CATI Tech Notes

SolidWorks 2011 Launch Events

It's that time of year! The release of SolidWorks 2011 is quickly approaching and as usual CATI will be hosting 8 different launch events throughout the Midwest.

These events are a great way to see the newest SolidWorks release live, as well as chat-up our always enthusiastic and knowledgeable technical support group with your own SolidWorks 2011 questions and opinions!

A map of our events is below. You can click on a location to see more information about the event - or to register, of course!

We'll also be adding new SolidWorks 2011 content to these pages as it becomes available so don't forget to check in every once in awhile.

See you at the Launch,

Liz Humrickhouse

CATI Marketing

CATI SolidWorks 2011 St. Louis Launch at the Kemp Auto Museum

Join us for our 2011 SolidWorks Launch event in St. Louis, MO and be inspired by one of the country’s finest collections of vintage and classic automobiles.  Many of the cars on display in the Museum’s Benz Gallery are luxury vehicles that pushed the envelope in terms of what a car could be.  Attendees will be treated to a guided tour of these engineering masterpieces. 

Event Registration Link
http://www.cati.com/catiphp/events/event-register.php?CourseID=11143

This year's event includes a look at What's New in SolidWorks 2011, a demonstration of 3D Printing Solutions by Objet Geometries, complimentary lunch, raffle prizes, and more.  Complimentary cocktail reception to immediately follow the event. 

Jim TeDesco

CATI, Marketing

CATI SolidWorks 2011 Launch Event to be held at Bucyrus International, Inc.

This year CATI will be hosting our Milwaukee area SolidWorks Launch Event at the Bucyrus International Headquarters in South Milwaukee, WI.  The event will be held in the Bucyrus Heritage Building, which houses the Bucyrus Museum.  Attendees for this year’s Milwaukee area event will have a chance to tour the Bucyrus Museum and enjoy the rich history of the company and its mining equipment.

Why Bucyrus?
Bucyrus International, Inc., a current CATI SolidWorks client, leverages SolidWorks in the design and manufacture of high productivity mining equipment.  Our hope is that SolidWorks users of all skill levels and industries will appreciate how Bucyrus manages to design and produce revolutionary equipment that pushes the boundaries of the mining equipment market.  Learn more about Bucyrus and their success using SolidWorks: http://www.cati.com/successes/casestudies/3d-cad-solidworks-casestudy-bucyrus.html 

Event Registration Link
http://www.cati.com/events/2011-launch/2011-launch-events-MILWAUKEE.php

About Bucyrus
“Bucyrus International, Inc. is a world leader in the design and manufacture of high productivity mining equipment for surface and underground mining. BUCYRUS surface equipment is used for mining coal, copper, iron ore, oil sands and other minerals, and underground equipment is used primarily for mining coal. In addition to machine manufacturing, Bucyrus manufactures high-quality OEM parts and provides world-class support services for its equipment.”  – http://www.bucyrus.com

Jim TeDesco

CATI, Marketing

SolidWorks World 2011 Call for Papers

As everyone may or may not know SolidWorks holds a user conference every year and it has come time once again for SolidWorks to ask it users to submit ideas for presentations for the upcoming SolidWorks World.

So the questions that arise are Where in the world is SolidWorks World, When is SWW, What is SWW, Why is SW looking for presentation ideas & How is it going to benefit me if I submit a presentation idea?

Where in the world is SolidWorks World? Every year SolidWorks World is in a different location. This year it is in San Antonio, Texas. Past locations have included Las Vegas, San Diego, New Orleans, Orlando, & Anaheim.

When is SWW? This year it is Sun Jan 23^rd – Wed Jan 26^th and is generally held anytime from mid Jan. to mid Feb. each year.

What is SWW? SolidWorks World is an annual user conference that SolidWorks hosts for its users. The conference gives all the SolidWorks users a chance to get together in one location and see over 100 presentations on all aspects of the software. Attendees have the ability to see the different partner products that SolidWorks has to offer along with seeing some of the products that are designed in SolidWorks. The conference offers the opportunity to take the CSWP (Certified SolidWorks Professional) Exam or enter into a SolidWorks modeling competition.

Why is SolidWorks looking for presentation ideas? The presentations that are offered at SWW are presentations or hands on sessions that are created by the users, resellers and SolidWorks employees on every topic from hardware setup to surface modeling and are intended for users of all experience levels to attend to learn more about SolidWorks and what it can do to make SolidWorks and the attendees more efficient in how they use their software.

How is it going to benefit me if I submit a presentation idea? When you submit a presentation idea and it gets accepted SolidWorks will pay for your entry fee into SolidWorks World. The only cost incurred by the presenter is hotel, meal and travel costs.

