The Monday General Session of SolidWorks World 2012 opened with Bertrand Sicot, SolidWorks CEO, taking the stage.  He gave some numbers regarding attendees and SolidWorks users:

There were 4300 attendees in 2008. This year there are 5650 people attending from 33 countries. There are now 1.7 million users in the SolidWorks community. He said that if they were to create a city of all the SolidWorks users, it would be the fourth largest city in America.

Sicot then mentioned Daniel Hertzberg, who was the previous SolidWorks intern and is now an engineer and user group leader in Virginia, who had an issue with his heart valve. He found out the heart valve that he would be receiving was designed by a company called on On-X Life Technologies using SolidWorks. Most artificial heart valve recipients require the use of blood thinners for the rest of their lives, but these new heart valves were designed such that blood thinners were not needed.

I FEEL SO DIRTY!

Sicot then brought out Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs and CEO of mikeroweWORKS.com. Mike talked about how the show came about in that it was a tribute to his grandfather. There were originally only three shows, but after the first show aired he receives so much mail that was made into a series. He said that they have now shot over150 episodes with 300 dirty jobs and have filmed in all 50 states.

You may have seen the public service announcements Mike has made in regards to unemployment and the need for certain skill sets. He said the lines between white-collar and blue-collar were blurring in his opinion.

R&D IN DA’ HOUSE!

Sicot referenced the R&D team and introduced the new VP of Research and Development Gian Paolo Bassi.

Sicot mentioned that they had gotten great feedback on some new features introduced last year including the Manufacturing Costing, Large Design Review, and a few small “delighters”, such as the enhanced Equation dialogue and Magnetic Lines.

Some given data points:

• Stability has been dramatically on the increase since 2009.
• DraftSight has been downloaded more than 2 million times since being announced in 2010.
• The number of Certified SolidWorks Professionals (CSWP’s) has crossed the 50000 threshold.
• According to monster.com, the number of SolidWorks positions out there dwarf those for Creo & Pro/E, Autodesk Inventor, and Solid Edge.
• Over 200 enhancements have been fulfilled (90% of which were customer-driven).

Sicot said that V6 is coming next year, but he stressed that there would be no change in data format and customers would be able to choose whichever platform best met their needs.  He iterated that there would be no push; customers will be able to move when they see fit, and that “the transition would be seamless”.

DON’T TRIP ON THE CABLE!

Bernard Charlès next took the stage and introduced Dr. Maia Hoeberechts, Research Theme Integrator for NEPTUNE Canada:

“The NEPTUNE Canada regional cabled ocean network, located in the Northeast Pacific, is part of the Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) Observatory. Our network extends the internet from the rocky coast to the deep abyss. We gather live data and video from instruments on the seafloor, making them freely available to the world, 24/7.”

They rely upon the community to help the researchers sift through the vast ocean (pun intended) of data gathered to monitor mineral and gas deposits and also sea life.

3DEXPERIENCE

Charlès then showed this kind of weird compass looking logo for 3DEXPERIENCE, the new symbol for Dassault Systèmes. 3D is a universal language, the icon on top is community, ii is for the Internet, and I don’t think he mentioned what the V+R stood for…

They also have a new trademark, IF WE.  “IF WE ask the right questions, we can change the world.”  They showed a cool inspiring video to go along with it.

IT’S GETTIN’ HOT IN HERRE!

Next, Joe Dunne, Director Product Management, took the stage, and introduced Tony Fadell, Founder and CEO of Nest Labs, Inc. Tony is also “the father of the iPod”, and ended up working at Apple after being turned down by other vendors.  Tony created Nest Labs to design and market the Nest Learning Thermostat.  Not only is it a thermostat, it is a beautiful piece of art that immediately brings to mind an iPhone or iPod Touch.

It is on the pricey side at $249, but it learns your habits and also has sensors that can determine if you are out and it will adjust the temperature accordingly to help lower your power consumption and your utility bill.  You can also control it remotely using an iOS app.

If you want one, you are out of luck, as it is currently out of stock.  Fadell said they went through 5 months of stock in 72 hours.

Image credits to NEPTUNE Canada and Nest Labs, Inc.

DISCLOSURE: DS SolidWorks Corp paid for my conference fee (as a user group leader), lodging, and some meals.

Fielder Hiss, Vice President of Product Management at DS SolidWorks Corp, took the stage once again.  He mentioned that Center Rock, Inc. (CRI) was mentioned Tuesday night in President Obama’s State of the Union address, in talking of people coming together to aid in the Chilean miner rescue.

