Playing around with SW2009

I just found something that I hadn't read or seen concerning SolidWorks 2009.  Under VIEW you will see a new entry call WORKSPACE.  Here you will find picks for Default, Widescreen & Dual Monitor.  Clicking on Widescreen gives you a vertical command manager.  This makes more efficient use of the widescreen monitors that seem to be the norm now.  Check it out!

Have you seen something new in 2009 that you didn't know about?  Lets get some posting going to share what we learn...

SolidWorks 2009 rollout by TPM

The rollout of SolidWorks 2009 put on by TPM was very informative.  Several members of the WNC-SWUG were present as witnessed by the pictures below.  Wes kicked off the event with an introduction and invitation to become involved with the user group.  Keith Dacus started the presentation with a demonstration of Simulation the new upgraded version of Cosmos.   This is the first presentation I’ve seen Keith do and I was very impressed, good job Keith.  Every time I see a presentation of an analysis package I think back over the last year and the times when it would have came in handy in my work but there are not enough times to justify the expense for us as we actually do very little design work in house.  That said I do have to comment on the new sensors that are available in even the base package SolidWorks.  I not sure but I think that the ‘Mass Sensor’ will be available to all users.  It allows us to constantly monitor the mass of the part while you are modeling it.  If this is not included in the base package, please correct me.

After a short break the session picked up again with Steve Ostrovsky showing us all the cool stuff in SW2009.  Speedpacks are slick but the thing that will help my job the best is the new way to handle custom properties.  When you have a multi user environment it is hard to get consistency across the board.  The new custom properties interface builder will really cut down on the typing we have to do as we will be able to select all the options from drop down lists or check boxes. From Steve’s demonstration it appears that the process of building the interface is really painless.  When he started showing it I was worried that the ‘logic’ behind the interface would be visual basic like but to my pleasant surprise it was just a matter of dragging and dropping.  I know I’m doing this subject justification but just suffice to say that I think you’re really going to like it.

Another new feature that is of interest to me is the ability to convert a solid to sheet metal.  In fact I’m working on a project now that could benefit from this.  I’ve loaded SP0 on to my laptop for testing and to try this feature.  Look for another post with my results.

Below are some pictures from the rollout:

our fearless leader

Keith Dacus of TPM / Greenville

Steve Ostrovsky of TPM / Columbia

Wes, Phil, Tim, Tom & Matthew

SolidWorks 2009 Solid to Sheetmetal