I have presented at SWW2006, SWW2007, SWW2009 & SWW2010 have submitted two presentation ideas for SWW2011 and have enjoyed each year that I have been to SWW and always gotten positive feedback from each of my presentations.

If you would like to submit a presentation, go to this web page and fill out the online form http://solidworks.scsubmissions.com. The deadline to submit ideas is in September so get your ideas in soon as space is always limited. I would also suggest to type out your ideas in Word first so to check spelling, grammar & word count. I have included a series of screen shots from the online form of one of my submissions to give everyone an idea of what SW is looking for.

Download SolidWorks World 2011 Online Form

If there are any questions about this process feel free to contact me at any time.

Josh Altergott

Support Team Leader

Computer Aided Technology

888-308-2284 x8029

josha@cati.com

Open House - See the Connex350 3D printer in action

Join us August 10, 2010 from 12pm-5pm for an Open House featuring the Connex350 3D printer by Objet Geometries.  CATI's resident 3D printing experts will be on hand to introduce you to the latest arrival to our Buffalo Grove Headquarters, the Connex350 3D printer by Objet.  Be the first to see this Connex350 in action. Stop by to ask questions and see parts being printed live or come in for one of the scheduled presentations. 

Register for this event at http://www.cati.com/catiphp/events/event-register.php?CourseID=11126

Presentation Schedule:
1pm – Objet Presentation
3pm – Objet Presentation

We hope to see you there.

For more information on CATI and Objet 3D printing, visit our website at http://www.cati.com/products/rapid-prototyping/rp-3d-printing.html

Jim TeDesco

Marketing Coordinator

Computer Aided Technology

NAFEMS Benchmarks!

Who is NAFEMS?

National Agency for Finite Element Method and Standards (NAFEMS) is a non-profit organization to promote safe and reliable use of finite element methods. Engineering community has always been concerned with accuracy stress analysis codes. NAFEMS's efforts concentrate on developing benchmarks for a variety of codes.The software industry has adopted these tests as a method of improving and verifying the accuracy of codes.

SolidWorks Simulation has NAFEMS Benchmarks

 

SolidWorks Simulation has built NAFEMS benchmark for you to study. Each benchmark is solved and the user can try out the same using Simulation code. This ensures, every version of SolidWorks Simulation is ready to meet your engineering challenges.  Let's Design innovative products....

 

 

Rajat Trehan

Product Manager - Design Validation

Computer Aided Technology Inc.

It's All About Workarounds! Really? Yes Really!

In my experience it’s all about workarounds. Isn’t it? I mean really let’s think about it. In everyday life if there isn’t a given path or answer what do we do (especially designers and engineers)? We work around it. I can’t remember the last time something went off without a hitch or some sort of a “bump in the road. It isn’t supposed to be smooth. As the type of personality that expects perfection in most situations, I have come to understand that in order to live up to my expectations, I‘ve come up with a workaround for just about everything. Including the word count for a blog article (be “wordy”)

There is always a means to an end and this totally rings true in this statement. “When you need to drive a nail in, everything looks like a hammer”. So keeping this in mind, I had an interesting request the other day for an easy way to overlay a “featured” part over a “de-featured” part on a print in an isometric view. It took me 2 seconds to reply “no problem”. But as I thought of my work-around on the fly, there was the proverbial “stick in the spokes” issue. You can’t do an Alternate Position View in a part drawing. Doh!! Ok, we can make this up as we go and then the wheels start going and I take a sip (gulp) of coffee and the next thing ya know here it is:

• Create a part with 2 configurations- 1 for your “featured” part, one for your “de-featured” version.

• Insert this part into a new assembly 2 times “fixed” and specify the configuration for the correct instance.

• Open a new drawing using your assembly as the parent. Insert a view; I’ll use isometric for this example.

• Make sure you specify a reference configuration as the “top level” view. (this is one of my favorite enhancements for 2010 BTW)

• Insert an “Alternate View” and shoes the other configuration. This view will be in the “hidden lines view” visible. You have the ability to select a predefined configuration and this is my preferred method.

•  So in the end what we have is a laid-over style look of a “featured” part and “de-featured” part with a pretty simple procedure and just using the tools already provided to us in a slightly different fashion.

 Hope this helps!

Todd Werginz

Technical Analyst

Computer Aided Technology

CNN Report on how Objet 3D Printers are Changing the Design Process

CNN Money published a compelling report showing how Architecture and Design professionals are using Objet 3DPrinters to transform their design process. The report showcases Rietveld Architects. Using their Objet Printer, they have shaved months off of their model building time.