Fielder then recognized Dell for their platinum sponsorship.  Patrick Hannan, Senior Manager of Strategic Market Development at Dell, accepted the honor and said a few words.

SOLIDWORKS CERTIFICATION PROGRAM

Next up was Mike Puckett, Certification Specialist, and Avelino Rochino, Certification Program Specialist, to talk about the SolidWorks Certification program.  They showed a video focusing on several different Certified SolidWorks Professionals and the products they have designed.  There were also quotes from the CSWP’s about what certification means to them and how it has helped their business.

They brought up a CSWP, Matt Perez, Mechanical Operations Technician at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.  Matt has created a site, SolidWorks Lessons, to help others increase their knowledge of the software.

Jeremy Luchini, host of Let’s Go Design and head of Certification, joined Mike and Avelino onstage, and presented Matt with a paintball gun and one of the SC-10 radio-controlled trucks from last year’s CSWP event.

SPECIAL GUEST

Then Jeremy said that corporate wanted him to inject a little game into the session, so he started out trying to play Six Degrees to tie everything together.  He got a few words out when someone says, “Wait, Jeremy! That’s not how you play it!”

The crowd started cheering as Kevin Bacon joined Jeremy on stage and talked some about what it was like preparing for his role in Apollo 13.  He also mentioned his charitable organization, SixDegrees.org.  It turns out Bacon’s band, The Bacon Brothers, were scheduled to play at the VAR event Wednesday night.

I was hoping that I would get a chance to meet him at the press conference, but he did not attend.  There went my chance at being able to say that I’m only one degree from Kevin Bacon; I guess I will just have to settle for two degrees of separation…

This isn’t the first time that they’ve had a special guest on Wednesday, and it’s always a nice, unexpected surprise.

MODEL MANIA 2011

Mark Schneider, Field Marketing Manager for DS SolidWorks Corp, took the stage the show everyone how to build the this year’s Model Mania model and to announce the winners.

In the Customer Division, the results were:

1. Bengt Dahlborg, Edaco AB, Sweden (11:21)
2. Satakal Khalsa, TriAxial Design and Analysis
3. Brian Lindahl, CAD_Speed-Up

In the Reseller Division, the results were:

1. Josh Altergott, Computer Aided Technology (10:52)
2. Uwe Thieme, daveg gmbh
3. Michael Burks, MLC CAD Systems

Prizes for this year’s Model Mania Challenge were NVIDIA Quadro 6000, 5000, and 4000 graphics boards, respectively.

THE BUILDINGS ARE ALIVE!

Fielder Hiss once again took the stage and started talking about how some SolidWorks customers are using the software to design buildings.  I personally have used it myself to do some building layouts a few times, and I know of others who have also.  There has been some talk in the last couple of years about SolidWorks getting into the AEC industry, and Fielder took this time to announce a new offering geared towards builders and planners in the construction industry: SolidWorks Live Buildings.

SolidWorks Live Buildings is a new app built for online.  It allows overlay of 2D data into the 3D model (they had a 2D layout from DraftSight inserted) and features smart components (such as doors, windows, and stairways) that can be placed with simple drag and drop.  There is also a tool, Solar Study, that will allow designers to simulate and test environmental studies.  Global positioning and time of year can be accounted for.

DATA SHARING

They then showed n!Fuze, the new product data sharing (PDS) tool that Jeff Ray mentioned at last year’s SolidWorks World.  n!Fuze is a CAD-aware online collaboration tool that allows designers to share their designs with other designers, reviewers, vendors, etc.  Users have full control over what others have access to.

It was announced that there will be an iPad app available, and there will be a Beta program for n!Fuze later this quarter.

It was also announced that DraftSight mobile will be available later this year.

WHAT’S NEW IN SOLIDWORKS 2012

Next up was what we were waiting for, a sneak peek at the next release, SolidWorks 2010!  The skit this year was a parody of the show, COPS, called CAD COPS.

I have already mentioned most of the announcements in my earlier post, and Ricky Jordan also had coverage, so I won’t belabor the subject here.

NEW ENHANCEMENTS IN 2012

Bruce Holway, Director of Product Definition, took the stage to talk about some of the new enhancements in SolidWorks 2012.  First up was “Feature Freeze”, one of the most-cheered features that they showed at last year’s SolidWorks World 2010.  Unfortunately, the feature didn’t make the cut into the released version of SolidWorks 2011.  I heard that there were some issues with the way it worked, so they held it back.

