SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News – May 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.

Full interoperability between SOLIDWORKS® PDM and SOLIDWORKS revision tables

By Kevin Fancera

SOLIDWORKS® PDM can now read and write values from or to a SOLIDWORKS revision table.  Revision table rows can be updated using set variable transition actions or the set revision command.  This ability was in the now discontinued SOLIDWORKS WORKGROUP PDM, has just been added for 2018 to both PDM Professional and Standard.

Here is how you can configure your PDM Standard or Professional vault to accomplish this.

 

For this example, we will update the ‘Description’ and ‘Revision’ variables in the table rows.

1. Click PDM Administration Tool > Vault > Variables > Description
 2. Click the new attribute button.
3. A new attribute is added to the variable.
 4. Rename the new block name to ‘SWRevTable’.  This must be typed in.  It will not be available in drop list until after you enter it manually for the first time.
5. The attribute name should be selected from the droplist for the ‘Description’ variable. Typing it in manually is possible, but may result in failing to add rows to the table.  See published solution S-073768.
 6. Enter slddrw for the extension.
7. Press ‘OK’.

8. Click PDM Administration Tool > Vault > Variables > Revision

9. Repeat same process for the ‘Revision’ variable.  SWRevTable should be available in the drop list at this point so it can be selected instead of typed in manually.  Remember to select the attribute name from the drop list and to not type it in manually.

 10. Click PDM Administration Tool > Vault > SOLIDWORKS > Revision Table

11. Check the ‘Enable Revision Table’ checkbox.  In the Revision Table Settings tab, define how many rows you want to be maintained in the revision table and a placeholder character.
12. In the ‘Set Revision Command Settings’ tab, check the ‘update revision table in SOLIDWORKS drawing through ‘set revision’ command. Check the ‘Revision’ and ‘Description’ under ‘Revision Table Columns’, select the proper variable from the droplist.  This droplist is populated with the variables that have been updated with the ‘SWRevTable’ property mapping.  Revision needs no value set but enter a value for ‘Description’.  This can be entered manually or selected from the variable  list ‘>’ or a combination of both.
 13. When working with drawing files and using the ‘Set Revision’ command in PDM, be sure to check the ‘update variable’ check box. There will be no update to the revision table if this is not checked.

New eLearning & Certification for Additive Manufacturing

The SOLIDWORKS Technical Services team just released a new training and certification for Additive Manufacturing (Code name CSWA-AM). It consist of a short learning course that covers the very basic topics of main stream and consumer level 3D Printing. The topics addressed in the CSWA-AM eLearning course are:

  • Material types
  • Machine types and processes
  • Design for printing considerations
  • Part model preparation
  • Machine preparation
  • Post printing finishing
  • Slicer software features and functionality
  • Software based printing aids

Upon completion of the eLearning, you can take the CSWA-AM exam. The exam validates the knowledge you acquired and is sanctioned with a certification provided by the SOLIDWORKS Certification Program.

Don’t hesitate:

Noteworthy Solutions from the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base

icon - SW In the SOLIDWORKS® Resource Monitor or SOLIDWORKS, why do I see the warnings: ‘Available system memory is low’, ‘Available system memory is critically low’, and ‘WARNING! Your system is running critically low on memory’?
SOLIDWORKS® monitors your entire computer system resource usage in real time while SOLIDWORKS is running.
One of the resources that SOLIDWORKS monitors is the ‘Commit Charge’ counter.Commit Charge is the amount of memory that the Windows® operating system (OS) has committed or promised SOLIDWORKS and any other process running on the computer.
For more information, see Solution Id: S-074228.

icon - SW How do I invite a user to my company’s Admin Portal so that I can give them ownership of an online license?
To add a new user to the Admin Portal for your company, follow the steps in Solution Id: S-074431.

Icon - EPDM Why does previewing a PDF file in SOLIDWORKS® PDM open the file in the Adobe® Professional software?
Adobe® Professional does not provide the Active X controls necessary to preview PDF files in SOLIDWORKS® PDM. This behavior occurs if Adobe Professional is installed, but Adobe Reader is not installed.
At the same time, the preview window in SOLIDWORKS PDM will display the error ‘Navigation to the webpage was cancelled’.
To resolve this issue, follow the steps in Solution Id: S-074207.

Why do I receive either the error ‘No restraints are defined. You may use Soft Spring or Inertia Relief options’ or ‘No restraints are defined. Define restraints or use Inertia Relief to stabilize the model’.?
See Solution Id: S-074275.

In SOLIDWORKS® Flow Simulation, what is the ‘Improved geometry handling’ option?
Effective with the release of SOLIDWORKS® Flow Simulation 2018, there is a new ‘Improved geometry handling’ option. When you activate this option, the software uses advanced functions to make Boolean operations to the geometry. In other words, This option activates the use of SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation’s own Boolean operation functions rather than the use of that of SOLIDWORKS.
For more information, see Solution Id: S-074304.

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.