Southeastern SolidWorks User Workshop: Day 2

Southeastern SolidWorks User Workshop: Day 2

I apologize for this being a day late. My excuse is that my brain shutdown last night at 5PM due to overload. The second day of the workshop was very intense for your friendly neighborhood blogger.

My first session of the day was Matt Lombard's presentation on Curvy Stuff. For someone who does sheet metal 99% of the time this was definitely uncharted territory. But I do have to say that I learned a lot and it makes me want to continue my studies in SolidWorks surfacing. Matt took us through the modeling of a pasta scoop which happened to be in his kitchen utensil drawer. We learned about projected curves, boundary surfaces, spline on a surface and the awesome fill surface. I have never used the fill surface command but it must be a really great tool since Matt was the first of two presenters to tout its usefulness.

Next I was in Steve Ostrovsky’s presentation on drawing templates and formats. Even though I knew the material fairly well Steve did point out some things that I could do in a more efficient manner than how I’m doing it now. This class was a hands on lab which invariably has problems with some of the participants not really being at the level of expertise that the material is geared for. I really feel for presenters when placed in this situation. But Steve did a great job of keeping everyone on track. On great tip I pick up here was how to do multi-line custom property descriptions on the drawing sheet format.

After the lunch break I attended Philip Thomas’ presentation on dumb solids. If you’ve ever sat in on one of Philip’s presentations you know what I mean when I say…WOW! Philip is hilarious and educational at the same time. He started out with a very informative history of CAD. Check out CADAZZ.com for some of the information he presented. Why the history lesson? It is necessary to know the history in order to understand the state of CAD interoperability today. We have different kernels, different philosophies and different ways of doing things among the various CAD software companies and even within the same company (Catia, SolidWorks). Philip pointed out that the difference between smart solids and dumb solids is just the amount of information embedded with the solid. He showed several examples and various ways of tackling the errors that the dumb solid might have. I picked up on some ideals that will help me the next time I get a Pro/E file I need to work with in SolidWorks.

And if one class with Philip wasn’t enough…I then attended his presentation on Keyboard Shortcuts. This session was more laid back that the previous one. Philip's Presentation came down to these pointers:

1. Quit banging on the keyboard – get a mouse with as many programmable buttons as you can remember and then program them.
2. Undo is Great – But cancel is better! – when you really mess up a sketch DON’T release the left mouse button, press and hold the right button, now release the left button and finally the right button. You sketch is back like it was before.
3. Wrap will split multiple faces in one go and there other ways to extrude text.
4. Don’t forget Cut-Sweep Solid.
5. The ‘parametize’ tool is very powerful, use the Dim Expert.
6. Make your presentations look good with RealView.
7. Know when to Eject! He gave us a .bat file that ends all SolidWorks processes.
8. Personalize – use the API. Philip showed us some really cool things that can be done with a little bit of VBA programming and Excel.
   

Thanks to all the presenters for sharing their knowledge with all of us attendees. I hope to someday make you proud enough to say, “Look at that guy go! I taught him everything he knows”.

All and all the 1^st SouthEastern SolidWorks User Workshop was a great success. I certainly hope that this will become a yearly event. Tony, I’m giving you a standing ovation as I type.

Pictures may be coming next…

Southeastern SolidWorks User Workshop: Day 1

Southeastern SolidWorks User Workshop: Day 1

Let me say first off that the location is ideally suited for this type of event. Thanks to Midlands Technical College for hosting the event. Tony Cantrell has done a great job on the organization of the event, thanks Tony. And thank you SolidWorks Corporation for the briefcase (but I wish I had chosen the backpack).

The day started more or less around 7:30 with a breakfast that included grits, biscuits, gravy, eggs, sausage and bacon. It looked and smelled awesome…I had already eaten so I can’t review the taste of the food. One of the great things about these events is the people you meet and the things you learn from them. I met Mary who in recent days has been trying to learn AutoDesk Inventor in order to complete a project that the customer requires in that format. Listening to her grief over Inventor makes me appreciate SolidWorks even more. I also met a man who teaches SolidWorks at a local High School. From this conversation it is evident that SolidWorks is really trying to have a positive effect on education.

At 8:30 we all gathered in an auditorium for the general welcome session. Tony said a few words and turned the program over to Richard Doyle. Richard did his SolidWorks community presentation going over all the available content on the Customer Portal. He went over some of the content that is on SolidWorks Labs page of which the new Blueprint Now sounds interesting. It allows you to edit DWG files online; I will check this out for a future blog.

The next session I attended was entitled 3DConnexion Space Pilot. I’ve been using a 3D controller since 2000 but I’ve been experiencing problems getting used to the new Space Navigators we bought to replace our no longer supported SpaceBall 4000FLXs. I was hoping to be able to get some pointers or ask some questions about the configuration of the new devices to be more like the old controllers. There was two things wrong with this session…the presenter was a no show and there wasn’t Space Pilot anywhere in sight. But Tony filled in quiet well and I did manage to win the drawing for one of the Navigators.

The lunch buffet consisted of a nice salad, turkey, beef patties, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans. I can state that what I ate was very good. There might have been some dessert also but I tried not to notice that.

Session #2 for me was weldments which was excellently presented by Darren Henry. He started off with a PowerPoint but quickly got away from that and actually showed us all that you can do with weldments and how to do them. Since 3D sketches are a prerequisite for weldments I picked up much needed education on those also. Thanks Darren, good job.

The last session of the day was Drawing Tips & Stuff by the overworked (but seeming to love every minute) Richard Doyle. This presentation was full of things that I will be able to apply as soon as I get back to work. I ended up with a page and a half of notes, which is a lot for me. My TIP OF THE DAY comes from this session: When you have a note that mistakenly got attached to a drawing view, in other words the note moves when the drawing view is moved, simply select the note, Ctrl-X, make sure no view is active and do a Ctrl-V. Your note is back and it is not attached to anything.

I'm excited and looking forward to tomorrow's session. I'll let you know how that goes.

What's Going On Today?

After a rather hectic two weeks of constant projects needing attention I finally caught up and I now have a well deserved break. I still had a few things on my to-do list but I’m knocking them off one by one.

The first thing was to get Matt’s New Surfacing Bible ordered. If you haven’t ordered yours then get over to his site now!

Second thing to do was to talk to my boss about the upcoming Southeastern SW User Workshop. He was receptive to the idea of me going when I told him that I would be taking the wife for a weekend getaway and would pay for half the cost myself. Now I just have to figure out what’s to do in Columbia, South Carolina. I’m sure the wife will find somewhere to shop during the day when I’m in session. Now that’s a scary thought! And then there’s always the zoo which I hear is top notch. Does anyone have any recommendations for night life and a Saturday outing in the area? I still need to register and reserve the hotel room. I’m sure the wife will have some input on the hotel. It appears that nice hotels in the area are far and few between. This observation is based on the reviews I’ve read online, maybe someone has some personal experience in the area they will share.

If you’ve never been to a SW summit or a workshop then I urge you strongly to consider going to this one. The line up of speakers is awesome and I can say from personal experience that you will learn a few things to take back to your job that will make you more productive. Sell it this way to your boss and I’ll see you there…