Next mentioned was “Complete Uninstall”, the ability to perform a total, or “clean”, uninstall of the SolidWorks software, including the registry settings.  I for one welcome this, as I always perform a manual “clean” uninstall prior to moving to a new version.

“Clear Memory When a File Is Closed” was next.  The way it should be, no memory leaks!

And lastly was “Dual Monitor Support (Span Two Displays).  It looked to stretch the main SolidWorks window across two displays, but can display individual document windows maximized to one display.  The images here will make more sense (click to embiggen):

TOP TEN ENHANCEMENT IDEAS

Next, Bruce announced the top ten wish list, as voted on by conference attendees:

1. Pressing Escape key should immediately return control of the interface
2. File compatibility between versions
3. Make the “Ideas” section (in the forum) available all the time, not just for SWW
4. Convert a Solid body into a Surface body without having to delete, offset, or knit faces
5. Enhanced Equations Input and Editing and Linking
6. Freeze Features
7. SolidWorks should cleanly uninstall itself
8. Option to dangle children instead of deleting
9. Better utilize processor cores
10. Angle mates that don’t flip at random

SOLIDWORKS IN EDUCATION

Bertrand Sicot, CEO of DS SolidWorks Corp, took the stage to talk about SolidWorks’ education initiatives.  He said that the 1 Millionth EDU license was shipped on Thanksgiving of last year.

Bertrand then brought Jeff Ray, Executive Vice President, Geographic Operations, Dassault Systèmes, out to talk about an AMAZING 13-year-old student, Riley Lewis.  Among other things, he is an expert lock-picker, and he has already used SolidWorks to design a new “unpickable” lock.  You can read more about this child prodigy in Deelip Menezes’ interview.

Bertrand talked about a student-designed plane from Brazil that has broken several records.  Bertrand then tried the DTV Shredder from BPG Werks.  The DTV stands for “dual tracked vehicle” – the Shredder is basically a skateboard on tracks.

SOLIDWORKS WORLD 2012

For SolidWorks World 2012, they will be returning to the San Diego Convention Center on February 12-15, 2012.

SUMMARY

This was a great conference and it was an awesome venue.  I’m excited about some of the features that they showed for SolidWorks 2012.  And it will be interesting to see what happens with their foray into the BIM market.

And, I made the highlight reel!

The Bacon Brothers band image courtesy of ModernTech Mechanical.

The DTV Shredder image courtesy of BPG Werks.

DISCLOSURE: DS SolidWorks Corp paid for my conference fee, lodging, and some meals.

There are several new enhancements coming in SolidWorks 2012.  Below is a quick run-down of the highlights they showed.  Unfortunately, they ran through it so fast, that I was not able to capture all the details.  I will add more to this list when I make my post on the General Session.

• You are now able to pin documents to the recently used document fly out.
• You can now switch document units on the fly with the unit switcher located in the bottom right corner of the status bar.
• You can now choose faces to ignore in sheet metal flat patterns.
• Swept flanges can now be created in sheet metal and flattened.
• You can now start typing a command in the search palette, and it will start narrowing down the possibilities (ala the Windows 7 Start button).
• New equation dialogue; you can change solve order and categorize (and sort) equations
• Exploded views are now shown on the drawing palette, and there is now a right-click option to explode an existing view.
• BOM’s can now be created without preselecting a view.
• Balloons can now be ordered numerically around a view.
• Magnet lines are now available to snap balloons too, like in 3DVIA Composer!
• Unused view labels (such as those from deleted views) are now automatically reused.
• Rendering
• Custom Compass
• BOM Hotspot
• Taking a cue from 3DVIA, selecting a component and hitting Tab will hide the component.
• Manufactured part costing will allow users to account for part costs based on material, machining, and set up.
• Motion Optimization
• Large Design Review – enables users to work with massively large assemblies.

DISCLOSURE: DS SolidWorks Corp paid for my conference fee, lodging, and some meals.

Today’s General Session started off with Fielder Hiss, Vice President of Product Management at DS SolidWorks Corporation, taking the stage.  He recapped yesterday’s session with Gene Kranz and Captain Jim Lovell.

Fielder then recognized HP, one of the conference’s Platinum sponsors.  Tom Salomone, HP’s Worldwide Marketing Manager for MCAD, took the stage for a few words.

