The SolidWorks Blog

Flying High with Martin Aircraft

What do Buzz Lightyear, Boba Fett and The Rocketeer all have in common? All three are fictional characters that sport jetpacks and turn into high-flying stars. The characters also helped us dream of a day when mankind can fly without the confines of an airplane or helicopter –- a dream that is now a reality thanks to the Martin Jetpack.

Where are you using eDrawings for iPad?

We announced eDrawings® for iPad earlier this month, and the response has been incredible. If you haven't done it already, you can download eDrawings® for iPad today from the Apple store , and you can learn more about the features and functionality on the SolidWorks website.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining what the app does, because you can learn all of that in the video below. What I really want to know is how you've been using eDrawings for iPad over the past four weeks? Have you found yourself using it on a shop floor or job site? Airplane or customer office? Showing off your work to grandma? Let us know the most interesting or unexpected place you've used the app, and post pictures if you can.

SolidWorks Partner Profile: InspectionXpert

Tell us about InspectionXpert. What do you do?

We are a software development company that provides automation tools for quality inspection departments. We sell versions of InspectionXpert that work with PDF/TIFF files and with CAD software such as SolidWorks.

 

Why should SolidWorks customers be interested in your product?

Most companies who manufacture products or receive manufactured products need to inspect those products to make sure the finished parts meet the original design specifications so they can be sure the parts will fit or work as intended. 

When parts are inspected, most companies print out a manufacturing drawing and manually add balloons or bubbles to the drawing to identify what should be inspected. Then they hand write or key data into an inspection report form. Those two items are used to capture the results of the inspection, so they will have a record of whether these parts pass or fail the inspection. 

InspectionXpert automates the creation of the ballooned drawing and the inspection report form either from a PDF/TIFF file or directly from SolidWorks. This usually means about 60% to 90% time savings. 

What are your customers saying about InspectionXpert?

What we hear from customers is that InspectionXpert is that it's easy to use, and is a huge time saver for them.  One of our customers told us “Even on a six- or seven-sheet drawing, with a couple of hundred dimensions, with InspectionXpert, at the most it would take us five minutes to create an inspection sheet [using InspectionXpert for SolidWorks].”

 

How can SolidWorks customers learn more about your products?

Phone:  800.379.0322

Website: www.inspectionxpert.com

Email: sales@inspectionxpert.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/extensiblecad                           

Blog: http://www.inspectionxpert.com/CompanyInfo/Blog/tabid/175/language/en-US/Default.aspx

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/extensiblecad

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/InspectionXpert

Where in the World Have You Seen a SolidWorks World Bag?

Each year, SolidWorks fans from across the globe convene in one place, for one event – SolidWorks World. In addition to the networking and learning about interesting things their peers are doing with the software, attendees look forward to the swag (stuff we all get), usually a new SolidWorks backpack. People write into SolidWorks forums asking whether they will be getting a new bag; attendees share photos on their blogs; and the Twitter feeds are full of comments about the bags floating around the event’s host city. While the SolidWorks bag might look a little different each year, it has become a recognizable symbol of SolidWorks users. It’s a way for SolidWorks users to spot each other on their way home from and long after the annual event.

SolidWorks Configuration Publisher: Taking File Configuration to the Next Level

If you have a part or assembly file and it has configurable properties SolidWorks has many possibilities to be able to create those different versions of your file. You can start simple with a few simple configurations, from there you add in Design Tables which allow you to control your configurations with and Excel chart. We are going to take it one step further today and show you how the Configuration Publisher which will allow us to define a custom Property Manager for selecting configurations of part and assembly files.

The property manager that we are able to create for our files is very similar to the Property Manager users are used to seeing when inserting Toolbox Fasteners.

 

There are two different ways to create a Configuration Publisher with in SolidWorks and which one you use depends on the file you have and what you are trying to accomplish with that file. The first is what I would call an “open ended” file in that there an unlimited number of configurations that you can create. The second is what I would call a “closed set” file in that there is a very specific set of variables and possible configurations. There are pros and cons to each of these methods and you will need to decide
what is going to work best for your particular case.

So to create the Configuration Publisher for a file that has an “open ended” set of configurations you need to create a Single Line Design Table. In this design table you will want to include all of the parameters that might have the ability to change, including all custom properties.

One tip I like to point out is using the powers of Excel for items like concatenations to automatically create your Custom Properties for description and part number.

Once your Design Table is created you will need to go to the Configuration tab and Right Click on the Part Name and choose Configuration Publisher. In the Configuration Publisher dialog box, you build the custom PropertyManager in the center pane. You drag controls (list boxes, number boxes, and check boxes) from the palette on the left to the center, and set attributes for those controls in the pane on the right. You can see from the set of screen shots below we created controls for the different items we defined in our design table, there are several different options you can set for each control such as weather the control is dependent upon other properties, or you want it to perform with in a specific range. You can see what the completed Property Manager looks like below. (I have included the files used in the screen shots at the bottom of this article for everyone to review and use as an example.)

  

To create the Configuration Publisher for a file that has a “closed set” of configurations is a little simpler in that we need to create a Full Design Table that includes all of our possible configurations. You also need to make sure that you have a row for each configuration, a column for each variable and
a value for each variable.

Once your Design Table is created you will need to go to the Configuration tab and Right Click on the Part Name and choose Configuration Publisher. The Configuration Publisher dialog box appears and the design table opens in a separate window. Because the design table has multiple rows and contains values for each variable and for each configuration, a control appears in the palette for each variable in the design table. All you need to do now is drag each variable you want displayed to the center pane and in the right hand edit are enter the Name and set the options for each item. You can see what the completed Property Manager looks like below. (I have included the files used in the screen shots at the bottom of this article for everyone to review and use as an example.)

If you would like some additional information on Configurations and Design Tables, please take a look at a presentation I did with a former CATI colleague Joe Rowesy at SolidWorks World this year.Download DesignTables The Complete Story-SWW2012

Example Files Download Config_Publisher-Single-Multi

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Josh Altergott is Support Manager at Computer Aided Technology, a SolidWorks Value Added Reseller with locations in Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Wisconsin and Illinois. He is a regular contributor to the CATI Tech Notes blog.

Viewing options in SolidWorks: zoom to fit no more!

When using Standard Views in SolidWorks models and assembles, the resulting view of the model is normally Zoom to fit. So, if you are zoomed in on to see a particular feature of a very long part, when you change from Front View to Rear View (to see the backside of that feature), the model will be resized to fit to screen. You will no longer be zoomed on your feature of interest.

SolidWorks offers you an alternative behavior. A toggle setting is available under Tools>Options…>System Options>View. Unselect the Zoom to fit when changing to standard views option. While this setting is unchecked, swtiching between Standard Views will no longer force the model to zoom to fit.