If you are reading this from the site, you can tell that there have been some major changes around here!  Like several of the other SolidWorks bloggers, I have made the jump and moved my TypePad blog to a WordPress-hosted site.

I want to thank SolidWorks for graciously providing the platform to freely air my missives over the past two years or so and Richard Doyle for getting me involved.  I would also like to thank Patrick Cook and Matthew West for their help and expertise in setting things up and tweaking things here and there.  And thanks to Ricky, Josh, and Matt for their help and suggestions in getting switched over.

Based upon my testing, the RSS feed should remain the same, and all URI’s out there pointing to the old TypePad permalinks should now be redirected to the new WordPress permalinks.  There are still a few issues to work out, such as some images in old posts not showing up all the time, but I will slowly get those links updated.  Also, I have a few issues with the Disqus comments on all previous posts, but hopefully those will be corrected in the coming days.

This is a work in progress, so you will be seeing a few changes from time to time.  I am working on a logo/header, and will probably tweak the CSS colors and whatnot some, if not change to an entirely new theme altogether.

If you notice anything out of whack other than the issues I mentioned above, or have any suggestions, please let me know.

Also, please note that due to the upcoming holidays and getting the new site up and running, CADFanatic’s Tips & Tricks Tuesdays will return after the first of the year, on Tuesday, January 6, 2009.

I’m looking forward to the new site and the new year!  And thanks for reading!

Well, today was a long day…but it was very interesting!  There was a few of us blogging live from the press event.  I took notes and want to formulate my thoughts a little (plus, I’m really tired!), so I will have a few posts coming up on the goings-on in Barcelona.  I just wanted to give an overview of the day’s happenings.

The day started off with Jeff Ray, CEO of DS SolidWorks, delivering the keynote, “Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Initiatives”.  The theme was:

“Provide our customers with all the necessary tools to design the world’s greatest products.”

Bertrand Charlès, President and CEO of Dassault Systèmes was also on hand and gave a presentation titled “Dassault Systèmes Vision & Strategy”.  There was some discussion concerning the recent DS/SolidWorks realignment, which I will detail later.  But suffice it to say, I am looking forward to see what the closer interaction will bring to SolidWorks users and the CAD market in general.

There was also a few presentations from companies using SolidWorks, which are always interesting to see.  Marie Planchard gave a presentation on SolidWorks’ education initiatives.  It’s good to see them getting involved with colleges, high schools, and even middle schools to get kids thinking about engineering, creativity, and design.

Bertrand Sicot, Executive VP Worldwide Sales spoke of the State of the Software, giving the latest financial data, revenue, installed base, seat sales, etc.  Rick Welch, VP Worldwide Customer Service presented on Customer Satisfaction, talking about how they determine what customers want, the results of the latest customer loyalty and transaction surveys, and gave information on their VAR training and certification programs.

The last section was what us users were waiting on, the DS SolidWorks 2009 product line presentation.  It was given by Neil Cooke, Product Marketing Manager, Fielder Hiss, Director of Product Management, and Mark Schneider, Product Marketing Manager.  They showed several video and real-time demonstrations that showed the increased speed (a claimed 65% time savings!) of 2009.  They also showed improved 2D interoperability with DWGEditor, data management scenarios with DS SolidWorks Enterprise PDM (formerly PDMWorks Enterprise), DS SolidWorks Simulation, sheetmetal and plastics improvements, CircuitWorks, routing, and demonstrations of 3DVia and Photoview 360.

Of course, after each presentation, there was a Q&A session.  Tomorrow we head over to the IQS Engineering School for a presentation on IQS and the hands-on Technical Sessions with the DS SolidWorks Product Marketing Team.  Then, a little sight-seeing before heading back to the States.

In the coming days, I will have more details on each session, so check back!

Whew!  What a trip!  I haven’t had much sleep in the last 36 hours, so after this, I’m off to bed!

The social dinner event was tonight at the Xalet de Montjuic; great views, great food, and great conversation.  I was joined at my table by Kerri Dunne and Fielder Hiss of SolidWorks, Mike Puckett, Ray Kurland, Darby Johnson, Kathleen Maher, and Ken Versprille.

The bulk of the conversation involved picking Fielder’s mind with where they are headed, how they determine what additions/changes get implemented, and I asked his opinion on the current OpenGL/DirectX debate.  Fielder stressed how they use data from many sources to determine what features got implemented, from customer enhancement requests, customer visits, and surveys.  He also confirmed that SolidWorks 2009 SP0.0 has went live today.

