Treehouse 2 - SolidWorks Labs

Treehouse 2 from SolidWorks Labs

A great resource for testing new and upcoming software options can be found at SolidWorks Labs' web site.  This site can be accessed from http://labs.solidworks.com and contains several products that may be useful to your design process.  The one product that I have used for several projects is called Treehouse 2.  This is a very user friendly program that allows you to plan out your next design in a flow chart style process.  You can create assembly files with drawings, and even sub assembly groups with seperate parts and drawings for both.  You can name your files in this tree structure and basically plan out how you intend to group and organize the files to be designed at a later date.  Think of this as a template for a project that can get you started but can also allow you to add more files later as your design evolves.

You start by opening the free to download product called Treehouse 2.  This will work with SolidWorks 2008 and newer.

Next, you drag and drop your files into the graphics space and assign names for these files.  I'll start by adding an assembly and a drawing for this assembly:

Next I will continue my process by adding in some parts and their associated drawings:

You can not only assign names or part numbers to your files, but you can also edit the custom properties inside of these SolidWorks files by using your own templates that you created!

Once you have the file structure laid out, you can then export this to your folder of choice.  Treehouse will create each and every file for you as well as link the parts or assemblies to their corresponding drawing file!

So there you have a very easy to use and most importantly free application to help you plan out your next design in SolidWorks!  Enjoy!

Brian Reel
Technical Analyst 

New Machine? How To Return Your DriveWorks License Key

It happens
to everyone, you buy a brand new computer, then have to put all your programmes
on to the new machine and make sure they're all licensed to that new machine.
At DriveWorks we want you to be able to get back into action using your
DriveWorks Software on your new machine as quickly and easily as possible.

So...
simply return your license from your OLD machine via the internet to our
license server, and then whether that means you're lucky enough to be getting a
brand new machine or just reformatting and existing one, then the license is
available for you to use again when you're ready!

Here's
a simple guide to show you How To Return Your DriveWorks Solo License Key:

• Go to the Windows Start Button


• Click through All Programs >
  DriveWorks Solo > DriveWorks Solo License Manager


• Click Return License


• Click Finish on the License
  Management wizard once it is complete

And
to return your DriveWorks Pro License Key:

• Go to the Windows Start Button


• Click through All programs >
  DriveWorks (program group)


• Select the license that is to be
  returned and click View


• Click Return License


• Click Finish on the License
  management Wizard once it is complete

Then just
do all your changes to your machine and activate the same code again which you
can access through the DriveWorks Solo/DriveWorks Pro websites. Then you are
back in action!

The key
thing with this is making sure you return the license BEFORE you make the
changes to your machine, or BEFORE you need to activate it on your new machine!

This
procedure is really quick and easy, but if you do come across any difficulties,
then just send an email DriveWorks Licensing:

licensing@driveworks.co.uk 

Adding Bend Tables and Punch Tables in SolidWorks

With the exciting release of SolidWorks 2013 right around the corner, let’s take a look back at a couple of enhancements in 2012 that may have fallen through the cracks. The first one we will take a look at is the ability to now add Bend Tables into your SolidWorks drawings.  SolidWorks has always had bend notes and bend lines, but those notes can make the drawing look rather cluttered.  You can now add a Bend Table into your sheet metal drawings to clean it up and have less clutter.

One way to access this tool is to go to Insert, Tables, Bend Tables.

A table dialogue box pops up which is similar to the BOM table.  You select where you want to put the table and you can see that the notes change to tags and the tags in the table match the bends in the flat pattern.

The other new table that you can create is the Punch Table.  With this functionality, you can now locate your form tools easily and efficiently.  You access this table by going to Insert, Table, Punch Table.  To locate the position, you need to select an origin and either an X or Y axis and the face where the form tools are located as illustrated below.

Once you place the table at your desired location, you can see that SolidWorks tags each form tool and also adds the X, Y location of the tool as well as the angle. 

