Solidworks Workflow

New Seamless SOLIDWORKS Workflow with Proven Advanced Simulation (Abaqus) and Faster Collaboration

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

When I was a teenager in the late 80s, I was interested in photography (these days referred to as old-school photography). I bought my first camera, a second-hand Minolta SRT, all manual, without electronics and automation. It was a high-quality product. Taking a good photo was an art, as it took time and skill to master manually focusing the subject, the lighting, and the shutter speed. There was also a direct cost for each photo, as I had to buy film and pay to have the photos developed (and for several copies, if I wanted to share them). Today most people have a smartphone. They take photos just by touching a screen with the tip of a finger and see the amazing results instantaneously, and with just another touch, share them with friends and family. In the 80s, photography using a manual camera was an art. For some mechanical engineers, performing real simulation techniques for simulating structure behavior, such as finite element analysis (FEA), is also an art. It takes time and skill to obtain meaningful results, which are traditionally written up in a long report and shared via email or a shared drive.   Solidworks Workflow: Solidworks Simulation for All However, times have changed, and as part of its simulation democratization journey, SOLIDWORKS® now offers easy-to-access, easy-to-use, and easy-to-share advanced simulation solutions so anyone can solve every problem with the market leader SIMULIA technology (for structural simulation, this is the proven Abaqus technology). In addition, the 3DEXPERIENCE WORKS simulation portfolio offers not only Structure, but also Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Plastic Injection, and Simulation Review.   Simulation sub-domains in the 3DEXPERIENCE WORKSFLOW portfolio Now that you understand the power of the simulation you can access, you may wonder just how easy it is. The idea is simple. From your favorite CAD SOLIDWORKS, in one click you can access the SIMULIA technology, solve (locally or on the cloud), and get results, and with another click, share the results with colleagues.   How does it work? Let’s take, for example, the industrial spreader assembly drop test. A new SOLIDWORKS Workflow accesses 3DEXPERIENCE® advanced simulation and collaborative apps 1. In SOLIDWORKS, open your CAD model from a traditional file (if you are not yet on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform) and save it in 3DEXPERIENCE using the task pane. 2. In SOLIDWORKS Workflow, open your CAD model from a traditional file (if you are not yet on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform) and save it in 3DEXPERIENCE using the task pane. 3. Your model opens automatically in the desired simulation app. 4. Set up your simulation: Create a drop test scenario, mesh the geometry, and apply the material, boundary conditions, and loads. 5. If you have only a CAD model, an interactive assistant guides you through the steps of setting up your simulation. All the functionalities you need for a given simulation are available, depending on which role you selected. If you have SOLIDWORKS CAD with simulation studies, simulation set-up automatically transfers, which will save you set-up time in 3DEXPERIENCE. Run the simulation locally or in the cloud. Review the results and access all the post-processing tools you need to analyze the results in depth. 6. In SOLIDWORKS, make a design change (e.g., change a fillet dimension to reduce the possibility of failure) and save the model. You can create a new revision, or overwrite the existing model. 7. Update the simulation in one click, re-run the simulation, and compare the results between the two designs. Easily share the simulation with your boss using a 3D dashboard so he/she can review the same results in a lightweight app.   Everything You Need at Your Fingertips These days everybody is a photographer, and everybody shares high-quality pictures every day. All designers and engineers deserve easy access to advanced simulation and collaboration to boost innovation, accelerate product development, improve product quality, and reduce product validation costs. If you are not using simulation, chances are your competitor is, and guess what: you might realize it too late. Think about it. You can access all the simulation technology you need today from your favorite CAD: SOLIDWORKS Workflow.    

3DEXPERIENCE World

3DEXPERIENCE World 2022 SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List: Now Open for Submissions

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

It’s that time of year again! The drive for ideas in the annual 3DEXPERIENCE World 2022 SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List is happening right now! Every year SOLIDWORKS users have the ability to participate in sharing their best enhancement ideas for SOLIDWORKS. At the end of the idea submission phase, the SOLIDWORKS user base can then vote for their favorite ideas. The timing of the Top Ten list coincides with the 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 conference. This year the conference will be a virtual event taking place from February 8-12, 2021. It doesn’t matter if you’ve only been using SOLIDWORKS products for a year or twenty years. Your ideas will be read by other SOLIDWORKS users and the Product Definition team at SOLIDWORKS!  When it comes time.  Also, there’s a great track record for the implementation of Top Ten ideas!   A platform for SOLIDWORKS Top Ten As with last year, the platform upon which the Top Ten List resides is 3DSwym. So, if you are new or you didn’t submit an idea last year, please see the main SOLIDWORKS Forum article and video. There’s information on how to access the Top Ten. Once you have access to the Top Ten forum, check out the video at the top called “Starting Here: Informational Video!” Important Dates Idea Submission Open: November 10th, 2020 through January 4th, 2021 Voting Open: January 4th through February 1st, 2021 3DEXPERIENCE WORLD: February 8-12, 2021 Do you have no ideas? Your input is still important! This isn’t just for people who want to submit an idea. This is for all current SOLIDWORKS users to see what’s on everyone else’s minds. Maybe you don’t have an idea yourself, but you find that someone else’s idea might disrupt your own workflows. Your thoughts about proposed changes to the software are very important!  Likewise, perhaps you see a great idea that needs a bit more polishing to better suit your own needs. Your input about that is also very important! There are already some great ideas to check out: Make Face Curves Editable BOM to Filter Visible Components Left-Hand Cosmetic Threads In a “Multiple Page Drawing” scenario, Add a Property Tab to Change Draw Format Have fun reading everyone else’s ideas and hopefully submitting your own as well! If you have any more questions in regards to how you can participate, watch this informative video on exactly what to do. Click on the banner below to register for free for the event.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize

