Bentley Motors Leverages Stratasys 3D Printers to Design Luxury Automobiles

The Objet500 Connex 3D Printer empowers the design studio team at Bentley Motors to combine a variety of material properties within the same printing process. From wheel rims and tires, to full-size tail pipe trims, multi-material 3D printing enables Bentley engineers to produce models across several engineering functions with a diverse range of material properties. A single prototype can combine rigid and rubber-like, clear and opaque materials with no assembly required, enabling you to 3D print, for example, a rubber tire on a wheel rim.

Bentley designers hone nearly every detail of the car, inside and out, with the help of a 3D printer. Using patented PolyJet technology, Stratasys 3D Printers enable the design studio team to easily and quickly produce small-scale models, as well as full-size parts, for assessment and testing prior to production on the assembly line. Virtually every part is prototyped in miniature.

 

Source: Stratasys Bentley Motors Case Study

 

Jim TeDesco
Marketing Manager
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

SolidWorks World and CATI Day 3

Good morning and while SolidWorks World ended on Wednesday it has taken a day of travel and recovery before I was able to put up this post for what the CATI Crew did to finish out SolidWorks World. Overall it was a long week with a lot of miles spent on our feet so many in fact that I managed to blow out the sole of my shoe but with a little redneck ingenuity and a few bucks slipped to the maintenance men at the Hard Rock Hotel we were able to get me up and running for the last day of World.

To start off the day the CATI Tech Team had one last presentations today, and that started with repeat performance of Brian Reel presenting his hands on session SolidWorks Composer: As Easy as Building with Legos to a full session of 30 SolidWorks users.

The CATI Tech Team took time between attending sessions to check out the exhibiters and to look at the customer showcase of products designed with SolidWorks. We are thinking with our crew we could be the next American Bobsled Team.

To close out SolidWorks World we attended the Reseller Awards Dinner where Jordan Nardick took home his Elite AE award.

Thanks again to everyone who joined us out at SolidWorks World and we hope to see everyone out there with us next year.

For copies of all of the CATI and InFlow presentations please go to http://www.cati.com/sww2014/.

SolidWorks World and CATI Day 1
SolidWorks World and CATI Day 2

Thanks,

Josh Altergott

CATI Support Manager

SolidWorks World and CATI Day 2

Good Evening I wanted to take a few minutes to let everyone know what the CATI Crew has been up to at SolidWorks World and today was another busy day for the CATI Crew.

The CATI and InFlow Tech Teams had two presentations today, the day started with Brian Reel presenting his hands on session SolidWorks Composer: As Easy as Building with Legos to a full session of 30 SolidWorks users and a standing room only crowd watching over Brian's presentation.

At the end of the day Ryan Dally who was had his presentation DriveWorksXpress Hands-On Training moved from Monday, due to weather delays in getting to SWW. In the end today due to some scheduling conflicts they had to cancel Ryan session.

The CATI Tech Team took time between attending sessions to participate in SolidWorks Model Mania competition. To finish out my day I spent a time researching the different exhibiters to pick the Best In Show for TenLinks.

We are all looking forward to attending all of the final presentations and sessions tomorrow.

For copies of all of Brian and Ryan's presentations please go to http://www.cati.com/sww2014/.

SolidWorks World and CATI Day 1
SolidWorks World and CATI Day 3

Thanks,

Josh Altergott

CATI Support Manager

SolidWorks World and CATI Day 1

Good Evening I wanted to take a few minutes out of a busy day to let everyone know what the CATI Crew has been up to at SolidWorks World and today was a jam packed day for the CATI Crew.

The CATI and InFlow Tech Teams had a day full of Presentations The day started with Adrian Fanjoy and Josh Altergott presenting Free SolidWorks from Performance Constraints to a crowd of 90 SolidWorks users.

Right after lunch Justin Webster presented Things You Missed in EPDM to a standing room only group of just over 200 people.

To Finish out the day of presentations Josh Altergott presented to another group of close to 100 users How to Build and Maintain Effective Design Tables while Jordan Nardick presented to a group of 30 users File Management for Beginners. Overall it was a successful day of presentations for the CATI and InFlow Teams.

Next on the list of activities CATI hosted an event for over 100 of CATI's customers that were lucky enough to attend SolidWorks World.

The last event of the night was the CSWE (Certified SolidWorks Expert) event hosted by SolidWorks at Petco Park and attended by Jordan Nardick and Josh Altergott.

For copies of all of CATI's presentation please go to http://www.cati.com/sww2014/.

