Hello to all,

Welcome to the new edition of the SOLIDWORKS® Support Monthly News! This monthly news blog is co-authored by members of the SOLIDWORKS® Technical Support teams worldwide. Here is the list of topics covered in this month’s Blog :

1. 3DEXPERIENCE® DraftSight: Attribute Mapping

2. SOLIDWORKS® Visualize 2024 DSPBR Materials

3. One Minute Tip: Equations in Assemblies Part II

1. 3DEXPERIENCE® DraftSight: Attribute Mapping

-by Gayatri KESKAR

There is a list of properties associated with .dwg file under File>Properties or there is an attributes information added for blocks in drawing file. DraftSight® properties and 3DEXPERIENCE attributes both are used to store all kinds of useful information for files including, descriptions, part numbers, revisions etc..

However when we save .dwg file to 3DXPERIENCE Platform this information will no longer linked to .dwg file if attributes are not mapped on a platform.  With attribute mapping capability we will be able to uni-directionally or bi-directionally link these properties so that you can change those properties from the 3DXPERIENCE platform and have that change updated in DraftSight drawing and vice versa.

Different syntaxes needs to be used when mapping different types of properties on platform are shown below:

Syntax for mapping above properties on 3DEXPERIENCE Platform is as below:

Step by step procedure for attribute mapping:

Note: To perform below steps you must be logged in as platform administrator

1. Launch 3DEXPERIENCE Platform click on 3Dashboard and from list of dashbaords go to Platform Management>Content>Collaborative Spaces Configuration Center
2. Go to Attribute management>Drawing
3. Click on Add Attribute. Specify Name of attribute to e.g. Manufacturer. You can keep default value as empty . Click apply to deploy the attribute.
4. Go to from Collaborative Spaces Configuration Center>Configuration deployment and click on Reload Server Cache and Update Index Model. This is to make sure property mapping is updated correctly.
5. Lastly map the attributes to Draftsight for this go to Collaborative spaces control center >CAD Collaboration>DraftSight\AutoCAD using appropriate syntaxes (Image1)
   • Both: Bi-directional Mapping
   • Drawing to drawing: Platform to DraftSight mapping
   • drawing to Drawing : DraftSight to Platform mapping

It is very useful to map DraftSight® properties to their related 3DEXPERIENCE attributes, this means we only need to input information in one place which is time saving and avoiding the risk of information going out of sync.

2. SOLIDWORKS® Visualize 2024 DSPBR Materials

-by Richie MORE

With the introduction of the DSPBR materials, Visualize 2024 has completely changed the way it handles appearances. Using DSPBR appearances has a large number of benefits:

More artistic freedom

• More parameters to tweak
• Better use of textures
• Compatibility with other materials (PBR materials)
• Availability of assets (e.g., textures from sharing sites)
• Consistency with different renders and render modes in Visualize (NVIDIA Iray, DS Stellar, AMD ProRender, Preview)
• Consistency with other application in the 3DS portfolio

When you connect the cloud library with Visualize 2024, then you will only see the new DSPBR assets. You may still have old architecture appearances in your local library though, if were saved manually or downloaded with previous releases.

Visualize 2023

(In the image, Brushed Aluminum appearance with its parameters)

Visualize 2024

To convert older appearance to newer appearance, Right click the old appearance > Edit > Convert.

(In the image, Brushed Aluminum appearance with its DSPBR Base Parameter Group)

The DSPBR appearances consists of multiple set of Parameter groups.

Enterprise PBR Shading Model Appearance Type consists of All Parameter Groups, however the other category of appearance types may only have a subset of them, as you may observe above, the Metal Appearance only populates Base Parameter Groups.

Here is a detailed deep-dive of the Appearance Parameters Groups.

1. Base Parameter Group
2. Sheen Parameter Group
3. Flakes Parameter Group
4. Emission Parameter Group
5. Coating Parameter Group
6. Volume Parameter Group

3. One Minute Tip: Equations in Assemblies Part II

– by Mario IOCCO

In last month Blog I showed how to use the top row of “Equations in Assembly” help.

This month, I’ll provide an example using the second row.

https://help.solidworks.com/2023/english/solidworks/sldworks/c_equations_in_assemblies.htm.