The SolidWorks Blog

Can spatial aptitude tests help predict your success as an engineer?

Do you enjoy taking these tests?  I know I do.

On reviewing results from similar types of spatial aptitude tests, the results are basically: men test better than women, and those who test well make good engineers.  This may be so (my sister, however,  did well on these tests—she happens to be an electrical engineer), but I am interested in knowing if these tests can determine how good of an engineer you are, or if we can somehow use spatial tests to help us improve our abilities as engineers, or is this just the way we are wired.

After extensive research (okay, I spend about 30 minutes Googling), I could not find any research on this.  I would be very interested in knowing if the winners of the SolidWorks World Model Mania contest would also test higher than other engineers at special tests?  I wonder if we could expand our engineering skills by taking more tests.  Could those who do not test well on such tests improve over time? 

Any professor doing research on these topics, I would enjoy hearing from you.

And to all of the SolidWorks users out there, I'd love to hear our thoughts aw well. Leave them in the comment section below.

Replicating History: Teversham Engineering's Project to Rebuild the First Computer using SolidWorks

Today’s computers are lightning fast – they can enable you to do anything from communicating with your team remotely to performing complex calculations to improve your designs. Since its invention, the computer has helped scientists solve complex problems. Teversham Engineering in the United Kingdom is using SolidWorks to recreate digital technology of the past – the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, used by researchers at Cambridge University. As part of the EDSAC project, Teversham is building an authentic replica of one of the most important early British digital computers, originally designed in 1947 and built in 1949.

Using one surviving chassis, Teversham Engineering was able to record the original dimensions and remodel the computer in SolidWorks with ease.  Through the production of the replica in SolidWorks, Teversham has seen how powerful and adaptable computing has become since the 1940’s.

SolidWorks eDrawings has enabled engineers to share designs for sign-off. Through the email-enabled software, project volunteers have instant access to the dynamic 3D models, which they can rotate, zoom and annotate.

“Many volunteers are especially interested in the visual look of the replica – does it look like the original photographs? Seeing their excitement as they passed the iPad around the table was great to see”, said Alan Willis, Managing Director at Teversham Engineering.

Check out Teversham’s eDrawings designs of the EDSAC replica to see how far we’ve come in terms of digital technology.

Don't have eDrawings? You can download it from our website.

Download Teversham Engineering EDSAC eDrawings

Download Teversham Engineering EDSAC Chassis eDrawings

Introducing My.SolidWorks

Around the world, there’s a never-ending drive for increased productivity. For design teams, this means constant pressure to create more and better designs in less time.  This isn’t news, of course–it’s the reason SolidWorks was created, and it’s why we improve the product every year, with new capabilities and new ways of creating better designs faster.

Over the years, we’ve found that most users stick with a regular subset of the tools in SolidWorks. For most of you, there are lots of unexplored capabilities and techniques you’ve probably never applied. When faced with the need to use a new feature, a little help can sometimes go a long way in achieving just what you’re looking for in a design. 

The SolidWorks community website is a great place to turn for the insights you need to get the most out of SolidWorks.  With discussion forums, blog posts, online help and more, a visit to the SolidWorks community site will usually result in an answer.  And in cases where it doesn’t, it’s easy to pose a question – one of your fellow users can likely offer an advice.

To help build on that spirit of collaboration, we’re happy to announce the official release of My.SolidWorks.com. My.SolidWorks is a new online experience that makes engaging with the SolidWorks community easier than ever.  My.SolidWorks gives you a single place to find insight and expertise from all over the SolidWorks community. It lets you connect, discover and share anything and everything SolidWorks. 

If you’re in need of a quick answer to a question, My.SolidWorks provides immediate access to forum posts, online help, YouTube videos, blog posts and more. You can also search all of those sources for answers with a single click.  All of the relevant results are delivered on one page, making it much easier to get in, find an answer, and get back to your design.

We know that some of you visit the SolidWorks forums regularly, either to stay on top of updates and examples, or to help others with their SolidWorks questions.  If you want to keep your skills sharp or offer their expertise to others, My.SolidWorks represents a single place to engage about everything SolidWorks.

All My.SolidWorks users can benefit from bookmarking useful articles and the option to personalize the kinds of articles that are shown in your view of the community.  And My.SolidWorks makes it easy to share useful articles with others.  It provides a great value to your team and to you.

Anyone can use My.SolidWorks via a web browser at http://My.SolidWorks.com.  You’ll get the most capability when you’re logged in using your SolidWorks customer account. Customers with an active SolidWorks Subscription get additional value by accessing the content tied to a subscription also appears in My.SolidWorks.  We will be adding mobile capabilities--as well as an add-in to SolidWorks--soon. 

