How to make only your company’s drawing sizes available in Solidworks

There are many companies that make several drawing templates that have the file extention *.drwdot.  The other option can also be to create a bunch of different title blocks and let the user decide which sheet size he or she wants and Solidworks will choose the title block for you based on what is available.  Both options depend on how many templates you will have.  If you have a lot templates, then it is easier to make just the title blocks (sheet formats) and let SolidWorks assign a sheet size to them.  

Basically, when you open up a new drawing and Solidworks asks you for a sheet size, the number of sheet sizes will depend on what title blocks you have saved. Let me illustrate- the picture below shows the standard items available when you open a new drawing. 

 

Then I will just take any of the sheet formats (*.slddrt) and save it to a folder on the desktop.  It can be any folder in any server.  You will have to go into the Options>System Option>File Locations and change the location of the “sheet formats”.

 

Once that is done just go to file open and open a new drawing.  The window should look like this (if you only have one sheet format saved out).

 

Ketul

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

Mesh Control - A Double Edged Sword

When running simulations, mesh density is important.  Coarser meshes solve faster but are less
accurate; while finer meshes are the opposite, slow but accurate.  While one way to reach the middle ground is to
have the density right in the middle, a more accurate way would be to use mesh
control.  Stress concentrations most commonly
occur along edges, especially sharp edges. 
On edges and other areas where accuracy is important, mesh control is a
great way to keep that accuracy while keeping time down as well.  To demonstrate this, a tensile test was
simulated with a notch cut into it.  

Simulations were then completed in mesh densities of coarse,
in the middle, and fine with simulation time, mesh element size, and maximum
stress were measured.

Coarse

In the Middle

Fine

Mesh Size	Time	Max Element Size	Max Stress
Course	>1 sec	10.06 mm	433.2 MPa
Regular	4 sec	5.03 mm	469.1 MPa
Fine	54 sec	2.52 mm	479.9 MPa

Once these simulations were complete, three simulations were
done using mesh control on the notch using a regular mesh size for the rest of
the part.

Mesh Control 1

Mesh Control 2

Mesh Control 3

Mesh Size	Time	Mesh Control Size	Max Stress
Mesh Control 1	4 sec	2.52 mm	571 MPa
Mesh Control 2	5 sec	1 mm	693.8 MPa
Mesh Control 3	115 sec	.05 mm	33205 MPa

In the first instance of using mesh control, with the mesh
control size being equal to the fine max element size, the stress found was
very accurate, coming close to that found in previous tests.  As the mesh control size was decreased
however, a new problem
developed.  The stress found grew at an
alarming rate.  The yield strength of
this material is 620.4 MPa.  According to
the studies done with mesh control, the part breaks easily while in all
actuality does not.

Mesh control is an invaluable tool in being accurate and
saving time.  It is important however to
not try and refine the mesh too much, or else the entire simulation will be
rendered useless.

Chad Whitbeck - Applications Engineer

Computer Aided Technology Inc.

SolidWorks User Group - Kansas City

Kansas City SolidWorks User Group

On June 27^th, I attended and presented at the
KCSWUG meeting hosted by MRI Global.  My
topic was presenting some of our findings with regards to making SolidWorks
perform with hardware sized for your SolidWorks models.  Also at this meeting we saw a presentation
from SolidWorks employee, Richard Allen. 
Richard is a Product Portfolio Manager for SolidWorks Corporation.  His role consists of “acting as the voice for
the customer” which means he tries to do the following:

• Work with product enhancements


• Increase performance and quality


• Innovate new products

Richard also spoke of a new 3D Dimensioning standard on part
models to reduce printed or 2D drawings. The US government is already using
this for Military contract suppliers. 
This new methodology is estimated to save 28% of scrap due to better
understanding of dimensions on the 3D Model. 
Did you know that SolidWorks has had 3D Model Dimensions since
SolidWorks 2008 in the form of DimXpert? 
DimXpert for Parts is a set of tools you use to apply dimensions and
tolerances to parts according to the requirements of ASME Y14.41-2003 and ISO
16792:2006.

