SW World 2006 Day 3 Afternoon

Whew. And I thought I was finally going to be up to date by getting on board a new yearly release in January of that year, and now 2007 is being talked out.

Can't say Vegas is on my list of hot spots, but I do take in conventions now & then, limiting my gambling to a handful of quarters.

What I have always wondered is whether or why SolidWorks wouldn't be wise to sell copies of the SolidWorks World yearly presentations (with advertising no doubt) as a DVD some time after the conference ends. The logic is that SolidWorks has at most 1% of the user base at a conference, so making the option for the other 99% of users to get a heads up (plus promotional value) seems to be a decent option.

Bo

Hi Mike, I would appreciate it if you would note any sheet metal improvement in 2007, I have been helping out in some new developement functionality and was told it would be in 2007.

Phil

Good stuff hope?

Mike, your reports made me very curios about solidworks 2007 and the 3D Scanner with the $2500 price tag. thank for sharing with us your experiences and insights. it is especially helpful for guys like me which reside outside of north America, and for whom a trip to Las-Vegas for a 3 day conference is almost impossible.

The improvements to SW 2007 are going to be incredible. Here's a quick list of what they've shown:

• They have a tool that will automatically fillet your parts, and automatically resolve any fillet errors

• Same type of tool for mates and sketch relationships

• In sketches, you can do simulations, such as cams, belts/pullys, etc.

• in assemblies, you can automatically create belts or chain drive chains. When you create the beltn, not only does it show it around all the pullys, but you can even turn one pully and it rotates the others when you do it - at the correct ratios also.

• there's a rack-and-pinion mate now

• in drawings, you can automatically add properties to balloons. You can also click on dimensions to add to the text in a leader which will show not only the dimension value, but also any other text like tolerance, countersinks, etc.

• There's a "tolerance stackup" tool which is amazing - you define what the critical element is in the assemlbly, and then choose which dimensions affect that element - it will show you the tolerance stackup and show the assembly in the MAX and MIN conditions based on all the tolerances.

• There is now an OPTOMIZE DESIGN feature for cosmos works - basically, you tell it what you waant to "flex" and what the limits of the material are, and it will make that dimension fit what it needs to be (reduce weight, by keeping it strong).

Yes, but an NDA prevents discussion :-)

Phil,

Just read 2007 supports curved bends (i.e. unfolds them).

I'm under the same NDA from Solidworks, though probably for a different area.

These new features sound really cool... But, as we all know, when 2007 is released, only about 1/10 of all this new functionality will be usable. All the rest will be to buggy to use. So, all of us daily users will have to beta test these features to get the bugs out for at least the first 3 SP's.

Man!!! What has gotten into me??? I didn't used to be so negative towards all of the problems in the software. I used to simply find workarounds for all the problems and move on. I would grumble about it. Guess I am still worked-up over the switch from Bluebeam to Adobe for the save as PDF thing that everyone is having problems with (especially me)!!! I just don't understand why they did that!!!!

That did it because they are implementing 3d pdf in Solidworks. Adobe just announced it yesterday or day before. Guess Solidworks didn't want to wait on Bluebeam to catch up.

So that tells me that they must not think eDrawings or SW viewer is good enough for communicating 3d. "Must give them another tool to do the same thing that they can already do!!! Better yet, let's give'em 10 different ways to communicate 3d. That ought'a make it complicated and more confusing for everyone, yeah!!!"

Sometimes I just wish people would leave "well enough" alone...

Like it or not, most everyone uses PDF. Solidworks was already supporting PDF through Bluebeam so switching to support the 3d added by Adobe makes sense.

Edrawings still has it's place. For one, the recipient doesn't need to have it installed and that's a big deal. There's also support for configs, animation, FEA, etc. that the 3d pdf will not likely support.

Now if they can get eDrawings to read/write PDF files, that would be big.

I'll end on this note. I too use PDF a lot. My main use for it is for saving drawing history, since we have no PDM. I don't necessarily disagree with the switch to Adobe. I just think it wasn't required. If they want to switch so that they can add functionality, that's fine. My main grip is that if they are going to switch, make sure that the new add-in performs as good or better than as the previously used add-in. Bluebeam worked fantastic. It was quick and easy, and produced high quality PDF's. None of this can be said about the Adobe add-in. I ended up having to go buy a full version of Adobe Acrobat in order to "print" decent PDFs (not save-as). It's strange how a full version of the software will produce good results, but the SW add-in version doesn't.

I agree, someone dropped the ball when changing it in sp3. First, we should have been told, and next, it should have been beta tested.

The full version is iging you settings option for you PDFs, something we lack with the Save As PDF option and is probably at the heart of the problems peple are having. They need an "Option" button there.

One of the first claims for SW2007 on Monday morning was that it will decrease file sizes by 50%. Not nearly enough, but it's a start!

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