SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News – February 2018

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Hello to all,

Welcome to this new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News, coauthored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide.

Looking back at SOLIDWORKS World 2018 with Brad Phillips

By Julien Boissat

On day 3 of SOLIDWORKS World 2018, I sat with Brad Phillips, Senior Technical Customer Support Engineer (TSE) from Woodland Hills, CA. Brad shared his impressions and his involvement at the conference.

Julien: So tell me, how many times have you participated in SOLIDWORKS World?

Brad: This is my fifth year at SOLIDWORKS World.  I have been lucky enough to be able to attend every year since the first year I started at SOLIDWORKS back in January 2013.

Julien: You and I know that only a limited number of SOLIDWORKS TSEs go to the event. What makes you want to be part of it each year?

Brad: For me I see this experience of being able to attend SOLIDWORKS World every year as an opportunity to experience the SOLIDWORKS community head on.  As part of support, a lot of times we only see customers when they are in difficult situations, but at SOLIDWORKS World I get the experience of interacting with the most passionate and excited members of the SOLIDWORKS community.

Julien: I understand you presented at breakout sessions. Tell me about it.

Brad: This is the third year that I got to present the CAD Managers Boot Camp on the Sunday before the conference begins.  This is this session that has been going on for many, many years that features four hours of all of the most relevant content that we in SOLIDWORKS Support think all CAD admins should know in order to best serve their clients and engineers that use SOLIDWORKS for their daily jobs.  The two sections that I presented this year were on installations and licensing.  The last couple releases of SOLIDWORKS have really added a lot of great new tools for CAD Admins. The Settings Administrator tool and the brand new SOLIDWORKS Admin Portal with Online Licensing are just a few. I was really excited to bring some of this never before seen features to the people that could best utilize them in the workplace.  I really encourage any CAD Admins that couldn’t make it out to SOLIDWORKS World on Sunday to see the session that they try to make it next year and also look for the slides to be released with all of the other SOLIDWORKS World presentation proceedings.

The session is four hours of very technical content, so the CAD Admin Boot Camp planning team really strives to make this year’s presentation very interactive and exciting.  This year’s session had about 400 attendees so it was great to see some of them come up to me at the booth in the partner pavilion and say that they had a great time and they learned a lot.

Julien: There was a ton of announcements about new products, services and features this year. Which got you most excited?

Brad: Well as a 3D printer hobbyist, the 3DExperience Marketplace Make was really interesting to me because if in the future I make a prototype and want it to be manufactured in steel or something besides plastic I now have a place where I can find reputable service companies that can do that for me.  Also from the announced solid works 2019 features, the convert texture to mesh looked really exciting and the crowd during the general session strongly agreed.

Julien: And which keynote presenter make the biggest impression on you?

Brad: Joe Hiura and Robert Andrew Johnson where the keynote that really made an impression on me. They were using SOLIDWORKS in a way that I’ve never seen before and really thinking outside of the box in the way they used it. I also got a chance to chat with them when they came by the SOLIDWORKS booth.  They were very personable guys and we were playing around in SOLIDWORKS and they were showing me some of the things that they do for their set designs that I haven’t seen customers use before. They’re using SOLIDWORKS to design art that has to capture our imagination but it also has to be functional.

 

 

Julien: See you in Dallas next year for SOLIDWORKS World 2019?

Brad: Absolutely.

Julien: Thanks.

 

Note: You can relive the action here at SWW18 with on-demand video at live.solidworks.com.

Understanding Multibody Sheet Metal Thickness, Derived Mirror Part Thickness and the Thickness Global Variable

By Mario Iocco

Single body sheet metal can be confusing. Adding sheet metal multi-bodies and mirror part into the mix, can be overwhelming to many users who don’t deal with these issues every day. However, this does not need to be confusing, as there is a very clear logic to the functionality. To find out more, click HERE to read the entire article.

 

 

 

Simulation Step-Up Series

Last month, Reza discussed the topic of Buckling analysis. This month, Yannick gives an Introduction to Fatigue analysis.

Next month, Ramesh will give an Introduction to Nonlinear analysis.

Noteworthy Solutions from the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base

icon - SW Why does my computer with an Intel® processor perform slower after installing a Windows® Update?
A critical security fault was identified with all Intel® x86 and x64 processors. The security fault was fixed by a Microsoft® Windows® Update security patch released on January 9th, 2018. This performance issue is not specific to the SOLIDWORKS® software. It has been reported that this required Windows Update security patch can reduce overall CPU performance by 5% to 30% of the normal CPU performance values.
For more information, see Solution Id: S-074167.

icon - SW When I launch SOLIDWORKS®, how do I fix the error ‘Failed to initialize Visual Basic for Apps, equations and macros will not work…’?
When launching the SOLIDWORKS® software, you might see the error: ‘Failed to initialize Visual Basic for Apps, equations and macros will not work. Are you low on disc space?’
There are many possible reasons for this error.
To learn how to troubleshoot it, follow the steps in Solution Id: S-074209.

Icon - EPDM How do I use the SOLIDWORKS® PDM Migration Assistant to migrate a SOLIDWORKS Workgroup PDM Vault that contains non-revision managed Standard Libraries and Toolbox parts?
The legacy “Workgroup-to-SOLIDWORKS PDM” migration tool does provide support for importing non-revision managed library components. It is possible to use the solution in KB S-027733 to work around the issue. However that solution has limitations. Mainly the solution does not update the paths in the parent SOLIDWORKS® file.
The new SOLIDWORKS® PDM Migration Assistant introduces support for importing non-revision managed files, such as Standard Libraries and Toolbox parts.
For a detailed demonstration of this process, see the document attached to Solution Id: S-073954.

Icon - EPDM Using the SOLIDWORKS® PDM 2018 software, is there a guide about how to set up and use the revision table integration for SOLIDWORKS® drawings in a file vault?
SOLIDWORKS® PDM 2018 introduced support to automatically update a revision table in a drawing when revisions are updated via workflow transition actions or by using the ‘Set Revision’ command.
To enable revision table integration in a file vault, follow the steps in the document attached to Solution Id: S-074196.

When meshing the same geometry in a Static study and a Topology study with the default element size, why does the Topology study generate more elements than the Static study?
In SOLIDWORKS® Simulation Topology studies, the quality of the results is dependent upon the generated mesh. Unlike Static studies where it might be possible to run a study using a poor quality mesh, Topology studies may experience problems when using the same type of mesh. Additionally, because Topology studies operate by varying the material density values of individual elements in order to govern the new material distribution, it is essential to have an adequate number of elements throughout the model geometry.
For these reasons, the default element size for Topology studies is smaller than for the other study types to encourage users to use a better quality mesh.
For more information, see Solution Id: S-073709.

That’s it for this month. Thanks for reading this edition of SOLIDWORKS Support News. If you need additional help with these issues or any others, please contact your SOLIDWORKS Value Added Reseller.

Also, comments and suggestions are welcome. You can enter them below.

Julien Boissat

Julien Boissat

Sr. Technical Customer Support Engineer, SolidWorks, EMEA at DS SolidWorks Corp.
I have been a Tech Support engineer for Simulation products since 2002. I was previously a product manager at SRAC, the original makers of COSMOS for those who remember that time! ;-). I am currently in charge of the content of the certification exams for simulation products. I also initiated and still author the Simulation Knowledge Base and participate as much as possible in the expansion and evolution of the SolidWorks Knowledge Base. Finally, I handle the SolidWorks Support Monthly News blog.