My.SolidWorks is available now – sign in or sign up today!

 

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Your Sketches

By CAPINC Applications Engineer, Laura Weismantel

One of the ways you can save time while building a model in SolidWorks is to never model the same feature twice. There are many tools that can be used to achieve this objective, such as the patterning and mirror commands. Something else that can help you with the same objective is to reuse your sketch geometry instead of re-drawing same or similar geometry as you build your part.

Popular techniques used to recycle sketch geometry are the Convert Entities and Offset sketching tools. The Contour Select tool can also be very helpful when you want to use the same sketch for multiple features. But these tools, however convenient, are only useful when the geometry you want to reuse lives with the same location and orientation to the rest of your model and the only difference is planar depth. What if the sketch entities you need to recreate should be at a different orientation to the part or even another part altogether? You may be thinking “Impossible!” but you couldn’t be more wrong.

There are three tools that can be used to accomplish this objective, two of which will be discussed here. Depending on your needs in reusing the sketch, you may decide to either create a derived sketch or perform a simple Copy/Paste operation. The key difference is a derived sketch will remain linked to the original sketch geometry so if you change the original sketch, the derived sketch will update, as well. This link can be broken, but it cannot be repaired. Using the Copy/Paste function, you can capture the old sketch geometry (copy) and then paste it on whatever face or plane you want. You are then free to make whatever changes you want to the sketch because it is no longer associated with the originating geometry. Also, sketches can be copy/pasted from one part to another and they do not have to have any real relationship to each other. Derived sketches can be used on different parts, as well, but only if they both live in the same assembly.

Copy/Paste Sketches

Procedure:

1. Select the originating sketch by clicking on it in the feature manager.
2. Copy the originating sketch by going to the Edit menu in the Menu Bar and selecting Copy. You can also use the Ctrl+C Windows command.
3. Select the target face or plane for your new sketch.
4. Paste the sketch by going to the Edit menu and selecting Paste. Like in step 2, you can also use the Ctrl+V Windows command. The sketch will be pasted in the approximate location you clicked on the plane or face.
5. Edit the new sketch to fully define it.

When you use Copy/Paste to reuse a sketch one thing you need to pay attention to is the way the original sketch is constrained. If the original sketch is defined using horizontal and vertical constraints, keep in mind that those relationships may be different in the sketches new location. Horizontal constraints may need to be changed to vertical constraints, and vice versa. Switching these relationships in a complicated sketch may prove to be rather time consuming. In anticipation of pasting a sketch onto a new face or plane, you should eliminate as many horizontal and vertical constraints as possible in the original sketch. This can be done by replacing all horizontal and vertical constraints with perpendicular and parallel relationships. You may wish to keep one piece of geometry defined as horizontal or vertical in order to fully define the sketch. Know where this relationship is and be prepared to replace or redefine it in the new sketch.

In the first sketch of the lightning bolt, notice how many horizontal relationships there are. In the second image, I’ve replaced all of these relationships by making the lines perpendicular to the single construction line, which is defined as being vertical. When I paste this sketch later I know that if I want to change the angular orientation of the sketch, the only constraint I may need to remove is the vertical constraint on the construction line.

You should also be aware that any dimensions or relationships to outside geometry (ie: model edges, reference geometry, other sketches, etc.) in the originating sketch will be omitted from the new sketch when it is pasted. This will result in under-defined sketch geometry that you can then choose to define any way you want. This includes any relationship made to the original sketch origin and will result in the user needing to define the exact location of the sketch in the new sketch plane.

Derived Sketches

Procedure:

1. Select the originating sketch by clicking on it in the feature manager.
2. Hold the Ctrl button to multi-select the plane or face for the derived sketch to be created. If done correctly, the sketch and the plane or face should both be selected at the same time. This is the only way to access the Derived Sketch command.
3. With both items selected, go to the Insert menu in the menu bar and choose Derived Sketch. If this command is not available for selection, it means you do not have the proper items selected from steps 1 and 2.
4. You are automatically placed in the sketching environment so that you can give the derived sketch proper location and orientation.

Unlike with the Copy/Paste procedure, it does not matter whether or not you use horizontal and vertical constraints in the originating sketch. None of the dimensions or relationships in the original sketch will be visible or accessible in the derived sketch. If you try to create a dimension that would define the shape of the derived sketch you will receive an error message stating “Only dimensioning between a model entity and a sketch entity is allowed in derived sketches”. This is because the only dimensioning allowed is for the purpose of defining the sketches location within the new sketch plane.