SWGUN AWARDS

First up was Richard Doyle, User Community Manager for DS SolidWorks Corp.  Richard talked about the SolidWorks User Group Network (SWUGN), which is the global community of SolidWorks users.  There are currently 195 user group chapters in 27 countries!  If you aren’t already a member of a local SolidWorks user group, you are missing out!  If there is not one near you, why not get one started?  A user group is one of the best sources of support for SolidWorks users.

Next, Richard presented the SWUGN Awards.  The award for User Group of the Year was presented to the Chicago SolidWorks User Group, Denny Bahl, Group Leader.

The award for User Group Leader of the Year was presented to Ed Gebo from the Connecticut SolidWorks User Group.

SWUGN TRIBUTE

Phil Sluder, owner of Triaxial Design and Analysis, then took the stage to say a few words about Michelle Pillars.  Michelle was one of the founding members of SWUGN (originally called SNUG) and was taken from this life too soon by cancer.

Phil talked of his relationship with Michelle, and how much she did for the SolidWorks User Community.   I never personally met her, but she seemed like a great mentor, and an awesome person to have known.

A new yearly award was announced, the Michelle Pillars SWUGN Community Award.  Wayne Tiffany received the award this year.

CUSTOMER FOCUS

Then Jon Hirschtick, Founder & Group Executive of DS SolidWorks Corp, took the stage.  He brought up three different companies up on stage to talk about their companies, their products, and why they do what they do.

Barrett Technology, Inc.

First up was Bill Townsend, Founder, President & CEO of Barrett Technology, Inc.  Barrett Technology designs and builds robotics for the research, medical, and manufacturing industries.   Mr. Townsend also bought the very first seat of SolidWorks!

Robots had been around for years, but they were dangerous, and Mr. Townsend wanted to build robots that could work around people and complement what they do.

The have created several new technologies for robotics, including gearless drives (they use aircraft cables to ensure smooth operation), and they have recently been awarded a patent for the Puck Motor-Drive-Electronics Module, which reduced a small refrigerator-sized electronics box to a device about the diameter of a coin.

The Puck contains all the electronics and reduced the electronics count from 100 wires and 7 motors down to four wires.  They can now run their WAM Arm on five 9V batteries for 20 minutes!

MAKO Surgical Corp.

The second company profiled on stage was MAKO Surgical Corp.  Rony Abovitz, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer, said that their focus is on using robotics to assist surgeons with knee and hip replacement and to help people get back up after surgery.  Mr. Abovitz talked of how he worked with a company building parts for knee and hip replacements, and one of his first duties was to attend a surgery.

The doctor made the incision, and then asked Abovitz what to do next.  After determining that the doctor was not joking, he ran down to his car and retrieved the manual from his car (unfortunately, it was in French) and one of his college textbooks.

As the doctor was cutting the femural head off to perform the hip replacement, it flew off and hit Abovitz in the head!  The operation was a success, but he knew that there had to be a better way.

Abovitz said that there have been almost 6000 procedures performed using his robots.

They then brought a patient up , Samuel Brooks, who had had a MAKOplasty knee surgery, and you could not tell from him walking which knee it was.  He had bone-on-bone arthritis, and was very sedentary.  He said that two hours after the surgery, he was up moving around the room, and three days after, he was playing golf!

Talk about an emotional paycheck!

Local Motors

The final company profiled was Local Motors, a site where open-source design is used to design new cars that can then be ordered and built.  Mike Pisani, Senior Vehicle Engineer & Head Builder Trainer, took the stage to talk about their concept and processes.

Basically, they will set up a micro-factory, and you can order and build your own car over three 2-day weekends!  The video shown onstage was very interesting, and I highly recommend checking the site out!

BIONIC BUILDERS

Darren Henry, Director of Marketing for DS SolidWorks Corp, took the stage next to introduce the special guests for today, Casey Pieretti and Bill Spracher, hosts of the new Discovery Channel series, Bionic Builders.  The show is focused on building prosthetics for handicapped people that will enable them to live a normal full life.

Casey works as a stuntman, and Bill is an engineer.  They come with new prosthetics for Casey and others to enable them to do the activities that they wish to do, such as diving and rock climbing.

Fittingly, their motto is, “Who Do You Want To Be Today?”

DISCLOSURE:  DS SolidWorks Corp paid for my conference fee, lodging, and some meals.

Year In Review

Jeff started off talking about the trapped Chilean miners, and how people from around the world rushed to offer help.  He mentioned Schramm, who drilled the first tunnel that found the miners, and they also drilled the “Plan B” tunnel.

