Recent Blog Posts

SolidWorks CAD software, with over 1.2millions licenses sold to date, is without a doubt the most used 3D CAD software in the world. You only need to search on job websites, Google Trends or even YouTube to see how much it is being used. However, over the last few years, SolidWorks Corporation has a lot more strings to its bow.


SolidWorks Simulation (formerly known as CosmosWorks) has been around a long time now, and is a well established, well proven suite of tools. It really add value to a lot of different industry sectors by allowing you to be sure you have the best design, early on in the design process. It can also drastically reduce the cost of your product development by reducing prototyping, reducing physical testing and also down to potential failures.

Simulation, stress analysis or FEA, whatever you want to call it, is often seen as something which is very high-end and only the complex high technology industries and products use it. With SolidWorks Simulation, with the same intuitive, logical interface as SolidWorks, and with no need to export files to another system, many more people can access this technology. SolidWorks Simulation can really help you to gain a competitve edge. To see more, contact us to discuss which area of SolidWorks Simulation can add value to your business or process.

SolidWorks Simulation is not just about "is my design strong enough?" it can go much further. It can help reduce manufacturing costs, reduce material cost, reduce weight, improve performance or even reduce the environmental impact of your design. To go through all of the capabilities would take a very long time so instead, here is a video which goes through a lot of the functionality in under 3 minutes!

 

2010 CAD COMPETITION

February saw the launch of a CAD modelling competition to find the best Student SolidWorks modeller. The competition is split into 4 categories;
• Automotive and Transportation
• Consumer Products
• Electronics
• General,
and the brief, is simply to submit an excellent SolidWorks model (part or assembly), ideally, based on an existing product (since the competition is about modelling, not design). The competition is open to any age of University student in the UK. It is completely free to enter and there are a number of prizes. Some of which have been supplied by Solid Solutions Management, proud sponsors of this competition.

The models submitted will be judged on a variety of different areas;
•Complexity of the model (30%)
•Modelling techniques chosen (15%)
•Robustness of the modelling techniques used (20%)
•Accuracy and realism of the model (20%)
•Organisation of the feature tree (15%)

The panel of judges is made up of top industry professionals including our very own Managing Director, Alan Sampson.

•The grand prize is a 2 month, paid, summer placement at Innovate Product Design
•Contestants will be divided into four university year groups – one grand prize per group
•A great opportunity to showcase your abilities to employers across the world!
Competition deadline - 31st March 2010

"The Cadooku CAD competition aims to match CAD modelling talent with the design engineering industry. It will showcase the best work from the next generation of design engineers, so recruiters can identify employees of the future."

"Winners will be featured on www.cadcompetition.com and www.cadooku.com, a model exchange site visited by thousands of users per week, including top industry recruiters. The best talent can also look forward to press exposure in top industry magazines, including DEVELOP3D, Eureka, New Design and Design Week. All in all, the competition is a great opportunity and offers fantastic free publicity for your skills, so get modelling!"

Good luck!

Following the Solid Solutions’ SolidWorks 2010 Launch days, there has been huge interest in 3DVIA Composer. This is the tool which allows you to create graphical content for all of your Technical and Marketing Documentation directly from your 3D CAD data and when the design changes, the graphical content updates accordingly. This link to the original CAD means that the technical documentation (used for anything from assembly instructions to user manuals to marketing) can be started at a much earlier stage in the development cycle and will always be accurate to the latest design.
Take a look at 3DVIA Composer in action...


Further to this, 3DVIA have launched a free 3DVIA Plug in to Adobe Photoshop. This allows you to open a 3D Model onto a 3D Layer in Adobe Photoshop and position and rotate it to suit your graphics. This is a great enhancement and completely free to get you started with some professional technical documentation techniques. It will soon be available to run on a Mac too...

Also, the latest version of 3DVIA Composer has a brand new interface with a CommandManager and a context shortcut toolbar (similar to the S key in SolidWorks). To have a look at the latest version, give us a call on 01926 623160.

It's the busiest time of the year at Solid Solutions right now, so not a lot of time for blog updates!

