SW World 2006 Day 2 a.m.

Day 2 started out with the general session. A few of the highlights are that this years attendance is just above 3700!!!! The suprise guest of the session were the guys from Mythbusters. They discussed how they are using Solidworks and Cosmosworks in their projects. They had with them a model rocket that was fueled by a salami!

We also got to see a new product that will be available soon. It is a $2500 3D scanner that can scan an object, and create a model tight inside of Solidworks.

We were also treated to a taste of SW2007. They introduced a new tool named SWIFT. It stands for SolidWorks Intelligent Feature Tool. It is basically an expansion to the whats wrong dialog box, except there is now an additional button that when pressed, will try to solve the error for you. The showed several fillett problems where the SWIFT was able to reorder features in the tree in order to make the filletts work. They also showed how trying to add draft to a surface that has a fillett can produce an error. Once in the whats wrong dialog box, the SWIFT was again able to reorder the features to make the draft work.

The last hint of new features was movable surfaces where you click on a surface, and can grab handles to change the shape of the surface.

Also was the announcement that CosmosMotion will now be included with Solidworks Office Premium. A future service pack to 2006 will also add CosmosMotion to current premium users.

The feature that got the most response from everyone was the announcement that with SW2007, file size will be 50% smaller.

The rest of the new feature will be previewed on wed morning.

Im off to the afternoon sessions, including the user group summit.

Reply to
SoCalMike
Loading thread data ...

Thanks for posting these reports, it's nice to gain some insight.

John Layne

formatting link

Reply to
John Layne

Yes,

Thanks for the trip reports. They are much appreciated for those of us who can't go.......:-(

KM

Reply to
ken.maren

Can you provide any additional information about this new $2500 3D scanner? I would love to read about the company making it.

Reply to
John Eric Voltin

The 3D scanner system was shown by next engine. They are located in santa monica california. Here is the link:

formatting link
Looks pretty cool

Reply to
SoCalMike

Thanks. I will be looking further into the SolidWorks interface. Did they explain what form the input takes within SolidWorks? The web site seems to be describing point cloud output from the scanner.

Reply to
John Eric Voltin

They really didnt cover how it ends up in solidworks in detail. It looks to be a very usefull reverse engineering tool though.

Reply to
SoCalMike

I'm really quite excited about the prospect of a laser based 3D scanner with a $2,500 price tag.

Reply to
John Eric Voltin

Mike,

Great reports. I could not make it this year but your reports are the next best thing. I know it's hard to keep up the reporting (I did it last year) but try your best.

Best wishes...

Reply to
Sean Dotson

This from Nextengine's website from the PDF on their scanner.

formatting link
"Powerful new tools inside SolidWorks 2007 =AE release (Summer '06) let you work with point cloud and meshed input data to create your finished product design."

Looks like 2007 may add some Point cloud abilities.

John Eric Volt> I'm really quite excited about the prospect of a laser based 3D scanner w= ith

Reply to
Jason

We talked to them a bit on Wednesday. They are generating a tessellated surface, so it is still up to the user to build a SolidWorks surface over the scaffold. That may change in SW2007.

The surface they generate is very clean. Stitching the surfaces together seems to be pretty easy. Accuracy depends on how far from the object you place the scanner. I think it was about +/-.005" on a mouse size object, so roughly 0.1%. It looks very promising.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

Reply to
Jerry Steiger

The price tag will actually be a bit higher. You have to have SW Office Premium which I think means all the FEA stuff as well. If you have it fine. Otherwise get out the wallet.

Reply to
TOP

I think banquer could best be described as "a dumb solid"

Yawn.... VX has had this build in for years.

Not one report from SaladWorks World on this:

formatting link

"CAD USERS GET FLEXIBLE MULTICAD MODEL REPAIR AND EDITING ENVIRONMENT

Marlborough, MA - January 19, 2006 - Kubotek® USA today introduced REALyzeT, an integrated set of software tools developed to help engineers and designers understand and edit "dumb" geometry. Kubotek is bringing this product to market to help CAD/CAM professionals share imported models between disparate CAD systems in an effort to streamline the design and manufacturing process. REALyze has been developed to complement and coexist with popular CAD platforms.

"Interoperability is one of the CAD industry's most challenging problems to solve," said Robert Bean, chief operating officer, Kubotek USA. "Even though the industry has been working on this problem for decades, and standards for sharing files already exist, product models still contain layers of data that are very hard to decipher. Unique and proprietary CAD formats complicate the problem while global supply chains make it one of the more pressing issues to solve."

Engineers and designers need to be able to access and edit any file, regardless of its origin. Time-to-market pressures are constant and there is no time to waste. REALyze provides a dynamic environment in which designers and engineers, when confronted with a model in an unfamiliar format, can access the model's geometry in order to work with the file and avoid having to recreate work previously done. REALyze allows designers to shortcut overall time to market.

CAD interoperability has been documented as a major issue in the manufacturing sector. Kubotek's recent industry surveys have shown that more than 75 percent of survey respondents receive fewer than half of external CAD models in a preferred format. Fifty percent of respondents stated the need to use three or more CAD tools per month. The cost of maintaining multiple systems - software upgrades, training, and maintenance fees - continues to rise.

Kubotek Architecture Facilitates Real World Usage

REALyze takes advantage of the rich interoperability foundation developed for Kubotek's flagship KeyCreator software. This allows REALyze to recognize geometric entities across proprietary formats, providing the basis for the product's advanced translation and repair capabilities. At its core, REALyze has the ability to perform geometric search and pattern and feature discovery.

Kubotek's REAL architecture enables the REALyze toolset to work seamlessly for repair and reuse of geometry. REALyze includes:

The industry's most powerful and comprehensive translators Fully automated and manual repair, discovery and verification, plus newly added covering (n-sided fill) techniques for local model repair An intuitive and completely free-form approach to changing imported models and dumb geometry for downstream reuse. The REAL architecture powers REALyze with the three essential elements necessary to fix models without recreating or attempting to translate a file's entire history tree - translation, healing and editing capabilities. This is an important distinction for designers and engineers when time is of the essence. REALyze provides an environment where CAD/CAM users have the tools that work in concert to tackle the complexities of the interoperability, repair, and reuse process.

Dumb Files Aren't Dumb

As CAD systems have matured, more and more intelligence is being embedded in the file. This intelligence includes design intent, proprietary data definitions, unique formats, and history trees. Unlike parametric software, Kubotek technology doesn't put intelligence into the file. Instead the intelligence is in a tool that can discover features and patterns hidden in the geometry. Other translation tools experience limitations since they try to translate only the dumb "B-rep" (boundary representation) data or attempt to decipher the history tree.

"Even dumb geometry has a certain amount of inherent intelligence," stated Ken Versprille, Ph.D., PLM research director, CPD Associates, LLC. "In the industry's rush to parametric-based modeling techniques, it overlooked possible advances in recognizing the pure core intelligence in explicit geometry. By exploiting the growing computing power now available to users, Kubotek has uncovered a way for users to get deeper into the heart of a model and make it more usable."

Availability

REALyze will be licensed as a single seat or enterprise concurrent use license. The product begins shipping on February 15, 2006. Kubotek will demonstrate REALyze at SolidWorks World next week. (Booth #102)"

jon

"I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them." ... Jimmy Hoffa

Reply to
ms

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.