What’s New in SOLIDWORKS Visualize 2022

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

SOLIDWORKS Visualize 2022 SOLIDWORKS Visualize continues to release enhancements that elevate its useability, performance, and output quality—and Visualize 2022 is no exception. Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the top enhancements. Be sure to check out the complete list of Visualize enhancements: What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2022. SOLIDWORKS CAD Configuration Support Visualize 2022 provides tighter integration with SOLIDWORKS CAD by offering full support for part and assembly configurations. If you are eager to test this out, make sure to enable the Add Display Data Mark option to make configurations available after the import process. Managing what configurations are loaded into the Visualize project through this option is a nice way to keep performance optimal during import. The Add Display Data Mark option allows you to move between configurations after the model has been imported into Visualize, which opens up tons of possibilities and streamlines workflows. Previously, this was managed with multiple projects, or you had to import the part/assembly multiple times into the same project. One thing to keep in mind: You now have two sets of configurations when the model is imported. The Visualize configurations still manage the appearances, scenes, and so forth, while the Model configurations give access to the different geometry brought in from the import. How do they work together? Let’s look at an example. Figure 1 shows the CAD model’s Default configuration with a regal red appearance applied at the REGAL RED Base Configuration. Figure 2 shows that once the model is switched to the Bracket and Housing configuration, the regal red no longer appears since it is tied only to the Default assembly configuration.   Figure 1 – REGAL RED Configuration Figure 2 – Bracket and Housing Configuration Part and Appearance Selection Visualize 2022 now offers a faster, more direct method to move from part to appearance selection modes. While active in PART selection mode—which for most of us using Visualize 2022 will be our go-to selection mode—a single click will select the part, and a double click will grab the part’s appearance (See Figure 3). This subtle but powerful enhancement is sure to speed up your workflows when setting up static image and animation rendering projects. Figure 3 – Select and Grab Part Appearance Capped Cutting Planes Capped cutting planes (or section views) are a great way to show internal designs and complexity in your part and assembly renderings. With Visualize 2022, section cut planes have a few enhancements that make them even more powerful than before by introducing capped sections and color options. These are found within the options after the capped section has been created (See Figure 4). Figure 4 – Capped Cutting Planes Pro Tip: If you run into surfaces that appear to be bleeding through each other, try applying a small amount of scale to the parts that share coincident faces. This is a quick fix to let Visualize know which surface is on top/bottom of each other and appropriately rendered. Toon Filter Effect Rendering is synonymous with photorealism but is not always needed for product communication, especially early in the design process. Visualize 2022 offers a new Toon camera filter available in Visualize professional. With an existing camera selected or a new camera created, the Enable Toon Option is available on the Filters tab. There are a few preset options to play around with, but the Toon Filter offers full customization of the line colors and shading styles. This MIGHT be one of the COOLEST enhancements for 2022. Figure 5 – Toon Filter Option PRO TIPS: Use the Toon Shaded “shaded” style and Toon Detail options for some great conceptual renderings! Another tip is to create duplicates of cameras and enable this option. When queueing all cameras, a standard renders along with a toon render will be added to the Visualize queue. Displacement Maps Previous versions of SOLIDWORKS Visualize allowed you to apply displacement maps, which give 3D textures to CAD models. These surfaces are often skipped in the modeling process because they can add unnecessary complexity such as tread plated steel, knurling operations, and 3D printed textures, to name a few. Displacement maps are based on greyscale images to tell the software how much to push/pull the surface and where; it’s similar to how a topology map (Figure 6) illustrates elevation contours on a 2D map. New in Visualize 2021 is the ability to control the density of how these displacement maps (Figure 7) are calculated, essentially giving the user the ability to change the density of the topology lines in our map analogy. Figure 6 – Topology Map Figure 7 – Displacement Map Want to learn more about What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2022? Make sure to check out the complete video playlist on the SOLIDWORKS YouTube channel, and don’t forget to comment on the Visualize What’s New Video. We’d love to hear about YOUR favorite enhancement in this year’s release.