Again, this is a great way to effectively communicate your designs and to clean up your drawings.

Check back to this Blog on a regular basis to see the great new enhancements coming out in 2013!!

 

Phil Whitaker

 

How to Configure Your SolidWorks Workstation from BOXX

Adrian Fanjoy and myself were recently asked to team up with our friends at BOXX to help them out with an article they were working on about what hardware to consider when looking for a workstation  for SolidWorks.

The article starts by asking you three questions about your workflow.

1. How big are my assemblies?


2. How complex are my parts ­les?


3. How many geometric surfaces do I have?

Based upon your responses to those questions, you can begin to formulate a plan. In your plan for considering new hardware the article takes you through several different areas that you will want to consider and it starts with the number of processing cores in you workstation as well as the BOXX advantage of overclocking. They continue with the topics of RAM, Graphics Cards, and the gain in performance from using SSDs. The article concludes with a case for dedicated rending when your workflow includes a significant amount of rending your designs.

To get a copy of the full article select the link below

How to Configure Your SolidWorks Workstation from BOXX

Josh Altergott

CATI Support Manager

CATI - Keeping CAD Fashionable For 20 Years

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of Computer Aided Technology, Inc. (CATI). To help celebrate, we put together this short video that tells you a little bit about the history of CATI from a "fashionable" point of view. A lot may have changed in the last 20 years, but we are still the same CATI, wardrobe included. We hope you enjoy this short video.

Computer Aided Technology, Inc. (CATI), founded in 1992 by engineering and manufacturing professionals, is a one stop, full-service provider of scalable design and manufacturing solutions. CATI creates competitive advantage for clients by leveraging an industry-experienced team and leading technology solutions. From 3D Solid Modeling and Analysis to Enterprise-wide Data Management and Rapid Prototyping, CATI has the tools, the experience, the knowledge and the dedication to bring your business vision to reality. CATI is the Nation's Original Resource for SolidWorks with the Midwest's Leading Support & Services Team and is a leading provider of a number of other best-in-class engineering technologies. CATI has two wholly-owned subsidiaries; InFlow Technology and Strategic Technology Solutions serving customers world-wide. To see the company profile, visit www.cati.com.

Increasing Performance in SolidWorks Patterns

CATI's monthly contribution to the SolidWorks Blog was posted earlier this week. This month I chose to write about how to increase performance in SolidWorks patterns. The article is based upon a support call and details the different options that you can use when creating patterns and the overall effect on rebuild time or your file. In our sample part we were able to cut our rebuild time from 108 seconds to 12 seconds.

To view the article use the link below.

http://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/2012/09/increasing-performance-in-solidworks-patterns.html

Thanks for viewing

Josh Altergott

CATI Support Manager

DriveWorks Specification Flow - Who, What and When?

Specification
flow is a powerful feature in DriveWorks Pro that gives the DriveWorks
Administrator the ability to customize the DriveWorks specification process.
(ie rules for what happens and when it happens). When a project is first set up
in DriveWorks it is created with a default specification flow which guides a
specification through four basic states - Running (i.e. filling out forms in
the specification), Saved, Pending, and Completed. 

Each one of
these states has links to other states to move from one state to another. For
example, a specification in the Saved state can be moved into the Running
state, and a specification in the Running state can be moved into the Pending
state (by clicking Finish), or the Completed state (by clicking Release). These
links between states are called transitions. Each state also has certain
operations that can be performed on it, but which do not move to another state,
for example, a specification can be deleted, or copied.

The
Specification Flow can be customized in DriveWorks Administrator to meet your
own specification and work flow needs. 

There are
lots of reasons why you may want to look at customizing your specification
flow, here are a few examples:

• You may have a quoting process which
  involves generating a general-assembly drawing - all before releasing to
  manufacture and before the full manufacturing information is generated.