It's Just Time to....Level with Tech Support

    So the “It’s just time to” topic for this week comes from straight from the tech support “pit”.   We don’t call it the pit do to elevation or the cleanliness of the area.  In fact I don’t know why we call it the pit.  Maybe it is a throw back from the movie “PCU”.   Maybe it is due to the amount of stuff piled on Joshs’ desk (see pic).

Where was I?  Oh, yeah, the pit.  The fact is that generally a techs life in the pit is not simple or easy.  Sometime the questions are very easy, many of them the techs have heard before.  Some of those we have either a direct fix, or a series of steps that we typically take to isolate the issue.  At that point we have a pretty direct road map to call resolution.  The road to resolution could be short and flat, a easy walk in the park, but on the other hand…   It could be treacherous and winding with a free fall at the end.  Most times the keys to easy call resolution are in the hands of the customer calling in.

Information from the beginning is critical.  The techs will ask a lot of questions some of which may seem really off the wall, but many times the tech on the phone is slowing eliminating possible causes.  Here is where the customer comes in.  Volunteering as much information as possible is a good thing.  It will make the road much faster and smoother.  Not mentioning changes to the system or environment on the other hand is going to make this very bumpy and drawn out. 

If you have been working on your machine or your network and have changed something that you think may have caused the issue you need to come out with it.  The license manager working all morning and all of the sudden just stopping is not normal.  Something happened to it , something changed.  Just level with me, tell me what changed, and let’s work together to try to fix it.  Telling me that nothing changed is not going to help.  I am going to solve the issue, which will most likely show me the changes, so you might as well just come with it.  Oh, and yes, odds are we have seen it before.

Keith Schaefer

Save as Exterior Faces…….

There are certain times that you just do not want all the information shown. Only certain people need to see certain things at certain times. For instance: You have a customer or vendor that has requested a footprint of a specific machine, assembly or what have you. They need this in a 3D environment to use in a layout or some other application. Your company has invested countless hours developing this product or products and there is proprietary information contained within this model(s). Or your assembly is very large and you just want to cut down on the overhead that you are sending out. The ability to save out your assembly as a part can help you out.

From the “Save As” dialog box choose your Save as Type to part:

 

At this point you will have to make a choice to what you want to save out.

 

The “exterior faces” checkbox will save just that. No solids, a collection of surfaces of just the exterior faces.  The Exterior components will save out a Multibody solid with no feature history and only the parts on the outside. In other words- “No Guts”. All components will save as a multibody part with no feature history.

    So this begs the question, what if I have a single part file with proprietary information inside and I do not want my competition getting a hold of it? How about starting a new assembly with your one part in it and doing the save as part option. This way you could leave the “guts” out and accomplish your task of keeping your information yours.

Todd Werginz

CATI

Still Redneck

Well Tuesday was the SWUGN Technical Summit in Naperville, IL outside of Chicago.  It was a very good group with roughly 130 attendees, several good presentations, and a wedge salad that I liked quite a bit.  To find out when there will be a SWUGN Technical Summit near you check out this sight.

SWUGN Info

As we usually do with an event like this, Josh Altergott and I took the chance to get a little Redneck.  We presented "Redneck Workarounds -- The SolidWorks Answer to Duct Tape and Bailing Wire".  We had a lot of fun making fun of bizarre fixes, my accent, and Josh in general.

We mentioned during the presentation that we would make the slides available through the blog so it is attached to this posting.  Download Redneck Work Arounds.  I hope everyone gets something out of it.  Even if the fixes and workarounds in the presentation are not directly helpful to you; maybe you will be inspired to think a little redneck when you run into a difficult situation.

We decided this time to freshen-up the content a bit.  We removed a few obsolete workarounds and added a few that are a bit more pertinent.  My favorite new work-around is probably "The Disappearing Dialog Box".  Here it is:

The Problem:

My Measure dialog box is no longer visible on the screen.  
  

The first potential workaround:

Change the resolution on your screen to be the max allowed.  Sometimes when a user has the resolution set real high the dialog will get pushed to the edge of the screen and then when the resolution is set back to a lower level the dialog box stays at the original coordinates that are now off scree.

The second potential workaround:

1. Edit the registry key that is the position holder for that dialog box HKCU\Software\SolidWorks\SolidWorks2010\General  
2. Find the "Measure Dialog Position" entry
3. Edit this key, delete any/all values, OK
4. Run SolidWorks and try Measure

I hope that this helps some folks out there but remember; it is your registry.  Be very cautious.  You can kill a machine if you are not careful.

Thanks,

Adrian