Fielder mentioned that he was unaware of the recent hoopla over OpenGL vs. DirectX, but said that SolidWorks was constantly evaluating both technologies.  He said that he currently thought that OpenGL was the better technology for the task.  SolidWorks has communication channels open with the various video chip vendors and works with each to resolve any issues that may arise.  When the issue of another company having to do their OpenGL testing in software mode to have a homogeneous OpenGL platform, he mentioned that that was a disservice to customers, as it was not similar to how they used it in work.

We also got some information out of Kerri as to what the offsite event for SolidWorks World 2009 in Orlando, Florida, was going to be.  It looks as if we will be taking a trip to Disney’s Animal Kingdom!

Well, that’s enough for tonight, I gotta get some sleep!

Now we’re getting more into the SolidWorks Premium offerings – Part 4 of my SolidWorks 2008 Preview focuses on the enhancements made to COSMOSWorks Designer.  This is also the last preview that focuses on SolidWorks’ first goal of helping users "Focus on Design, not CAD"…

Bolt Connectors

The first enhancements to COSMOSWorks Designer is Bolt Connectors.  You can now define a bolt connector for a single bolt or for a hole series pattern with a mouse click and all information needed to define the bolt is automatically added.  Bolt connector allows more than two parts to be fastened together, and countersink bolts can be defined.  The connector definition allows for mass properties to be calculated and included in the analysis for more realistic representation.

Design Scenarios

Design Scenarios now allow direct cut-and-paste access to tabular data from programs like MS Excel and Word.  The input window can be resized and parameter values can be automatically filled in using linear, exponential, or uniform data fills.  Coordinate system-dependent output has also been added to the Results Summary.

I don’t do much analysis, but I’m sure that these enhancements to COSMOSWorks Designer will help users to focus more on their designs instead of running the CAD system.

The next part of my preview where we see what SolidWorks has done to help meet their second goal of helping users "Reuse Existing Designs to Save Time".  There are some very interesting improvements in this area, so tune in!

Along with the new large assembly management additions I spoke of in Part 2 of my SolidWorks 2008 Preview, SolidWorks 2008 also features several nifty BOM and drawing enhancements. Drawings have always been one of the things in SolidWorks that gives me fits, so I am really glad to see some really useful enhancements in this area.

Virtual Components

First off, SolidWorks has added a new assembly feature:  virtual components.  This will really come in handy for those of us who have items in their BOMs, such as paint, grease, oil, etc.  Virtual components allows you to create a new component in an assembly without having the file management overhead.  The component is shown in the assembly FeatureManager tree, and shows up in the BOM, but there is no actual part file created.  There is the option to save it out to an actual part file, which is handy, as all parts created in context of the assembly will start out as virtual components.

Bidirectional BOM Editing

I don’t know about you, but a lot of times when designing parts, the part number and description fields (among many others) of my parts and assemblies don’t always get populated.  Then when the BOM is placed on a drawing, there are empty cells where there are missing properties or incorrect entries.  Wouldn’t it be nice if you could simply double click in a particluar cell and type the correct information and have that pushed back into the part or assembly file?  Well, in SolidWorks 2008, that is the way the BOM works with the new bidirectional BOM editing.  You can quickly add properties that are associative in the more natural environment of the BOM table instead of having to switch back to the component file.

On-Screen Table Controls

Tables in drawings can now be manipulated easier and quicker than before with the new drag-and-drop functionality.  This works exactly as you would expect – no more slow funky dialogue to rearrange rows and columns.

Copy Sheets

Finally, you can now copy entire drawings sheets in a drawing or into a separate drawing using most of the standard copy and paste procedures, including right mouse button menus and Ctrl+dragging sheets across tiled windows.  This works with both PropertyManager items as well as sheet tabs.

Switching Sheets

Drawing performance when switching sheets in a drawing is vastly improved over earlier versions.  SolidWorks states "virtually instantaneous" switching to "a previously viewed sheet".  I haven’t done enough testing, but the "previously viewed" caveat leads seems to indicate that the first time you switch sheets in a drawing will still be somewhat slower, but I believe that is to be expected.

Exclude Ribs From Section Views

You can now exclude ribs from sectioning in drawing section views in the same way that assembly components can be excluded.  This allows users to be able to create drawings that more closely adhere to their particular standards.

The BOM enhancements are some of my favorite additions to SolidWorks 2008, and I feel that they will definitely help users work more efficiently.  I know they will definitely save me some time and frustration!