• You may have additional requirements
  during the specification process such as copying a document to another machine
  which otherwise would involve complicated macros


• You may simply want to change the
  text that is displayed on the "Finish" button to something like
  "Quote"


• You may want to set rules that
  determine that a Sales Manager can see all specifications generated by your
  distributors, but only let each distributor see their own specifications.

Find out
more about DriveWorks Specification Flow in the DriveWorks Pro Helpfile

DriveWorks Pro Helpfile - Specification Flow

Setting the precision in a SolidWorks table

Setting the document precision in SolidWorks is a global setting for that whole document; meaning every number will be set to that precision including values in a table.  You might think the only way to set the precision in a table, therefore, is to set the document precision but in the case when you only want to change the precision of a specific column, this method will give you real problems. Well fear not because there is a way to explicitly set the precision for just a table. Just follow these simple steps.

1. Select the column that you wish to set the precison for and hit the equation symbol.

2. Using the precision pulldown menu, select the precision

3. Next to the entered value in the data entry box, type (1*xxxx), where xxxx is the selected custom property from the pulldown menu.

Eureka!!!! The column has now been set to the selected precision.

Brian Adika, CSWP
Technical Analyst
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

 

 

DriveWorks Pro Integration with EPDM

Many
companies that need to create contract or customer specific designs will find
that they generate quite a lot of valuable data and documents for each job. For
that reason DriveWorks Pro, the Design Automation / Sales Configurator Solution
makes it easy to manage this data by including out of the box integration to
SolidWorks Enterprise PDM.

DriveWorks
Pro can be set up to automatically integrate with SolidWorks and SolidWorks
Enterprise PDM to securely store all documents created by DriveWorks in the
design process

An example
of how it works:

• Say you configure a cupboard in a
  browser, using DriveWorks Pro Live. You fill out the form including quote
  number, customer name, materials, dimensions etc...


• When your design is complete and you
  click 'Release', DriveWorks Pro Autopilot starts working in the background to
  generate the new files.


• As DriveWorks Pro Autopilot creates
  all the files, these are sent into the SolidWorks Enterprise PDM Vault.


• When this is complete, you can open
  up the location where DriveWorks has saved the files: you can see the drawings,
  models, parts assemblies have all been automatically been checked in to the
  EPDM vault.


• When you configure your design on
  the web and click go, everything in the background has been created and checked
  in. It's really easy to set up, via the settings screens in DriveWorks Pro.
  Just enter: Vault Name, User Name and Password, etc - and then DriveWorks takes
  care of the rest.

To see all
of this in action, check out the EPDM Integration video on the DriveWorks Pro
website.

DriveWorks Pro Integration with SolidWorks Enterprise PDM

HOW TO SAVE A TEMPLATE WITH GLOBAL VARIABLES

A nice 10 minute video on how to save a Solidworks Part template with some standard Global Variables for ease of manipulation.

 

 

Thanks,

Todd Werginz, Senior Applications Engineer

Computer Aided Technology

How to: Find, Use and Customize Icons in SolidWorks

Configuration and hole patterns

One of the more advanced SolidWorks modeling techniques is using equations to drive sketch dimensions. For example you can create a linear hole pattern that derives the spacing and number of holes from the overall length. Let's assume we want .5" spacing from either end, and roughly 6" spacing between holes on a part. To do this create a hole wizard feature on your part. Place the first hole on the part and use a linear sketch pattern on the point. The linear sketch pattern needs three contraints. Direction, instance count, and space between instances. Create the following equations to drive spacing.

((Length - (2 * end distance))/6) - 1

Spacing Dimension = (Length-(2 * end distance))/(instances-1)

When the overall length of the part is changed the number of holes and spacing will update automatically.

Thanks,

Jordan Nardick, CSWE
Technical Analyst
Computer Aided Technology, INC.

When is it the best time to use sub-assemblies in Solidworks?

There are a couple of different methodologies that can be employed.  One of the main reasons for creating sub-assemblies is for manufacturing process.  For example, it is standard practice to divide the main assembly as you see in the picture below into several sub-assemblies based on the department they will be created in.  Tanks at one end of the plant, scaffolding in another, or even if the products were purchased.  By having them in different sub-assembly groups, drawings and part numbers and designer/engineers can be easily organized.

