SolidWorks World 2011 kicked off this year in San Antonio, TX, with Jeff Ray, the former CEO of Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corporation and the new Executive Vice President, Geographic Operations, Dassault Systèmes, taking the stage.
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.  …

In addition to the stability, performance, and memory management improvements in SolidWorks 2011, there have also been several improvements in the installation process.  A number of enhancements will allow for faster downloading of service packs and ease of use of the SolidNetWork License (SNL) Manager.
 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 …

I got a notification this morning from the SolidWorks Background Downloader…SolidWorks 2011 SP0.0 is now live!

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

One new SolidWorks tool that I am really excited about is the new Defeature tool.  Previewed at SolidWorks World 2010, this new tool helps you simplify an assembly by removing details that you wish to keep to yourself when sending files out to customers and replacing the details with dumb solids with no feature history.  It essentially creates an envelope assembly consisting of virtual parts that others can use in their designs.  Using virtual parts allows you to just have one file to deal with and lessens file management hassles.
But …

The latest release of SolidWorks, 2011, launched today.  If you have had a chance to look through the SolidWorks 2011 Beta What’s New, you may have noticed that there isn’t as many flashy new features as in previous versions.  According to SolidWorks’ Shaun Murphy, much of the focus of SolidWorks 2011 has been on the top two customer requests:

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 …

You may already know that you can have Workgroup PDM (WPDM) automatically create a PDF file when you check in your drawings.  But in case you don’t, there is an option in the SolidWorks Workgroup PDM VaultAdmin tool that will turn this feature on:

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 …

If you haven’t heard by now (and if you haven’t, where have you been?), earlier this week Josh Mings posted an article about an announcement SolidWorks made to VAR’s: as of SolidWorks 2010 Service Pack 4, that they would begin aggressively enforcing their policy of not allowing users access to service packs if they are not on subscription maintenance.
To get more clarification on this issue, Devon Sowell has scheduled an interview with Rich Welch, SolidWorks Vice President of Customer Services, next Tuesday, April 13, 2010 covering “SolidWorks Subscription Maintenance, Service …

A recent comment on my post on my favorite improvements in SolidWorks 2010 reminded me of an issue I have with what was one of my most favorite improvements: Drawing Center Mark Improvements.
When this feature improvement was first announced and I saw it demoed, I was very excited. My workflow has always been to add center marks, and then dimension to them, as dimensioning to the holes would not allow the dimension witness lines to display correctly with the center marks in place. And I occasionally had issues when …

Wednesday’s General Session opened with Fielder Hiss, VP of Product Management, taking the stage once again.  Fielder announced the launch of an online SolidWorks store, where one can purchase swag, such as shirts and caps, along with a few books.  The pickings are a little sparse right now, but hopefully more resources will be added soon.
TOP TEN ENHANCEMENT IDEAS
Bruce Holway, Director of Product Definition, was up next to announce this year’s top ten enhancement ideas.  Some recent examples of enhancement ideas that have been added recently are:

Recreate all mates …

Jon Hirschtick shows off his yo-yo skills at the Tuesday night special event:

The yo-yo belongs to Joshua Updyke, an Associate Engineer for Xpresso.  (Ricky Jordan also had a try, and it turns out that he is quite adept with a yo-yo, too!)

James Cameron answers questions from the press corps after the SolidWorks World 2010 General Session on Tuesday, February 2, 2010.

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

Tuesday’s General Session opened with Fielder Hiss, VP of Product Management, taking the stage.  He introduced SolidWorks Certification Specialists Mike Puckett and Avelino Rochino to talk about the various certifications that SolidWorks offers.
They announced that with the certifications added on Sunday, that there were now over 25,000 users with Certified SolidWorks Associate (CSWA) or Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP) certifications.  They then called SolidWorks CEO Jeff Ray to the stage to participate in a “Certification Hole in One” putting contest in which an attendee (in this case, a Smith & Wesson …