Derived sketches do give you some freedom to rotate, translate and even scale the original sketch geometry. Go to Tools > Sketch Tools > Modify… to open the Modify Sketch dialogue box:

 

To perform an operation using this dialogue, enter the desired value for change into the appropriate field and press enter. This makes the change to the sketch and keeps the dialogue box open until you are finished. For example, if you wanted to rotate the model by 90 degrees you would enter “90” in the Rotate field and press enter. Pressing enter a second time will rotate the model another 90 degrees. While the Modify Sketch dialogue is open you can also mirror the sketch by hovering the mouse over the black origin temporarily created on the sketch. Right clicking on the x-axis of the origin will mirror the sketch over the y-axis. Alternatively, right-clicking on the y-axis will mirror the sketch over the x-axis.

Once the location of the sketch has been determined by either constraining or dimensioning sketch geometry, it will turn black, indicating that it is fully defined. If at some point you wish to break the relationship between the original sketch and the derived sketch, you can right click on the derived sketch in the feature tree and choose the “Underive” option. As stated previously, once a sketch is underived, it cannot be reconnected with the original sketch.

You can create a derived sketch in a separate part from the original as long as they live in the same assembly. This can be convenient for creating male/female geometry in coupled parts. Keep in mind that this will result in external references from one part to another, but as long as those parts maintain that relationship, the features created from the derived sketches will always match.

In conclusion, SolidWorks gives us many ways to reuse geometry, whether that be on the feature level or the sketch level. Depending on what you want to do with the geometry, you may choose to Copy and Paste a sketch or create a derived sketch. If you find you are doing either of these operations using the same sketch over and over again, you may consider taking advantage of the third method for recycling a sketch by creating a sketch block. A sketch block is like a sketch you keep stored in a your design library and reuse anywhere you’d like. You can choose for the inserted block to be linked to the original so that it updates when the original is changed or you can break the link so that you can edit the block on a case-by-case basis. The discussion of sketch blocks would be an extensive one, so we will save that for future Tech Tips. Stay tuned!

Donn McKinney’s U.S.S. Missouri Propelling Forward with eDrawings

Since 2011, when we first featured Donn McKinney’s U.S.S Missouri project, our friend Donn has further progressed in his work. To give some background to those of you who are unfamiliar with Donn’s project, Donn, a fan of World War II-era US battleships, is currently building a fully operational virtual replica of the U.S.S. Missouri in collaboration with the U.S. Navy. Using the replica, he plans to examine the boat’s functionality.

To show us some of his work, Donn converted his models into eDrawings files. And here’s the best part: you can view them too! Click here for a full download: Download Donn McKinneys Models in eDrawings. If you don’t have eDrawings already, you will need to download it to view his spectacular model from all 360 degrees.

Donn was very eager to convert his models into eDrawings files because they’re much easier to share and are generally smaller than SolidWorks files. In fact, using eDrawings for iOS, you can share models with customers, friends, or family using your iPhone or iPad. With eDrawings' new augmented reality feature, Donn can even see how the replica would look in his house!

Donn has realized numerous possibilities with the eDrawings software propelling his efforts forward. Do you have any stories about how you have used eDrawings?

Introducing My.SolidWorks, a new way to experience the SolidWorks community

As you may have heard, the SolidWorks community continues to grow. At last count, there are over 2 million people learning and using SolidWorks on a regular basis. And that means there are a lot people writing, blogging, tweeting, and posting about SolidWorks, as well as creating videos and images. In fact, a large portion of that comes directly from us.

But that also means that SolidWorks users are spending more time than ever interacting between community sites, blogs, forums and other services. From a SolidWorks perspective alone, we host a dozen blogs, a hugely popular forum, several Twitter accounts and Facebook pages, a massive YouTube channel, and so on. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could find some of this stuff in a single place? We think so.

My.SolidWorks is intended to help pull some of the most popular content together into a single place. Our hope is that it lets customers connect with one another, discover, and share everything SolidWorks, in one seamless experience.  It also gives you the ability to search for answers to questions across multiple platforms, and get results in a single view.

My.SolidWorks is completely open and completely free. Anyone can browse and sort through the content available, and if you already have a customer portal forum account, you can even save your preferences, share content and bookmark articles to read later. Don’t have an account? No problem—you can create one directly within My.SolidWorks.

My.SolidWorks is currently available as a public beta version, and currently includes content from these sources:

• SolidWorks forums
• SolidWorks corporate blog
• SolidWorks Teacher Blog
• SolidWorks Twitter Feed
• SolidWorks YouTube channel
• SolidWorks Online Help

Access to the Knowledge Base will be available soon to subscription customers, as well as access to 3D ContentCentral.