 

Now the other reason for creating sub-assemblies is performance.  This can go in two ways; whether you are creating them for file management performance or you are going to animate.  If you are needing to create the assembly efficiently and are trying to reduce modeling time and file size; there are several features you look into.  For example “mirror component”, “linear/circular pattern”, and my favorite “Feature Driven Pattern” are great for the fore mentioned purpose.

As for animations, the first and foremost thing to understand is that the more mates you have, the more work your processor and video card have to do to calculate and show your assembly.  Try to combine components into a sub- that are connected together which won’t move with respect to each other.  The best way of doing this is to use “Form New Sub-Assembly”.  This option is allows you to create a brand new virtual sub-assembly on the fly.  Simply right click on a component in the view port or assembly tree, you might have to click the double arrows to expand the drop down menu. 

For more information on animations or assembly structures please look at the SolidWorks World 2012 presentations.  I recommend Arnav Mukherjee’s Assembling for Motion Simulation.

Design Innovation Summit Update: Guest Speakers Announced

Our 2nd Annual Design Innovation Summit is just around the corner.  We are proud to announce the addition of several special guest speakers including:

• Gian Paolo Bassi, Vice President of R&D, SolidWorks, Dassault Systèmes will be delivering the Keynote Speech at both our Wisconsin and Illinois events. Learn More


• Ian Baxter, VP of WorldWide Technical Services, SolidWorks, Dassault Systèmes will be delivering the Keynote Speech at the St. Louis, MO Event. Learn More


• Rich Allen, Director, Product Management, Works, Dassault Systèmes will be delivering the Keynote Speech at the Kansas City, MO Event.  Learn More

In addition, Mark Lyons, DraftSight Training Specialist, SolidWorks, Dassault Systèmes, will be on hand at all events to present DraftSight For SolidWorks Users. Last but certainly not least, we are joined again by our friend Ed Eaton, Senior Industrial Designer, DiMonte Group.  Ed will be presenting Gaming the System: Tricky Tricks For Modeling and Editing at the Illinois and Milwaukee events.

Dates	Location	Time
October 2, 2012	Milwaukee, WI BMO Harris Bradley Center	8 am - 5 pm	Register
October 4, 2012	Indianapolis, IN Bankers Life Fieldhouse	8 am - 5 pm	Register
October 9, 2012	St. Louis, MO Edward Jones Dome	8 am - 5 pm	Register
October 11, 2012	Kansas City, MO Arrowhead Stadium	8 am - 5 pm	Register
October 18, 2012	Hoffman Estates, IL Sears Centre Arena	8 am - 5 pm	Register

We hope to see you there.  Registration is filling fast and seeting is limited.  There is no cost to attend the Design Innovation Summit.  Visit the Design Innovation Summit page of the CATI website for complete event information.

Thank you to our sponsors:

 

Creating a Flash Product turn table with SolidWorks Photoveiw 360 images

A while back a customer asked me if SolidWorks could create a 360 turn table animation that you could inter activitly controll on the web. I told the customer that SolidWorks does not out put that, but it can get your about 40 percent of the way there. SolidWorks can output images from a set number of degrees and then dump them into flash or html 5 ( which I know little about).

I found a free template you can use in Adobe flash to import your renderings and make a interactive turn table. Its called "Flash Rollover Template" at www.swiftspin360.com. I created one below.

Have a great one.

Bob McGaughey, CSWE

CATI

How to Unlock the Padlocks in the SolidWorks Customer Portal

We still get asked questions from time to time about the SolidWorks Customer Portal. A common question that SolidWorks users have is about the locked padlock icons. The SolidWorks user enters their user name and password and they are able to login to their SolidWorks Customer Portal account. So, they are expecting to have full access to the features of the SolidWorks Customer Portal. Once they are logged in, however, they see the locked padlock icons and the message, "Active subscription service contract required for full access."