Also a special thanks to the CATI Board Group for sending so many of the CATI employees to expand their SolidWorks knowledge and network with our peers and to Stephanie Altergott who orchestrates all of the travel and event arrangements.

SolidWorks World and CATI Day 2
SolidWorks World and CATI Day 3

Thanks,

Josh Altergott

CATI Support Manager

Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines– Part 4

Welcome to Part 4 of the Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines blog series. An exciting feature of the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard is the ability to benchmark the performance of your company’s computers. We get many calls each year in tech support asking about hardware speeds. SolidWorks provides a great tool for CAD users and administrators to easily see how fast your machines are compared to each other. You also have the ability to see how fast your machines are relative to the SolidWorks worldwide average.

What is the SolidWorks Performance Benchmark Tool?

The SolidWorks Performance Benchmark Tool is designed by SolidWorks to help answer the commonly asked question, “Is my computer as fast as yours?” The performance benchmark test is run in a repeatable manner, across different systems. SolidWorks has designed the performance test to push your computer hard with the intention of comparing the CPU performance. The I/O is also represented well with the performance test. Starting in SolidWorks 2012, the test enables real view to test your graphics cards Real view performance. Finally, the test uses the default out-of-the-box standard settings, which allow the results to be comparable regardless of individual user settings.

Start the SolidWorks Performance Benchmark Test

Note: Please reboot your computer prior to starting the test. You will need about 30 minutes to run the test.

The SolidWorks Performance Benchmark Test can be opened by going to: Windows Start Menu->All programs->SolidWorks 2014->SolidWorks Tools->SolidWorks Performance Test 2014

SolidWorks RX opens because this test is actually an Add-in for SolidWorks RX.

To run the test, simply click the Start Benchmark… button.

When the SolidWorks Performance Test dialog box appears, click the Start button.

Do not use your computer or other applications during the test so that your test results will be accurate. Once the test is completed, you will be given the SolidWorks Performance Test Results.

Share Your Score

Encourage your SolidWorks users to share their results after they run the benchmark. All they have to do is to click “Share Your Score.”

Enter a Name. This is just a nickname. It is the only piece of identifiable data shown on the “Share your Score” website.

Once they share their results, the Benchmark score will be available through the Admin Dashboard.  The Dashboard pulls this data from the Share your Score system. Note: If the results are not shared using Share Your Score, the data is not available to the dashboard. Here are the results from the benchmark test ran on my computer as they appear on the “Share your Score” website:

Click the plus sign in front of the computer name to show the System Details pop-up window.

View Other Results

Back on the SolidWorks Performance Test Results dialog box was a link called View Other Results. Click View Other Results to get a report of your SolidWorks Performance Test scores compared to others.

SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard Rx Benchmark Column

Another feature of the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard is the RX Benchmark column. After you have shared your test results, the benchmark scores are uploaded and will appear in the Dashboard. Click on the RX Benchmark tab to sort the list of machines. This will bring the machines that have benchmarks available to the top. You can click the plus sign on the far left to expand the machine details.

In the middle section of the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard, click on the RX Benchmark tab. Not only can you sort the machines by test result scores, but SolidWorks provides a list of each machine’s tests results. Note: These columns can also be sorted by column.

Lastly, SolidWorks provides a chart of the scores. This is an impressive visual aide to see how each computer performed compared to the other computers and even versus the company and worldwide averages (from the “Share your Score” website).

As you sort the list, the chart updates. You can make changes to the detailed view of the chart. Note that I have the Company Average results hidden in the chart above. All you have to do is click Company Average in the legend on the right to toggle the view in the chart.

I need a new computer!!!

The last thing we will consider is what to do with all these test results. Comparing all of your computers throughout the company can be a very helpful aide in determining which machines need to be updated, upgraded, or replaced. The Machine Details tab provides an overall list of the machines specifications without having to jump all over the Windows OS to get this data from each machine. This is a great time saver. Quickly check to see how much hard drive space is available, which graphics card ad driver is installed, or how much RAM a system has. SolidWorks has even provided the Windows Experience index score.

I hope you benefitted from our CATI Blog series of articles that go into the details of each section of Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines. All of these articles are stored in the category of Daily Dose.....of SolidWorks Support and links to each article with their release date are listed below:

• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines - Part1 (Bryan Pawlak 1/21/14)


• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part2 (John Van Engen 1/22/14)


• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part3 (Blake Cokinis 1/23/14)


• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part4 (Neil Bucalo 1/27/14)

Neil Bucalo
Certified SolidWorks Support Technician 2013
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

3D Print in Full Color and Multiple Materials - Introducing the NEW Objet500 Connex3 From Stratasys

The Objet500 Connex3 from Stratasys is the only 3D printer for color and advanced multi-material combinations.

