WARNING: Extremely long post ahead!!!
What and exciting morning session!!!! Today's general session was all about SW2007, and what to expect. The overall theme for version
2007 is: "Reducing CAD Overhead". They chose the dating game format to introduce the new features. The female contestant would ask the male contestants about different parts, and very funny and entertaining way of doing it.So here they are:
DRAWINGS:
You will be able to link ANY custom property into a balloon.
The ability to add jump points to leader lines so you can bend them around to your liking.
When adding a view to a drawing, a new plane will show in graphical icons, exactly how each view will look, before you place it.
When you start placing dims in a drawing, they will automatically start to move around when you drop them. Basically eliminating the clutter of overlapping dims.
GENERAL MODELING:
The ability to create multiple relations at once. Have 15 bearings and
15 shafts, select them all, and mate them at the same time. SW will create a multi mate folder. The multi mate tool will work with every mate type.A new rack and pinion mate has been added.
A new tool called data share expands on the file>find references tool. The new Data Share will copy all files, AND drawings into a new location where you can save, or email it directly from the window.
Sharing assemblies that contain toolbox parts with other people will get easier. SW2007 will be able to find the necessary parts upon opening an assembly even if they aren't saved into the file sent out to your customer.
A new belt command will allow users to select pulley faces, and SW2007 will create a path where the belt will follow. At that point you will also be able to create the belt itself with the standard modeling features. It will also ad a mate that when you rotate one pulley, it will rotate them all!
Sketch blocks now have belt and track relations where you can create moving sketches of cams and belts movements.
SURFACES:
A new Push Pull feature allows you to create points and mesh on a surface, and then be able to drag those areas to form new shapes. This feature will work on both scanned parts, and imported parts!!
COSMOS:
New Beam Analysis feature.
Tolerance expert analysis.
Cosmos express now has the ability to provide the min factor of safety.
SHEET METAL:
Cone bends are now shown in the flattened view
You can now unfold curved bends
Those are the very brief overview of the new features, I was writing stuff down as fast as I can! The them of Reducing CAD Overhead was well reached.
The top 10 enhancements at SW World 2006 were:
- Recreate all mates when mirroring components
- Clearance-check in assemblies similar to interference detection
- Select sub-assembly via right click on one of its parts
- Represent item such as grease, adhesive, and paint in the bill of materials
- Link balloons parametrically to text in a note
- Copy entire drawing sheet, or a portion of it, into the same drawing, or a different one
- Create component patterns based on curve/sketch driven patterns
- Select cylindrical surface to specify axis of a circular pattern
- Provide more options to create reference planes and axis
- Provide same printing options in Task Scheduler as in Solidworks
PDM Enhancements:
#1 Generate PDF files during check in or when lifecycle changes
COSMOSWORKS Enhancements:
#1 Analyze models where loading changes with time
At the end they announced where next years event will be:
February 4-7 in The Big Easy New Orleans
My morning session was Managing Large Assemblies and Performance by Greg Jankowski. For all those that don't know, Greg is the author of the hit book Solidworks for Dummies, He also a very polished speaker. His presentation is so well put together; I may present it myself at one of our future meetings.
So now its off to lunch, then a few appointments with some vendors, and
2 afternoon sessions. Look for a day 4 afternoon and general wrap-up later this afternoon.Quick note on my gambling so far, I havent lost a penny, of course I havent gambled one either!
Thanks for reading.