Its been a long time coming, but I finally have something to show you in the way of a SolidWorks World Survival guide.
This all started this past January while having dinner with my friend Ben Eadie. After remarking that I sure have learned a lot between my first SWW (2005) and this one (2008) he suggested that I think about putting together some sort of survival guide. Well I started writing that day and it sure took a lot longer than I expected. On that note I sure do appreciate the Bloggers among us who spend endless hours at their keyboard typing away with, mostly, very interesting things to say. I hope you find this useful. There are many people to thank.
Its about friggin time, SolidWorks has re-done their web page. It was getting a bit complex. Now it is easier to navigate and is much more pleasing to the eyes. Also with help from Josh Mings of SolidSmack fame helping out it has a nice ring to it.
On my quest for world records I have come accross some great people. One of them is Roz Savage and she has rowed accross the Atlantic and is almost half way across the Pacific and about to land in Hawaii. She is doing this for the environment and so far has done this on donations alone. Here is the favor I ask of you. Please go to the Members Project for american express and vote for Roz to help her get the funding she needs to finish crossing the ocean and to help bring awareness to what we are doing to our planet. You do not have to have a american express card all you have to do is sign up as a guest member and vote. PLAEASE PLEASE do this for me will ya. Come on I provide this great site for free and I ask very little of you. Now I am just asking for a few moments of your time to help us saver our planet. SO GO VOTE!!!! And do it before Sept 1st. Sorry for the short notice but any vote helps.
Insert.... 'It has been brought to my attention that some of you are not the "Environmental type" and that is fine but keep two things in mind. 1. Environmental or not we need to keep the planet clean and that is one of the benifits of this. 2. She has just about rowed two oceans and I would bet she could kick your butt, so vote or I will sick her on you :)'
Although this is not as accurate as Laser Scanning it is a really interesting way to 3D scan and it is almost too easy to believe. More info can be found at NewScientist
Have a read here on my thoughts on SolidWorks 2009. Also spread the word, this is a great Canadian trade publication that has metric ton of great content for everyone world wide.
Matt Lombard recently wrote a great post on SolidWorks stability and crashes that you need to read.
I may disagree with some of the things he says about Macs', but I hacked the hardware on mine... I am one of those guys that home builds computers and is successful re:"If you are crashing all the time and you have built your own, you are not one of them. Sorry." Heck I built my own 3d laser scanner. But if I jumped out into traffic would you?
He has some great recommendations and points that all of us should read and take to heart. I do not know how many times I have given this lecture to my clients. Thanks Matt now I just have to give them the URL to your post :)
Just got a really cool screen capture at a high resolution tutorial off of the SW forums. This was submitted by the infamous Michael Wilson. Here is the link and wow Mike seriously cool, thank you. It is a day late for my but I am positive it will come in handy in the future. Link to the PDF
At www.Mountain-Wave.blogspot.com I have posted a new tutorial but you will notice from this attached video that you can leave comments in the time line (Hint. Click the little round ball icon on the time line...). So feel free to experiment and add your comments, tags and video. White markers in the time line are video and text comments, black are kind of like chapter tags for tag words and Yellow are relevant ads and I will look further into this format for my future casts.
At stump the chump session it was asked how do you watermark a drawing? Well of course after the session an article came up in Cyberspace at one of my favorite information sites on how to do this
I read todays post on SolidSmack and think you should all check out his new post. With a quick tip you can win a workstation or iPhone... Remember to share your winnings with him
If you have been noticing by my recent avatars, I have been modeling interesting math shapes. Here's one that I couldn't figure out how to do. I can offer a prize of a candy bar, as that's all I have in my possession. Or this great looking SolidWorks hat I have sitting on my desk; your pick.
Now, I expect a true roman surface, not something that just looks close; although I will take spline approximations as good enough. Let me know if anyone can figure it out!
PS. Like a Moebius strip, it has neither an inside nor an outside, so don't even think of making it a solid; surfaces only!
Leave your answers here at this link You can use the donwloads section as well to leave models and such.
I wrote this in response to Matt Lombards column on Jan 25th, comparing SWW07 & 08.
Matt and I had lunch on Saturday at a kind of outside street fair thing and I mentioned that I had read Dr. Norman's book "Emotional Design" and I thought that he was a bit of a kook, but in the spirit of fairness, I listened to him on Tuesday morning with interest. (click on In Response... Above)
The situation --> a user not have any experience on apply a tolerance for some dimension. The correlation between two or more component can be sliding, press fit etc. below is the screen capture, I also attached the solidworks file.
Any body have some tips what feature in solidworks than can help a user that not have experience on applying a tolerance ?
can we use standard dim tolerance or we have use Tolerance Analysis ?
Any body can share experience or tips... ?
Thanks !!!
To reply and see the pictures attached to this message Click this link
Thirty three entries, forty eight total images, only one winner. Who will it be? The voting count down for the November PhotoWorks Rendering Contest has begun. In an attempt to keep voting as fair as possible the voting for the November contest will be a little different than past contest. For the November contest you will vote for your three favorite images. As with past contests each vote will be cast by clicking on the "vote for image X" link under each entry. You'll do this three separate times to vote for your three favorite images. Not only will this month's winner receive one of the standard SolidWorks prizes but their image will also be featured in Matt Lombard's new surfacing book arriving in April '08.
Thirty three entries, forty eight total images, only one winner. Who will it be? Only you can decide.
Some guy over at Comp.CAD.SolidWorks asked the below question and is being hit with a bunch of stuff that will not help him at all so how about we have a go at it?
I need a way to create a disc that has a random amount of holes on a BCD. I can control the disc diameter, disc thickness, hole diameter, and bolt circle diameter using equations and design tables. I cannot find a way to use a design table to control the amount of holes on the bolt circle. Can this be done or am I stuck in an AutoCad way of thinking?
Ben ------------------Edit---------------- This is in reference to my comments to CCSW
It has been brought to my attention that I may have come off as pompous and arrogant saying that 'real' answers can be found at SolidMentor and insinuating that at CCSW you cannot find answers. I did not mean that at all and apologize to those that took offense.
I was just tired of seeing someone get a ton of answers not related to his problem and offered another possible place to post his question. I still see value at CCSW and go there to view and very occasionally try and help out. I believe the more resources you exploit the better your answer to a problem can be and using CCSW is encouraged by me and the quality of answers is just as good there. Just you have to wade through a bunch of..... well I am sure you know what
Neil Jones a frequent contributor at the forum pointed out this link to me and although I have not gone though the tutorial I suspect it may be what some need to get going on surfacing
Hello All, my name is Muggs Ferguson and Im the VP of MARISUG (Mid-Atlantic Region Independent SolidWorks Users Group). Ben asked me to do a little write up on the goings on at the SWUGN Technical Summit Philadelphia. This is my first attempt at writing anything, so go easy, Im lucky I can even speak English, let alone put my thoughts down in words..... (click read more.... below)
Ok I have posted a quick intro to SolidMentor movie at You tube and also at Archive.org here is the link to the beter quality MOV file that you should donwload SolidMentor Introduction
Click HERE!