With its ability to combine vivid color and multiple materials, the Objet500 Connex3 is the only 3D printer that empowers you to simulate the precise look, feel and function of finished products. And with a wide range of advanced material options and dozens of composites, your designs will come to life as realistic models earlier in the design process.

Colors: With extensive true-to-life color options,you can integrate vibrant colors into multi-material models. No other 3D printer offers this level of final product realism.

Rubber-like: The Objet500 Connex3 includes a wide range of flexible rubberlike options, which can be combined with rigid materials in one build. You can prototype rubber overmolding and soft, non-slip surfaces such as buttons, handles, grips and any number of flexible details.

Transparency: The Objet500 Connex3 enables you to build clear models or transparent/opaque combinations – including opaque model interiors with transparent exteriors – along with a wide range of translucent colors.

Digital materials: With over 180 material options – including Digital ABS – you can 3D print across the spectrum from rigid to flexible. With so many new color and material combinations to explore, what will you design next?

The new three-material jetting technology of the Objet500 Connex3 automates creation of complex prototypes that have diverse material properties – no assembly required.

Enjoy building prototypes with finefeature quality – including 16-micron high resolution – that provides high detail and smooth surfaces to create brilliant, precise 3D models that will wow your audience. And with all of the color multi-material options available – including bright color visualization – the models printed on the Objet500 Connex3 will always be the most realistic possible.

Jim TeDesco
Marketing Manager
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

SolidWorks World 2014 Best In Show Contest

TenLinks is sponsoring an exhibitor Best in Show Contest at this year's SolidWorks World. The contest is open to all exhibitors at SolidWorks World 2014.  They are looking for the best, most interesting or most useful SolidWorks solution partner. Computer Aided Technology, Inc.'s own Josh Altergott will be one of this year's judges in the Best Show Contest.  Josh will be nominating one lucky exhibitor in each of the categories -hardware, software, and services. Winners will be chosen by the editors of TenLinks based on the judging panel's nominations.  For more information and the complete list of judges, visit the TenLinks page.

* Josh Altergott is the Support Manager at Computer Aided Technology, Inc. (CATI).  He will also be giving two technical presentations at this year's conference (Free SolidWorks From Performance Constraints and How to Build and Maintain Effective Design Tables).

Jim TeDesco
Marketing Manager
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

SolidWorks World 2014 Exhibitor Highlight

For those of you traveling to San Diego for SolidWorks World 2014, here is a list of partner exhibitors that you shouldn't miss.  Take a break from the technical presentations and be sure to visit the partner pavilion.

• Stratasys  - Booth 135 - 3D Printers and Production Systems


• Dassault Systemes - Booth 141 - ENOVIA V6 PLM, EXALEAD, DraftSight


• DriveWorks - Booth 524 - Design Automation For SolidWorks


• BOXX Technologies, Inc. - Booth 417 - Powerful, High-Performance Workstations


• SolidProfessor - Booth 601 - Online Learning and Training For SolidWorks


• QBuild Corporation - Booth 739-F - ERP Integration


• NVIDIA - Booth 507 - Professional Graphics Solutions


• MakerBot - Booth 106 - Personal Desktop 3D Printing


• Lenovo - Booth 424 - High Performance Performance Workstations


• 3D Connexion - Booth 534 - 3D Input Devices/3D Mice

Jim TeDesco
Marketing Manager
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

 

Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines– Part 3

Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines– Part 3

Welcome to Part 3 of the Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines blog series. A comment we hear often from CAD Administrators is that they have one engineer who complains about crashing all the time. Sometimes it is very difficult to tell if there really is a stability problem. We all know that a crash as a critical time makes it feel like the program "crashes all the time". The CAD Admin Dashboard can show you each machine's SolidWorks sessions for the last 60 days and help you identify if a user is crashing just once in a while or really all the time. For each recorded session we provide some details like which version of SolidWorks was running. Here we see the details of a user that is "crashing all the time"

As you can see in this session, SolidWorks did not actually crash; maybe the user was getting frustrated and killed SolidWorks.

Below is an example of an actual crash.

With this information we can determine from a real crash or if the user ended SolidWorks.

So what can we do with this information to determine crashing issues? To start, the CAD Admin Dashboard collects a lot of information on the computer's details and configurations.

We can such information as:

• Memory


• Graphics card model & driver


• History of SolidWorks & Graphics card driver updates

In the example below, 1 user is constantly crashing. Looking at the available information, we can see right away that there is a flag notifying that there is an issue with the machine details.

