Earlier today Dassault Systèmes announced the launch of the new SolidWorks Electrical Design Software.  

What is SolidWorks Electrical?

SolidWorks® Electrical simplifies electrical system design with its intelligent design tools, comprehensive parts database, and real-time integration of your 2D schematics and 3D models. The simple, intuitive design makes both electrical and mechanical engineers more productive, enabling increased collaboration and integrated Bills of Materials (BOMs) and project data. The results are fewer mistakes and complications, for faster time-to-market.  

The SolidWorks Electrical product line includes:

• SolidWorks Electrical: 2D dynamic electrical schematic creation


• SolidWorks Electrical 3D: Use your schematic data to model your electrical system in 3D (including cables and wires)


• SolidWorks Electrical Professional: SolidWorks Electrical and SolidWorks Electrical 3D combined for creating both electrical schematics and 3D models

Watch this great video to learn more or visit our website, www.cati.com.

Jim TeDesco
Marketing
Computer Aided Technology, Inc. 

Select Connected Faces in SolidWorks

Select Connected Faces in SolidWorks

As SolidWorks development continues to add commands and functionality to each major release of SolidWorks, from time to time they also add in nuggets of goodness to service packs.  That's right sports fans, not all enhancements come in the fall.  Service packs contain patches to issues, new software conversions to work with other products as they update their programs, and in this case new options as well.  In SolidWorks 2009 SP2, this new right mouse click option was introduced that allows you to select connected faces to the face that you are selecting from your model.  Yes, this came out 3+ years ago and most of the user community is still unaware of this functionality.  Let me explain a work scenario where this might be handy.

Lets say we have a model that has a cutout modeled and we want to make a quick change to this by using some of the direct editing techniques also introduced and re-worked in 2008 and 2009 releases.

First, you will need to turn on this command choice as it is not turned on by default.  Right mouse click on a surface from your model, and choose the double arrow at the bottom of this pop up menu.  Then you can choose the Customize Menu option:

Once in the customized section, simply add a check mark to the command Select Connected Faces.  Now this command will auto show the next time you use your right click option:

Now lets run through a scenario.  Right mouse click on a surface of the cut out:

Choose the Select Connected Faces command and you will see this new selection manager pop up:

Choose the icon which shows the correct faces being highlighted.  Then you can use a direct edit function of Move Faces:

Now you can translate, offset, or rotate the selected faces with various inputs from the property manager or the Triad Manipulator in the Graphics Area:

So now you can see the benefit of this command in that not only does it make it quicker and easier to select multiple entities at a time, but you can combine this with tools like Move Faces and make parametric feature changes to your model or imported files without feature history!

So by using the Select Connected Faces option, you too can speed up your next design change!

Brian Reel
CATI Technical Analyst