We also talked about obstacles that the group would face
trying to “do away” with 2D printed drawings. 
Several members agree that this would be strange in that most like to
write on drawings and this would not be possible on a screen image.  How would shops afford monitors, tablets and
other viewing devices for the production floor staff to view your models
on?  Just getting around the fact that we
like to hold and touch a drawing and use pencils or pens to write on them will
be strange.

Richard also mentioned that SolidWorks 2014 will ship
sometime in the October 2013 time frame. 
Beta 2014 is now open for registration. 
We urge all users to sign up for this, and try 2014 BETA on a separate
machine for testing and playing around.

SolidWorks has reached another huge milestone.  Over 2,000,000 users of the product now
worldwide!  Some schools across the globe
are placing SolidWorks educational software on student’s machines as young as 7
or 8 years old!  Can you believe that?  Customer satisfaction for SolidWorks products
has increased 5% since 2007, and is now close to 94% approval based on mailed
out surveys. 

Richard also demonstrated the new eDrawings Pro application
on his iPad.  This has the new Augmented
Reality feature which allows you to display your SolidWorks models using
eDrawings, and the camera function from your tablet to place virtually your
models in the room or environment seen by your camera!  Very cool technology.  These App’s run $2 or $10 from the Apple Store.

Check out this video for more information: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVcIaBAQSE4

For a stormy Thursday night we had a pretty good turnout and
the food is always great.  If you get a
chance to come next time, the meeting will be sometime in September and the
user group web site is http://www.kcswug.com/main/

Hope to see you there!

Thanks,

Brian Reel

CATI

How to mate complex geometry in a SolidWorks assembly

If geometry gets complex, mating can get difficult.  The quickest way to mate two parts with complex surfaces is still using reference geometry (planes, axis).  Using reference geometry also makes it easier for your processor to calculate, making animations smoother.

There are those times where reference geometry will fail you because the contact point is not straight forward.  Here is one of those times displayed in the picture: 

What we are looking to do in this situation is to mate up the two parts until they come into contact with each other.  Logically thinking, we can use a sketch point and mate it up with a surface.  The not so straight forward issue is "where do the two parts make contact?".   To get that exact point, one must edit one of the parts in-context of the assembly.  It does matter which part you use because all you are looking to do is put a point one of the parts. 

Once the sketch is inserted you can use "Intersection Curve" to project the edges of the bottom part.  Please keep in mind you do not want external references for the simple act of mating.  So delete the converted edge constraint.

Once you delete the constraint do not move the line.  Drop a dimension to preserve the angle that line is created to, by putting a vertical line in the sketch from the center of the arc.  Then use a point entity and make that coincident to both arc and line.  The location of the point is where the top part will make contact with the bottom.  You can then mate the sketch point to the conical face of the bottom part.

 

Ketul

Discussion - The role of the CIO

CATI aims to provide solutions that reduce cost and provide time and material savings for our customers.  Often times, our solutions are pretty easy to justify:  If it takes someone a week to design and document a product using SolidWorks versus 4 weeks in traditional 2D tools...well, it's easy to see how this will pay for itself in time.

One of the more difficult items on which to put a price tag is risk...how does one assess risk?  A customer of ours in St. Louis recently told me this when asked why they planned to implement PDM:  "It's one of these things that just feels like the right thing to do to protect our data."  As hard as it is to come to terms with that statement, it is often true.  Sometimes, it is critical to wrap your arms around your intellectual property before something goes wrong.  Murphy's Law doesn't bat 1.000, but it certainly frequents the All Star Game.

In that spirit, I wanted to share an interesting article regarding the role of the CIO in today's organization.  While I don't agree with every point, it certainly lends some insight as to why CIO's should care about solutions such as Enterprise PDM:

1. Reduce of risk


2. Improve cycle times


3. Reduce Cost

One would be hard pressed to find a VP of Engineering, a key customer of any IT department, that isn't challenged to improve in all 3 of those key areas.  Our solutions are simple to use and to deploy, improve SolidWorks performance (this is an older article, but still relevant today), and certainly automate the process of finding and re-using product development files/data...and by managing the data in a secure vault with configured revision control, we can certainly reduce the risk of manufacturing to the wrong revision or losing one's data.

