The SolidWorks Blog

Technical Tip: Toolbar Flyouts

This blog post is the fifth in a series of technical tips about the SolidWorks User Interface. Call the series "Everything you wanted to know about -----, but were afraid to ask". The first few posts will be about the various types of toolbars available in the system. This post is about Toolbar Flyouts in SolidWorks.

Toolbar Flyouts

There are two general types of toolbar flyouts in SolidWorks.

1. Toolbar associated flyouts- These flyouts are derived from the regular toolbars and were introduced in SolidWorks 2004. Think of these as taking a regular toolbar and embedding it into another toolbar as a single button. When you hit the button, it flies out a list of all of the commands that are defined on the regular toolbar associated with that flyout. To change the definition of the flyout, you simply make the regular toolbar visible, customize the buttons that are on that toolbar, and then hide the toolbar. Add-in toolbars, if implemented using the CommandManager APIs, automatically create a toolbar associated flyout for each API toolbar. The Reference Geometry and Curve toolbar flyouts as shown below are examples of toolbar associated flyouts that are shown on the Features tab of the CommandManager by default.
                 
2. Hard coded flyouts- These flyouts were introduced in SolidWorks 2008 to allow more flexibility in grouping similar commands together into single buttons. There is a predefined set of these flyouts in SolidWorks and they cannot at this time be customized by the user (although we are considering adding customizability in the future if there is enough demand). There are three different behaviors for these flyouts:

• Simple flyout- this type of flyout has one single behavior whether you hit the icon or arrow portion of the flyout (the mouse over effects only show one "hit" zone). The behavior is to always flyout and show the commands that are defined on the flyout (same behavior as the toolbar associated flyouts). The icon shown on the top level button is an icon chosen to represent all of the contents of the flyout. The View Settings flyout on the Heads-Up View Toolbar is an example of a simple flyout:
              
• Last used flyout- these flyouts have two zones on the top level button, one for the icon, and one for the arrow flyout. The icon portion always shows and executes the last command used from the flyout. The Line flyout on the sketch tab of the CommandManager is an example of a last used flyout:
              
• Most commonly used flyout- these flyouts have two zones on the top level button, one for the icon, and one for the arrow flyout. The icon portion always shows and executes the first command listed on the flyout. When we defined these flyouts, we put the most commonly used command of the group at the top of the flyout list. The Pattern flyout on the Features tab of the CommandManager is an example of a most commonly used flyout:
              

We chose to implement these three different behaviors so that we had flexibility depending on the type of commands on the flyout. Our research showed that the majority of users disliked the top level icon always changing to the most recently used command, especially in cases where the icons of the commands within the flyout are drastically different. In such cases, users would have trouble finding the button again once the icon changed. For cases where the icons are similar and there is no clear “winner” on the flyout as to what users would use most (such as rectangle), we used the "last used" type. For cases where there was clearly one type of command used more than others (such as Line vs. Construction Line or Convert Entities vs. Intersection Curve) we chose the "most common" type. The simple flyout is the least used but is used in cases where we want to group less commonly used commands under one button.

You add flyouts to the toolbars in the same manner as other toolbar buttons; drag/drop them from the Tools, Customize, Commands dialog. The flyouts are available from the “Toolbar Flyouts” category. The image below shows the customize dialog for the flyouts category and highlights the different types of flyouts (this is the order they are always shown in this dialog):

A general behavior of all toolbar flyouts is that only commands that are currently available show on the flyout; i.e. if a command is currently grayed out in the top level menus, it is completely hidden from the flyout. This is a similar behavior to the right mouse button context menus where unavailable commands are hidden.

Lastly, there are some other hard coded flyouts "sprinkled" throughout other toolbars in the system that have special behaviors and do not fall into the architecture described above. Examples of these are the Select, Undo and Redo flyouts in the Standard toolbar and the Change Suppression State button in the Assembly toolbar.

If users see anything I have missed about Toolbar Flyouts in this blog post, please comment and I will try to update the blog.

The next two topics in the series about toolbars will be:

• The Shortcut Bar ('S' key)
• Context Toolbars

Enjoy,
Wilkie

Jim Wilkinson

Confusing terminology

Sometimes you come across a term in simulation that doesn’t make much sense and seems to have been put there to confuse and confound. One such term that I was asked about recently is the purpose of the Jacobian check, a mesh checking tool that I know hardly anyone uses but is one of those things that can be very useful.

The whole purpose of checking your mesh is to see if it is well defined. A highly deformed element becomes inaccurate and a mesh created with whole regions of badly defined elements will just serve to lead you astray. And where do elements tend to become deformed? In areas of highly curved geometry, which is often where you are interested in knowing the results.

So what is the Jacobian check I hear you say? Well, consider a normal tetrahedral element with mid-sided nodes.