He also mentioned Center Rock, Inc. (CRI), who manufactured the drill bit used.  When the bit broke down due to the hardness of the rock, CRI designed a new bit onsite in SolidWorks.  The design was sent back to their facility in Pennsylvania and turned around in a few days (a process that normally takes around 4 weeks).

People Helping People

He also mentioned Design That Matters (DtM), a group showcased two years ago at SolidWorks World 2009.  Their NeoNuture incubator was shown then, and it was listed as one of the top 50 inventions of 2010 by Time Magazine.  This year, they had their Project Firefly onstage, a device to help combat infant jaundice.

Jeff then acknowledged several different groups of people, including the 100 folks who passed the CSWP exam yesterday.

The Drive To Design

He then showed the moving video, Drive To Design. This short work chronicles the life of a fictional engineer, from childhood to adulthood, and shows some of the steps that lead him to his vocation.  It shows the impact that you as an engineer or designer can have on others, oftentimes unbeknownst to you.

A New Sheriff In Town…

Jeff then handed the reins over to DS SolidWorks Corp’s new CEO, Bertrand Sicot.  Bertrand said that when SolidWorks 2011 was released, they thought that the most favorite feature would be the new memory management, but that customers had told them that their favorite feature was Defeature.

DraftSight was mentioned and some numbers were given:  300,000 downloads and over 60,000 activations.

Clarifying “The Cloud” (or, Setting The Record Straight)

He then spoke of last year’s “cloud” announcement, and reiterated that they would support desktop, online, and mobile platforms.  In order to dispel some of the rumors that have been circulating online over the past year, he said, “We will always have locally-installed desktop CAD.”

He then talked about the new n!Fuze tool they announced last week.  n!Fuze is a new data management tool geared towards small companies and independent users.

Second Life for CAD?

Bernard Charlès, President and CEO of Dassault Systèmes, then took the stage, along with Jeremy Luchini, host of Let’s Go Design. They showed another new tool, Post3D.   Post3D is kind of like Second Life for CAD; you are able to upload your design and then do a contextual design review by performing a walk-through online, operating the system as you would in real life.  This is great for design reviews, or marketing your product online to potential customers!

Here is a video of Post3D in action:

“Houston, We Have A Problem…”

Then the guest speakers took the stage.  First up was Gene Kranz, Mission Control Director at NASA during the Apollo 13 mission.  He talked of how NASA rose to the challenge put forth by John F. Kennedy to put a man on the moon.  He talked of the early days, and went through the Mercury and Gemini projects, and into the Apollo era.  He said, “Chemistry is a force amplifier,” speaking of how critical it is to get to know and trust the other members of your team.

He went through the Apollo 13 mission until he got to the famous transmission uttered by Apollo 13 Captain Jim Lovell: “Houston, we have a problem…”  Then Captain Lovell joined Kranz onstage and continued the story from his point of view.  He made reference to Gene Kranz’s motto, “Failure is not an option,” and said that in their mind, “Success was the only option!”

Captain Lovell wrapped up by stating that there are three types of people:

1. Those who make things happen,
2. Those who watch things happen, and
3. Those who wonder what happened.

It was amazing to hear these two speak of their experiences!

SolidWorks’ Keynote Video

Here is a video of the General Session SolidWorks’ keynote:

DISCLOSURE: DS SolidWorks Corp paid for my conference fee, lodging, and some meals.

Image courtesy of Design That Matters (DtM).

 First, in the base SolidWorks product, language localizations are able to be removed, thereby reducing the download size by over 1 GB.  I know that this will be met by much rejoicing! 

Next, the SNL Manager can finally be upgraded, instead of having to perform an uninstall/reinstall.  It’s about time!  This cost my company a couple of days of downtime and caused myself much scrambling and cursing when my Enterprise PDM install went down after uninstalling the SNL Manager to update it.  (Uninstalling the SNL Manager very nicely deleted the entire SolidWorks tree from the registry, which was, of course, where the EPDM info was also located!) 

Service packs can now be rolled out to different groups.  This will be great for testing.  Just create a group with your power users, and give them the service pack to test before going company-wide. 

Administrators can also now reduce the list of software shown in the SNL Manager to just what software they are actually licensed for.  Also, when borrowing license for a SolidWorks package, the base SolidWorks license is now borrowed automatically.  This should definitely reduce confusion and make borrowing licenses much easier.