After some very successful SolidWorks 2010 launch days around the country, there has been a real spike in interest in 3DVIA Composer. As a result, a demostration video has been added to the 3DVIA Composer page on our website. (Here). 

This provoked a thought. Some of our videos on the website have text callouts instead of a voice narration. This is so that they can be watched in an office environment easily and still be understood without the need for headphones or irritating your colleagues!  Others, do have some narration. Looking at the viewing figures, they seem pretty much equally popular. What do you think? Do you prefer the text callouts to a voice over or do you prefer the personal touch you get from a presenter?

We would be very interested to hear your thoughts on both styles and which you prefer. We would also be interested to know whether you would follow a Solid Solutions twitter account if we were to introduce one. If we did, what sort of things would you want to know? Tips and tricks? Latest news?

We would love to hear from you to see how we can add value to you, your company and your use of SolidWorks, Simulation, 3DVIA Composer and Enterprise PDM. Please leave a comment or email mrushton@solidsolutions.co.uk. Thanks!

This week is has been announced that SolidWorks 3D CAD design and engineering package was extensively used to help develop the squeezy bottles now used for Marmite and Colman's Mustard.

Key to the designer’s choice to use SolidWorks for this project is SolidWork’s capablity of assembling and also testing the design in a virtual environment, enabling engineers to analyse in detail the design and perfect it prior to releasing the product into production.

SolidWorks photo-realistic renderings mean that the design teams are able to generate package images quickly for use in focus groups whilst in the design stage. Changes are able to be made very quickly as as feedback trickles though, meaning changes can be sent out to people very quickly.

One of the keys to designing a product such as the Marmite squeezy bottle was the sculpting of the body and the thickness of the walls. With a thick viscous product such as Marmite it becomes essential that the bottle can suck such a unique product back into the bottle, but at the same time not leaving the bottles distorted and keeping the cap clean. SolidWorks’ ability to generate a product body with differing wall thicknesses is absolutely essential. The final Marmite bottle has a 1mm front and back, thickening to 2mm at the sides.

SolidWorks can cope with all types of design projects and can help your business with its 3D design needs. For all your SolidWorks needs including SolidWorks training courses and SolidWorks support, Solid Solutions are here to help you out.

You may have seen the video on the news of the Maldives Government holding a meeting six metres under water. The reason they did this was to show what would happen to the Maldives should sea levels continue to rise.

We all need to be doing whatever we can to reduce carbon emissions. As Designers and Engineers, we have a much greater impact on this than many of us are probably aware. A small change at the Design stage can have a huge impact across the full life of a product. Its recyclability, how much energy it uses throughout its life and just the transportation of the product all need to be considered.

SustainabilityXpress is a great way to do this and all SolidWorks subscription customer have access to this in SolidWorks 2010. However, just like all  of the Xpress tools in SolidWorks, there is also a full product. The full version allows full life cycle analysis of full assemblies, where the Xpress version is limited to parts. Give us a call to find out more about the full version of SolidWorks Sustainability.

Why not be one of the first companies to make a difference? We will all have to be considering the long term effects of our designs and products lives on the environment sooner or later. This may be a change in the law or driven by consumers. Walmart in the US, already require all their suppliers to do a green assessment on all their products.

SolidWorks 2010, the 18th version of the MCAD software was released today. It is a slight change of focus from what has been seen in the past. Previous versions of SolidWorks have seen unprecedented levels of new tools and features which have grown into the vast and comprehensive set  available today.

Earlier this year, SolidWorks reached a major milestone of 1,000,000 licenses sold. With such a large customer base, with a very large percentage of these users actively engaged in the SolidWorks community, it would not be fair to keep adding new "niche" features to satisfy some very narrow criteria. SolidWorks 2010, takes a look at the core tools which everyone uses, every day, and has refined, tuned and improved these. The algorithms used have been streamlined making them faster and more efficient. You will notice lots of small, but significant enhancements to several regularly used commands allowing you to work smarter and faster.

Things which were not possible in 2009 and earlier, such as creating a mirrored version of a part and having the handed version in the same part file but a different configuration, complete customisation of the heads up display toolbar, multi-body sheet metal parts, might not sound like ground-breaking new technology but they all add up to a much nicer user experience.