If those mid-sided nodes lie directly between the corner nodes, then the element is not deformed. However, the moment you begin to move the mid-sided nodes away from this line, to track the edge of a piece of geometry say, then the element begins to deform.

The Jacobian check is a measure of how deformed your element has become. A perfectly straight sided element has a Jacobian of 1.0 and is ideal, and the Jacobian ratio increases as the curvature of the edges increase.

The actual calculation is done based on a series of points inside the element called Gaussian points. The user can choose how many of these points to use in the Jacobian check when they create the mesh by selecting 4, 16, 29, or the node locations as the points at which to base the calculations on.

So performing a mesh quality check for the Jacobian generates a contour plot allowing you to identify areas where you may need to increase your mesh density, replacing a few badly deformed elements with a greater number of better shaped elements.

In the example below my test component has firstly been meshed with a course mesh and then a Jacobian check has been performed. The legend reports a Jacobian ratio of 1.0 as blue and shows how the main body of the straight edged geometry can be nicely modelled with straight edged elements. But the hole in the middle requires the element edges to become curved and so the Jacobian ratio increases, here to a value of 1.59.

Simply remeshing with a fine mesh improves the maximum Jacobian ratio to 1.19 showing how more elements around the circle mean they are less mishapen.

It is generally accepted that a Jacobian ratio below about 40 is acceptable in most cases so you have to balance mesh density with run-times, perhaps refining the mesh with controls in certain areas rather than across the entire part. And as I’ve said before, always have a sanity check and ask yourself if the highest Jacobian ratio is in an area where you will see the highest stresses anyway.

Technorati Tags: Tips & Tricks,SolidWorks Simulation,Jacobian Ratio

PhotoView 360 Rendering Contest Extended

I just got word that the PhotoView 360 Rendering Contest is being extended for two additional weeks, for a total of five. Entries for week 3 are still due by 4:59 EDT tomorrow, but if you haven't entered yet, you have more time. You can find the updated rules here.

I've also been told that we'll be choosing three grand prize winners instead of two.

So keep those entries coming!

Technical Tip: SolidWorks Heads-Up View Toolbar

This blog post is the fourth in a series of technical tips about the SolidWorks User Interface. Call the series "Everything you wanted to know about -----, but were afraid to ask". The first few posts will be about the various types of toolbars available in the system. This post is about the SolidWorks Heads-Up View Toolbar.

Heads-Up View Toolbar

The Heads-Up View Toolbar was added at the top of the document graphics area in SolidWorks 2008 to provide easy access to viewing functions that affect the graphics area. Below is an image of the default Heads-Up View Toolbar.

In SolidWorks 2008 and 2009, this toolbar contains a limited set of viewing commands and which commands are currently visible on the toolbar is controlled by using the right mouse button shortcut menu on the toolbar. To completely hide the toolbar in SolidWorks 2008 or 2009, you must deselect all of the buttons in the visibility list. If you have hidden the entire toolbar to make it visible again, move your mouse to the very center of the top of the graphics area and hit the right mouse button to get the visibility menu.

Starting with SolidWorks 2010, this toolbar has been upgraded to be consistent with normal toolbars; hide/show visibility of the entire toolbar is controlled in the same manner as regular toolbars and customization is also handled in the same manner (i.e. any button can be added/removed from the toolbar through the use of Tools, Customize). The only differences between this toolbar and a regular toolbar are: 1) It cannot be undocked. 2) Visibility control is stored twice; once for drawings and once for parts/assemblies. 3) Customization of what buttons are shown is stored twice instead of once; once for drawings and once for parts/assemblies.

This toolbar shows in the currently "active" viewport of the graphics area (of which there is only one by default so it is always visible). To activate a viewport, click in the viewport.

When we added the Heads-Up View Toolbar, we also added some new flyout toolbar buttons to make some of the most common viewing functions easier to access. These flyouts can be placed on any toolbar (not just the Heads-Up View Toolbar) by dragging them from Tools, Customize, Commands, View. The specific view flyouts that we added in SolidWorks 2008 are:

View Orientation- This flyout has all of the standard view orientations, user defined orientations, and options for splitting/linking the viewports. The standard views are shown in a common orientation that is easier to interpret than the linear layout of the View Orientation dialog or the Standard Views toolbar. Below is an image of the view orientation flyout shown with two user defined views on it.

Display Style- This flyout consolidates the five different display styles into one flyout, occupying less space. The user can still customize the interface to have the individual display style buttons on their toolbar if they use certain styles more often than others and want direct access with one click instead of two.

Hide/Show Items - This flyout performs the same function as selecting items to hide/show in the top level View menu, but overcomes the number one complaint about the menu which is you cannot select/deselect multiple items without invoking the menu multiple times. Unfortunately, the single select behavior is a behavior of Microsoft menus which cannot be overridden, so we introduced the Hide/Show Items flyout as an improved method to hide/show multiple display items. The image below was taken in SolidWorks 2010 where starting with Beta3, the icon in the lower right corner is used for toggling dimension names on/off (this is now a per document setting instead of a system setting).