If we hover over the icon, it will tell us that it is low memory. We can now look down at the machine specifics to tell us further information.

Here we can see that the computer is running with only 4 Gb of memory..this can obviously be a major contributor.

We also see that the graphics driver is not running a certified SolidWorks driver; this can also be a factor.

If you look at the History column, in this case there is no history. System that have updated SolidWorks , Drivers, Etc. will have an information icon that will list changes in the environment. This can be a good tool to troubleshoot issues. Below is a user that has just begun having stability issues. If we take a look at the history, we see that the graphics driver was currently updated (in which it shows that it is not a support driver.)

This would be the first issue to look for. Update the driver to see if it resolves the issues.

Here we see that SolidWorks was updated from 2014 SP0 to SP1 (while also running 2013 SP4)

Is this around the time that the user started experiencing issues?

There is usually always a reason why SolidWorks crashes. From the Dashboard information, it makes it a lot easier to narrow down the cause of the crash.

To make things even easier for an admin, you can also set flags for certain triggers.

Just like the systems options, you may want a heads up when someone starts having a lot of killed or crashed sessions of SolidWorks. But the first question you need to answer is "what is your definition of 'a lot'?" Determining a threshold may vary in each company. It may just depend on how much you are stressing SolidWorks and your hardware. The threshold is defined by the percentage of "Normal" sessions. A threshold of 75 means that 75% of the time the machines are running fine and they have a 25% crashed or killed rate. Note that the crash percentage is cumulative and reflects successful sessions vs. killed and crashed sessions.

The CAD Admin dashboard can be a powerful and helpful tool in determining various users' issues.

Please check back to the CATI Blog as the Dedicated Support Team will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each section of Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Daily Dose.....of SolidWorks Support and links to each article with their release date are listed below:

• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines - Part1 (Bryan Pawlak 1/21/14)


• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part2 (John Van Engen 1/22/14)


• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part3 (Blake Cokinis 1/23/14)


• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part4 (Neil Bucalo 1/27/14)

Blake Cokinis, CSWE
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

 

Test Drive a BOXX Workstation at SolidWorks World 2014 - Booth 417

Stop by and visit BOXX in booth 417 at SolidWorks World 2014 in San Diego! Bring your most detailed CAD file and see how fast it runs on their SolidWorks-certified 3DBOXX XTREME, the revolutionary GoBOXX, renderPRO, and/or their new professional virtual workstations.

You can also regsiter to win a FREE GoBOXX.

	3DBOXX 4150 XTREME Workstation Compact, liquid-cooled, overclocked 4th generation Intel® Core™ i7 (4.3 GHz) and up to two professional GPUs.
	GoBOXX 2725 12 core Intel® Xeon® performance goes anywhere.
	BOXX renderPro Free your workstation and bring dedicated rendering to your desk side.
	Professional Virtual Workstations Host several virtual machines on one BOXX workstation and access your applications (and performance) from anywhere.

Jim TeDesco
Marketing Manager
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines– Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of the Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines blog series. In this part we will discuss:

• Filtering Machine results and grouping


• Options reported by the dashboard


• Setting a baseline computer


• Flagging modified settings

Login to the portal using the steps outlined in Part 1 of the blog series. Click the filter to open the options menu.

 

Filtering is based on:

• the last used SolidWorks version


• Operating System


• Group


• Computer Model


• Graphics Card


• CPU

Choose the option you wish to sort by and click apply filters.

 

If you would like to filter by adding groups you can do that by selecting the computers you want by check box and then click the groups button.

 

Click create new group, and then select the group you would like to add the selected machines too, then OK.

 

Below are example options settings the system value represents the currently selected machine the baseline is shown for the expected value. A baseline computer is chosen with the actions button. Comments can be added by double clicking the field.

 

More options:

 

 

Here is an example of a machine that has settings that are different than the baseline. You can set flags to report when a machine has settings that don't match the baseline.

 

These are the flag conditions you can set to report flags.

 

Here you can see the adjusted flags reporting machines that are out of spec.

 

Please check back to the CATI Blog as the Dedicated Support Team will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each section of Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Daily Dose.....of SolidWorks Support and links to each article with their release date are listed below:

• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines - Part1 (Bryan Pawlak 1/21/14)


• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part2 (John Van Engen 1/22/14)


• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part3 (Blake Cokinis 1/23/14)


• Using the SolidWorks CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part4 (Neil Bucalo 1/27/14)

John Van Engen, CSWE
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.