However, there is still a wealth of new innovations in SolidWorks 2010. Just one example of this is SustainabilityXpress. Once again SolidWorks leads the way, bringing technology never before seen associated with CAD, brought to your finger tips.

See for yourself, download it now. Simply go to Help > Check for Updates in SolidWorks 2009.

To maximise your return on investment, make sure you attend one of our What's New in SolidWorks 2010 launch days. The main event at Gaydon is fully booked but we will be holding smaller, local events closer to all of our regional offices. If you cannot wait for one of these events, why not check out the online videos of what's new. Click the link at the top of the page to Demo Videos and follow the link to see the highlights of what's new in SolidWorks 2010.

Over the last few years, SolidWorks has become a very powerful Industrial Design tool capable of creating some very complex geometry.

A few years ago, if someone had asked you to design a car in SolidWorks, you may have struggled with the few surfacing tools that were available in 2006 and earlier versions. But the power and robustness of these tools has come along way and with new additions like the boundary surface, much more is possible. Take a look at http://www.solidworksaudir8.com/ for a step by step tutorial on how to model an Audi R8 in SolidWorks. There is a sped up video online which shows how it is done... http://solidworksaudir8.com/watch-video-now.php



However, the surface tools should not be looked at as purely a way to create complex geometry, they are incredibly useful for all kinds of things. Since a surface has no thickness, it has no mass. This means you can use these to great effect in Library features, to use as mating faces, as points of reference, ways to split components into two and when you have finished, you can simply hide the surface and the mass properties remain correct.

Surface modelling is often misunderstood and feared by a lot of SolidWorks users. There really is no need though. If you look at the Solid Features in SolidWorks, you have Extrude, Revolve, Sweep, Loft. In Surfaces, you have Extrude, Revolve, Sweep, Loft. The property managers are all the same, the only difference is, with the surface commands, the sketches just require a single line rather than a closed contour.

At Solid Solutions, we run a 2 day course which goes through all the tools and techniques required for successful Surface Modelling. There is also a Certified SolidWorks Professional: Surfacing Specialist exam you can take. Give us a call at HQ and we can get you booked on. 01926 623160.

Give surfacing a go!

It's very nearly that time of year again already. It seems to get faster every year! The next version of SolidWorks is almost upon us.

For the first time, have a sneak preview of some of the new features and enhancements directly on the Solid Solutions website. Click on the Demo Videos link at the top of the screen and then choose the What's New link.

Also, registration for the Solid Solutions 2010 Main Launch Event is open. This year, Jeff Ray, CEO of Dassault Systemes SolidWorks Corporation will be our special and exclusive guest. This clearly shows the commitment to Solid Solutions and to the UK that comes from the very top.

We also have 9 separate technical sessions so whether you will be going straight to 2010 or not, you will still benefit from the launch day.

Remember, remember the 5th of November! Click here to register your place now.

CAD files can get to quite a size. Sending them to other people can be a nightmare. There are a number of ways they can be sent to view and review but sometimes you just need to send the actual native files.

There are a number of options. You could use a tool like Skype or Windows Live Messenger to send the files over but this is not very convenient if the recipient is not online at the time you need to send them. FTP sites are a useful alternative but they are not always that simple to use. They also require someone to set them up, manage them and you need to remember more passwords!

Recently, I rediscovered a website called YouSendIt.com. They offer a range of services for transferring or storing large files.



The most basic service they offer is completely free of charge and lets you send files of up to 100mb at a time up to 2Gb per month. It is very easy to use and there is even an add in to Outlook which lets you create an email as normal, click the YouSendIt Attachment button rather than the normal attachment button and it attaches a link to the email and uploads the file to yousendit.com all in one go. The recipient then clicks the link on the email attachment and it downloads the file. It's incredibly simple and very convenient for everyone involved. No extra work and no passwords to remember!



Give it a try, you have nothing to lose. Great for sending us those big models you need some support with. You do not even have to enter any credit card details to use the free trial of their higher level services.