The full version of My.SolidWorks is expected to launch later this spring, and you can expect frequent updates to the platform. So take a look, and let us know what you think. Is there something you like or don’t like? A content source you’d like to see us add? Sharing options you want to use? This public beta period is the time to speak up, and help make sure that you can really look at this and say “this is my SolidWorks.”

 

Part Two: Stirring up the Maker Movement with the MakerBot® Replicator™ 2 Desktop 3D Printer

As we discussed in Part One of the series, the Maker movement is harnessing ideas and technology to spur innovation.  MakerBot’s Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer is bridging the gap between engineers, researchers, designers and creative professionals to create amazing, true-to-life products, quickly and easily.

SolidWorks Simulation and Workgroup PDM software allowed MakerBot engineers to create and evaluate several design iterations of the MakerBot Replicator 2. In doing so, MakerBot wasted no time getting the final product to market on September 19, 2012—surprising many customers.

From medical advancements, like UPenn’s 3D printed sugar lattice to help create new human tissue, to printing a case to fit a new iPhone 5, MakerBot is giving enthusiasts the ability to produce quality items right on their desktops.

To encourage the Maker movement, MakerBot created Thingiverse, an online platform that enables a community of users to share their digital designs with the world. More than 25,000 design files, including those created using SolidWorks, are available on the site, making it simple to download and print from the MakerBot Replicator 2. SolidWorks 3D Content Central also provides designers with free models that can be used with the printer.

Auto part manufacturers, medical researchers, artists and all designers in between are bringing new inventions (like the tractor below) to the table every day.

The MakerBot® Replicator™ 2 Desktop 3D Printer is changing the world; in homes, universities, research institutions and corporations. Enthusiasts no longer have to sneak into a local university to get their hands on this technology. MakerBot has sold more than 15,000 printers to date. The MakerBot Replicator 2 starts at $2,199 and can be seen in action at MakerBot’s retail store in Manhattan.  

Have you checked out Thingiverse.com or 3DCC? What are some products you would like to print using the MakerBot Replicator 2? Post a link to your models that would benefit from 3D printing in the comment section below!

 

Part One: 3D Printers and the Emergence of the Maker Movement

WIRED’s editor-in-chief Chris Anderson recently published a book suggesting that the Maker movement will likely transform the U.S. economy. Anderson believes that as the Maker movement gains momentum, the American spirit of tinkering and building will be re-tooled and made more user-friendly for the Internet Age.

In his book, Anderson lists SolidWorks as the best paid software for designers, and mentions that the 3D printer is the most high-profile Maker tool to emerge so far. And with Form 1, you have both…. The low-cost, high-resolution 3D printer, was created by Formlabs using SolidWorks. Formlabs, a Kickstarter funded company, wanted to develop a printer that they “would be excited to use in their own design and engineering endeavors.”

It only recently became possible for Formlabs to create such a complex product and bring it to market with little time and money – thanks to the help of key partners like Kickstarter and SolidWorks. Formlabs took advantage of SolidWorks’ sheet metal and injection molding capabilities for the printer’s unique design and analyzed the process using simulation.

Images: Formlabs

Recently unveiled, the Form 1 provides designers who haven’t been able to justify the cost of a traditional 3D printer for rapid prototyping and customized replacement parts with a high quality desktop printer. Developed with more of a “prosumer” audience in mind, both professionals and tech-savvy tinkerers (Makers) can benefit from this easy-to-use, out-of-the-box printer that can physically bring a design to life at a resolution that rivals some of the commercial options currently available.

Formlabs is in the process of setting up full-scale manufacturing of the Form 1 and is looking for more support through Kickstarter. Anyone who contributes will receive a discount on the desktop printer and will play a role in “starting this revolution in 3D printing.”

We can’t wait to see where the revolution takes us and what cool items are created using the Form 1. What would you print using the Form 1? Have you tried 3D printing and liked the final result?

Check back tomorrow for Part Two of our Maker movement series when you can learn more about the Makerbot 3D printer!

Use SolidWorks Models in an Apple iBook

Several months ago, Apple announced some major initiatives in electronic publishing, particularly for the primary and secondary school "e-textbook" market. As part of that initiative, Apple launched their free "iBooks Author" product.

iBooks Author allows anyone with a Mac (sorry, PC lovers) to create compelling content in the form of an iBook. This format works really well with the incredibly-popular iPad device, and lots of people outside the "school textbook" market have been interested in the platform. It's really quite easy to include videos, interactive widgets, and 3D models into an iBook.