I am curious to know your impressions of the article:  http://www.zdnet.com/why-cio-success-comes-down-to-just-three-things-7000006850/

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 

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#7)

Reducing Top Level Mates and Solving Subassemblies as Rigid

When an assembly is opened, all of the mates at the top level of the assembly are calculated as well as any mates that are involved in flexible sub-assemblies, you can see this in the AssemblyXpert screen shot below.  Solving Subassemblies as Flexible adds a tremendous amount of extra calculations that would not be required if the flexible subs were turned off.  In our tests setting our Flexible sub-assemblies to Rigid dropped the number of mates being evaluated at the top level from 962 to 273. 

Also when building your assembly you want to make sure that you structured it in a manner to minimize the need for top level mates. To accomplish having less mate in your top level assembly it involves utilizing more sub-assemblies than individual parts and taking advantage of other assembly features such as patterning components like bolts and screws.

 

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 settings for Add-Ins our macro ran in 4:16:13, this had a noticeable effect in the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling, Saves and Closes.

This setting gained us a savings of 0:45:22 or 15.0%.

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

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#6)

Processor Clock Speed

Hardware is an essential aspect of a properly managed SolidWorks environment.  It is also very important to remember that a computer system is just that, a system, and it should be treated as such.  Upgrading a single aspect of your workstation is unlikely to help your performance if you have not considered the rest of the system to ensure that your one change is not exposing another, equally painful, bottleneck.

Processor speed can be one of the more difficult areas of performance to get your arms around.

When testing we found that the improvement that you may gain from improved processor speed can be easily lost if the system is short on RAM for the give task. So for this test we found that running from our baseline gave us inaccurate results so the results we show below are with an ample amount of RAM.

Processors can be expensive and choosing one speed over another usually means replacing one chip for another unless the vendor allows over-clocking. Most of your major manufactures do not allow for their systems to be over-clocked.  For our testing BOXX Technologies, lent us a machine. They over-clock their processors by default giving you the fastest processor possible for the money. BOXX systems are built to handle the heat created by over-clocking so you do not lose any life from your processor, like you would if you took an off the shelf system and over-clocked it.

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% going from 3.46 to 3.75, an additional improvement of 6.6% going from 3.75 to 4.02, and we gained another 8.5% going from 4.02 to 4.29.

Overall we saw a 12.1% improvement gain over-clocking from 3.46 to 4.29.

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

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#5)

Turn off SolidWorks Add-Ins

A simple yet often over looked drain on resources is unused Add-Ins.  Our baseline was run with five Add-Ins turned on; FeatureWorks, PhotoView 360, Simulation, Toolbox and Toolbox Browser. All of these Add-Ins were not necessary for the operation of the benchmark.  These Add-Ins, even when not actively engaged, will hold some resources.  So for our test we simply turned off all Add-Ins and released those resources for use by the portions of SolidWorks required for our benchmark.

 

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 turned off the Add-Ins our macro ran in 4:28:53, this had a noticeable effect in the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling and Switching Sheets.

This setting gained us a savings of 0:32:42 or 10.8%.

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

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#4)

Graphics Cards

For our testing BOXX also provided four graphics cards.  All of the cards were professional graphics cards ranging from an entry-level card to a high-end model.  Adrian and I tested each of the different graphics cards expecting to see a performance gain between each of the models.

When we did not see the outcome we expected; we spent hours and days going over our results and retesting each of the different video cards trying to find a reason for our results.  After much research we found that graphic processing performance is tied to programs written to take advantage of those capabilities.  With our test data set SolidWorks did not take advantage of these advanced capabilities. The result was little perfor­mance difference between an entry-level and high-end graphics adapter.

What CATI recommends is choosing a professional graphics card that has been tested with, and certified by, the application(s) you plan to use.  When choosing a more advanced graphics card, make sure the software that you plan to use will leverage the advanced features of midrange and high-end graphics adapters.

Adrian and I plan to dig more deeply into the effects of high-end graphics cards on SolidWorks tasks in our future testing.  However, our testing to date has shown that a standard professional graphics card will suffice for use with SolidWorks.

 

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