Well, here is the answer from SolidWorks to the question, "Why are there locked icons when I log into my SolidWorks Customer Portal account?"

Answer: If the current version of the SolidWorks software has not been registered in your Customer Portal account, it will display locked icons.

Click on the "Register My Products" link and register your current version of the software.

This easy solution works most of the time, and the padlocks disappear immediately. We have found, though, that it does not work all the time.

Why are many of the links on the SolidWorks Customer Portal account still locked after registering the SolidWorks serial number?

According to SolidWorks, this could occur for the following reasons:

1. If you are not associated to the account which is linked to the serial number or there is a mismatch of information, then the serial number cannot be registered using your Customer Portal account; however, it will appear as if the registration has been successful.

- Please contact Computer Aided Technology, Inc. (CATI) or your current SolidWorks reseller/VAR so that these details can be checked and updated if necessary.

2. The locked icons will also show if you do not have a current/valid subscription support contract with CATI or your current SolidWorks reseller/VAR.
- You will need to purchase subscription in order to be able to access all features. Please contact CATI or your current SolidWorks reseller/VAR for information about this.

3. If you have purchased subscription but did not register the most recent version, the features will remain locked because the subscription is only carried by the active version.

- Please register the most recent version, even if you are not using the most recent version of software at this time.

In conclusion, click Register My Products to unlock the padlocks in the SolidWorks Customer Portal. If that does not remove the locked icons, please contact CATI or your current SolidWorks reseller/VAR to get the issue resolved for you.

Neil Bucalo

Technical Analyst

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

SolidWorks 2013 Product Information Released Today

SolidWorks announced the official release of SolidWorks 2013.

SolidWorks 2013 includes over 200 new features and enhancements covering the entire range of SolidWorks solutions for 3D design, simulation, technical communication, product data management, and sustainable design to maximize your productivity.

Learn more about Solidworks 2013 at the CATI Design Innovation. 

SolidWorks 2013 Highlights:

• SolidWorks Costing – Allows customers to automatically cost more types of parts, create more accurate quotations, and stay in budget with improved cost data and new APIs.


• SolidWorks Sustainability – Quickly compares the financial impact of raw materials and the environmental impact of a design decision during the development process due to new raw material impact tools.


• SolidWorks Flow Simulation – Takes the complexity out of flow designs by allowing users to visualize fluid flow around multifaceted geometries and more easily compare analysis results between multiple design configurations.


• Conics in Sketcher – Full control over shapes for smooth transitions between existing geometries.


• Intersect Feature – Quickly add or remove geometry without sketching.


• Varying Dimension Patterns – Allows users to save time creating patterns, increase design flexibility, and reduce the number of features needed for models.


• Section View Assist – Speed the creation of production drawings for faster and more consistent section views.


• CAD Administrator Dashboard – Simplify management and troubleshooting of multiple SolidWorks users within a company from a single aggregated view.


• Simulation Sub-Modeling and Incremental Meshing – More accurately perform precise simulation analysis for specific areas of large and complex models faster and more efficiently.


• Network Rendering for PhotoView 360 – Save time with faster rendering of photorealistic images by networking multiple computers to share the computational load.


• Previous Release Interoperability - Collaborate with customers, suppliers, and internal teams with the ability to open SolidWorks 2013 files directly with SolidWorks 2012 (SP5). Users can work more efficiently and improve collaboration and file exchange, reducing delays and easing the transition to the latest release.


• SolidWorks Enterprise Product Data Management Workflow – Route documents and contact users more efficiently to reduce delays and accelerate time-to-market.


• DraftSight/SolidWorks Enterprise PDM Integration – Access DWG files within SolidWorks EPM from the DraftSight user interface, and leverage 2D into the design process. 


• eDrawings - users can measure, select and markup designs from anywhere using a mobile device

Jim TeDesco
Marketing
Computer Aided Technology, Inc. 