Apply Scene- This flyout was added to easily change between different background scenes. You can cycle to the next scene in the list by pushing the icon portion of the button or you can choose a specific scene by using the flyout portion. Users often ask how to make their background white and the image below shows the "Plain White" background selected. Note that scenes are per document, so if you don't want to use different scenes for different documents (i.e. you want a plain white or other background for ALL documents), go to Tools, Options, System Options, Colors and choose from one of the other options under "Background appearance".

Display Settings - This flyout contains three less commonly used display settings (again, consolidated into one flyout to save space). Again, the user can customize the interface to have these individual display style buttons on their toolbar if desired.

If users see anything I have missed about the Heads-Up View Toolbar in this blog post, please comment and I will try to update the blog.

The next few topics in the series about toolbars will be:

• Toolbar Flyouts
• The Shortcut Bar ('S' key)
• Context Toolbars

Enjoy,
Wilkie

Jim Wilkinson

The SolidWorks 2010 Website Is Live!

I won't waste your time with lots of writing. Just click on this link right here to visit the SolidWorks 2010 website. There's lots of goodies for you.

This week, its all about SolidWorks 2010

This week is all about SolidWorks 2010… Beta 3 is available through the customer portal and the NDA has been lifted. Check out the Blog roll for new features in SW2010… These guys are right on the mark and have already posted some great reviews. Also be sure to check back here for the first of our SW2010 posts.

For myself this week I am adding the finishing touches to my presentations for our Reseller meeting on Wednesday. On this day we show all the SW2010 goodness to the whole channel.

Fingers crossed it goes well :)

I will leave you with a quick SW2010 snippet…

If you like to add Dimensions manually to the drawing using the dim tool. Look out for the Rapid Dimension Glyph…

Select any edges you want to dimension and the glyph appears… click one of the segments and SolidWorks automatically places and organises that dimension for you. Not many things in CAD deserve the word “Cool” but I think this does!! :)

Don’t take my word for it… try it out!

Technorati Tags: SolidWorks 2010,SolidWorks Drawings,Tips and Tricks

PhotoView 360 Rendering Contest: Week 2 Winners

Yes, we're ready to announce the winners of the second week of the contest. They are, in no particular order...

Rob Rodriguez

Tyler Wheeler

Lars Petersen

You can go here to view all of the entries (at much larger sizes) from week 2. And don't forget, we're now accepting entries for week 3 of the contest. Send in an entry and it could be your name here next week.

Now live: 3D ContentCentral 2010 Beta program

The beta announcements are coming fast a furious lately, what with the PhotoView 360 beta contest announced last week, the new referral program and general SolidWorks 2010 beta goodness. So what's one more going to hurt?

Today, we are announcing the start of 3D Content Central Beta 2010. According to the 3DCC site,

"The 2010 3D ContentCentral Beta program is the first public availability of the 2010 3D ContentCentral.com release. The Beta program is designed to be the unveiling of new features planned for the 2010 release and provide community members with the opportunity to report issues and potential improvements.

The 2010 Beta Program is different than previous Beta programs in that there will be no contest. Participants are invited to earn product discounts by completing tasks, but no prizes or beta points will be awarded.

Any area of the 3D ContentCentral Beta site is open for testing. This year, submitting a Beta issue is easier than ever before, and there is a tremendous amount of new functionality to be tested. All 3D ContentCentral users and suppliers are welcome to participate in Beta.

Users will have the chance to explore new search tools, 2D content usability improvements, real time site activity feedback, and more."

So if you're interested, go on over to the 3DCC website and get started.

PhotoView 360 Rendering Contest: Week 1 Winners

Last week we announced the PhotoView 360 2010 Beta rendering contest. This week we're happy to announce the first three winners, as follows. Click on each image to view a larger version.

Jim Holland

Scott Baugh

Ralph Tide

If you didn't enter last week, there's still time to enter the Week 2 contest. Just click the link at the top to learn more and submit your entry. We'll be back next week with more winners.

Getting dropped

Preparing to demonstrate a drop test the other day, I was reminded of a useful procedure for creating a suitable mesh and thought you might like to know about it. 

1. Identify the surface that will hit the ground first during the drop test.
2. Create a static study.
3. Add a fixed restraint to the surface identified in the first step above.
4. Apply a reasonable gravity loading (e.g. 10g).
5. Then run an h-adaptive study with a fine accuracy setting.
6. Create the drop test study and then drag and drop the mesh from the static study on to it.
7. Continue with the drop test.

By using an h-adaptive mesh, you should find the elements are refined in the regions most suitable for the drop test. Sneaky but cool.

 

Technorati Tags: SolidWorks Simulation,Drop Test,Simulation Tips & Tricks,Meshing