 And for stand-alone users, there is also the SolidWorks Background Downloader that can automatically download service packs in the background and notify you when they are ready to install.

 So what do you think?  Are you excited about these improvements in the service pack installation process?  Are there any more that you would like to see?  Let us know in the comments!

DISCLOSURE: DS SolidWorks Corp paid for my airfare, lodging, and some meals.

We’re preparing to upgrade as I type.  How about you?  Will you roll now, or wait for a service pack or two?

But this tool does have some intelligence built in, in that you can preserve assembly motion by specifying certain mates, faces, etc.  Take a gearbox with a gear mate, for instance.  In the Defeature options, you can specify that the shafts, the component(s) they are mated to, and the respective mates are all retained in the defeatured assembly, allowing the correct operation of any moving parts in the resulting assembly.

In the Defeature options, you have the options of simply storing the settings in the assembly file for future use, saving the assembly as a separate local file, or publishing the defeatured assembly file to 3D ContentCentral.  Regardless of which options are chosen, the settings are stored in the assembly file in a new Defeature node in the FeatureManager tree.

I am really excited about the inclusion of this tool, as it is a function that I have needed to use in the past, and it definitely makes the task of simplifying an assembly much easier and straightforward.  And the resulting model is much nicer and more functional than anything I’ve created manually.

What do you think of the new Defeature tool?  Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: DS SolidWorks
DISCLOSURE: DS SolidWorks Corp paid for my airfare, lodging, and some meals.

• Stability
• Performance

We all know the drill from previous versions: you open a few files, close them, open some more, change some features, create a drawing, etc.  The amount of system RAM slowly dwindles to nothing, and it’s time to restart SolidWorks, or maybe even reboot your computer.  However, in SolidWorks 2011, they have worked on the memory management in SolidWorks 2011, resulting in a lower memory footprint.

Shaun made the statement that they believe that the SolidWorks 2011 SP0 performance and reliability is equivalent to that of SolidWorks 2010 SP4.  He also mentioned that during the Beta testing for SolidWorks 2011, there have been relatively few crashes reported.

There have been numerous tweaks and refinements to multiple aspects of the SolidWorks product line.  There are however, a few great new features in this release, such as

• PhotoView 360 integration in SolidWorks 2011
• Grid System (useful for Weldments/Architecture)
• HVAC and Electronics add on modules for Flow Simulation
• Routing Library Manager for Piping
• Defeature (removes detail from assemblies)
• Walk Through.

A few questions came up in the meeting with SolidWorks.  A question was asked about the UI shown at SolidWorks World 2010 when they showed their cloud technology preview.  Shaun responded that they were always experimenting with different UI’s, and that most were never seen.  On the topic of the relationship with their parent company, Dassault Systémes (DSS), it was said that the closer relationship with DSS enables SolidWorks to leverage technology, and provides opportunities to move to other technologies.  Shaun did say, however, that they did not want to introduce anything that would sacrifice the SolidWorks experience.

The question of a Catia translator was brought up, and Shaun said that SolidWorks was working actively to get a Catia translator.  That this issue has persisted for so long while many of their competitors already have Catia translators continues to be a black eye for SolidWorks.  I did get the feeling from the response that this is out of SolidWorks’ hands, as I have long suspected.

I will have follow-on posts covering the new features and enhancements in more detail following shortly.

DISCLOSURE: DS SolidWorks Corp paid for my airfare, lodging, and some meals.

I had one of our users contact me recently inquiring if there was an easy way to pull the automatically generated PDF’s created when a drawing is checked into Workgroup PDM.  I knew of no way off the top of my head, but put the word out on Twitter, it shot all through my social networks, and I got several responses from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  (Let me just say that crowdsourcing is cool!)

Most of the responses mentioned what I thought would be required: a macro.  And being that I am not that well-versed yet in the API, I was hoping that something already existed.

But Rodney Hall responded with a suggestion to use the SolidWorks Task Scheduler.  So I fired up the task, “Export Workgroup PDM Files”, and the default was to export the PDF’s!  It even has an option to create PDF’s for drawings that do not have one:

Now, I have to sheepishly admit that I haven’t touched SolidWorks Task Scheduler in ages, because I haven’t seen a use for it in a long time.  Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose; but I will definitely keep it in mind from now on when something similar comes up!

If you’re not familiar with the Task Scheduler (or haven’t used it in a while), you should at least get in there and familiarize yourself with it.

Do you have any special tasks you use the SolidWorks Task Scheduler for?  Hit the comments and let us know!