If you're interested in exploring the iBook format, as a SolidWorks user you'll probably want to know how to get your models into iBooks Author. It turns out that the Mac supports Collada at the operating-system level, and anyone can preview and spin around Collada 3D models in recent versions of OS X. That being the case, Collada is also supported in iBooks...and it's the only format.

How do you get SolidWorks files into Collada? There are a few ways. The simplest is to use the "Save As Collada" plug-in from labs.solidworks.com. The ad-in at SolidWorks Labs is provided "as-is, no warranty expressed or implied..." and it works for some people. It hasn't been updated for a long time, though, so there's a very good chance it won't work for you. Don't despair, because there is another way.

It's now possible to save models from 3DVIA.com into Collada format. In order to make that option available, you need to have a paid 3DVIA.com account (not expensive). After uploading the model to 3DVIA.com (in SolidWorks, go to File > Publish To 3DVIA.com...) you log into 3DVIA.com from the web interface and Save As Collada. Personally, I love to use 3DVIA.com as-is for general publishing of models to iPhone and iPad, but if you need Collada format for iBooks, this option works very well. Since you can also publish models from 3DVIA Composer to 3DVIA.com, you can get them into iBooks as well using this same method.

***

Jeff Setzer is Technical Services Manager at Graphics Systems, a SolidWorks Value Added Reseller with locations across Wisconsin and Illinois. He is a regular contributor to the Graphics Systems’ blog: SolidNotes.com, your source for SolidWorks, Simulation, Data Management, & Product Communication Tips & Tricks.

Want to try out SolidWorks? You can request a free SolidWorks trial on our website.

Want to see how SolidWorks can help you win new business and get to market faster? Request a  SolidWorks demo today.

Creating manufacturing jobs through innovation at Yaris

Creating jobs has been a hot topic these days in the weak global economy. Many answers are out there, but innovation is a proven engine to the economy as shown by Apple who created or supported over 500,000 jobs for U.S. workers in the Apple economy through innovation. 

In our space of manufacturing, I’ve seen encouraging examples of successful companies creating jobs through innovation too.

Founded in 1976, Yaris began producing tractor cabs in a 1,000 m² area in Turkey. Following the technology development and commitment to quality in the past 36 years, the company today operates on over 250,000 m² working area with over 1,000 employees. Now Yaris has become the leading cab producer in Europe, exporting 70% of its product overseas.

Yaris had several challenges on their shop floor before:

1. Need to accurately and instantly pick and install 60 to 80 part groups out 450 groups for customized orders
2. Construction machinery assembly steps are intensely complex to explain and understand
3. Customer’s cab projects require the installation guide, repair instructions, and spare part catalogs delivered all together.

In 2009, Yaris started implementing 3DVIA Composer and has witnessed tremendous progress in the past three years as shown in this Yaris shop floor video.

 

• They assigned each assembly procedure with an assembly station number and a bar code on the routing sheet.
• Say I’m an assembly line worker at station 4 and I just need to scan the bar code for my station. Then my job specification is clearly populated and explained on the touch screen with detailed graphical steps.
• I can switch to the exploded views with a part list. I can also refer to the 3D models. With multi-touch gestures, I can interrogate the model easily while with traditional assembly instructions embedded with photos, there was no way to explore a different perspective.
• Yaris even integrated the tightening torque specification required for all fixtures and the tools needed for each job.
• The best part is all the information is digital and up to date. You don’t have to worry about the design team releasing the 7^th revision while the procurement purchasing according to the 5^th version BOM and manufacturing team producing based on the 3^rd draft.

Now Yaris is able to cut technical documentation time by 13%, improve the quality of our technical communication, and provide assembly line workers instant access to 2,000 parts in 450 groups.

Dr. Kayhan Çalişkan, Project Manager at Yaris shared his experience: “While initially deployed to improve the quality of our complicated installation and repair manuals, 3DVIA Composer has also enabled us to improve the proficiency and efficiency of our assembly line workers.”

Remember this is not just talking. Yaris shop floor video proudly shows the world that Digital Manufacturing is now the reality. Unleashing the power of the 3D CAD data treasure, 3DVIA Composer along with several hundred dollars for a touch screen and a bar code scanner makes a digital shop floor commercially viable.

If Yaris can do it, why can’t we do it? Why can’t we create more jobs through innovation like Yaris?

The coming blogs will share more examples of innovative manufacturing businesses and how best-in-class companies achieve outstanding performance. 

 

For more information on 3DVIA Composer, click on the images below to view 3DVIA Composer videos:

1)     First Look at 3DVIA Composer Video

 

 

2)     3DVIA Composer User Manual video series (registration required):