Solidworks SNL Client License Manager Issues

SNL client configuration
problems

 

Server dies!  - A
network admin’s nightmare. After the stress of building a new server, now it is
time to point the Solidworks network clients to it. Sometimes this is not as
easy as it should be.

Launch the client license manager and enter the new server
name…..this is all it should take.

But after starting Solidworks, it cannot connect to the new
server….WHY?

-This is usually due to 2 reasons:

1. Firewall issue on server. You will need to add the exceptions
below (Windows Firewall config)

There are three things to configure to avoid firewall issues
when using the SolidNetWork License Manager.

- Add TCP/IP ports 25734 and 25735 to the firewall exception
list

- Check "a firewall is in use on this server" and
leave the ports number by default in the SolidNetWork License Manager options

- Add the following programs to the firewall exception list
(lmgrd.exe and sw_d.exe that are stored in the SNL installation folder).

 

2. Permissions issue

After changing the server in the client SNL manager, and
closing it, you will not notice anything in particular. However, re-open it and
you may notice that the old server is listed once again. This is usually caused
by not having the correct permissions to write to the registry keys.

There are 2 ways to correct this. The first is to run the
license manager as admin. Unfortunately you cannot right click on it and select
“Run as Administrator”. You will need to run the .exe file.

The license manager executable is “swlmwiz.exe”  The default location is:  C:\Program Files\Solidworks
Corp\Solidworks\Setup\i386

 

The other way to get around this is to manually change it in
the registry.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\FLEXlm
License Manager

Edit the value of “SW_D_License_File” with the new servername (and port)  “25734@NewServerName”

 

This should get you on your way.

Updating to SolidWorks 2012 toolbox... another look.

After some time has gone by and we have a few more service packs to be proud of, I felt we needed one more look. I created this and shared it with my fellow techs during our technical summit this week. Enjoy the Prezi version.:)

 Note: To view the Prezi full screen once you hit play there is a More menu and you can select Full Screen from that menu.

Toolbox Updates on Prezi

John Van Engen
CATI Tech Support

 

If you can draw it, we can print it!

3D CAD continues to grow in capability year after year.  Now so do the 3D printers.  3D printers have taken an attitude that if you can draw it, we can build it.   As long as you can create a room big enough and create enough gantry travel the sky is the limit.   I have recently read an article from Forbes website (http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/07/11/airbus-explores-a-future-where-planes-are-built-with-giant-3d-printers/2/) that discussed how Boeing has started to experiment with printing an airplane.  With the composite materials getting better and stronger we will see more and more of this.   If this technology gets good enough, imagine the possibilities.  We can create seamless designs currently not achievable by todays manufacturing techniques.

Ok, so a printer of that scale is not very practicle, or even very imaginable.  Today's printer are getting larger and more complex.  They have successfully printed complete working model airplanes.  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20737-3d-printing-the-worlds-first-printed-plane.html.  I have also seen articles talking about airlines that are able to use 3D printer to use metal material, and they can print custom replacement parts on the spot.   Now you can get your replacement art in hours instead of weeks. 

What will we see next?  Will you be purchasing a 3D printer for you home?  This is an exciting time for this industry and the technology is changing fast.  Keep your eye on this, beacause if you blink you will surely miss something.  And keep those designs comming.

Utilizing dual monitors

Are you like me and have two monitors? Most Engineers utilize two monitors to optimize their productivity. SolidWorks 2012 allows users to span across both screens and place a separate file in each window to easily work on two things at once. To do this follow the steps below.

 Step 1: In the upper right hand corner you will find the Span displays button. Press this

 Solidworks will now span both screens, like below.

 Step 2: To place a different file on each screen you must tile each file. One to the right and one to the left. These buttons are located in the upper right hand corner of each file.

Once you tile the files your two screens will look like this.

Enjoy

Nicholas Jansen CSWP

CATI – Applications Engineer