Luke Woodard, TPM Application Engineer

Robbie Hoyler, TPM Application Engineer

Did you know you can create movies from SOLIDWORKS Motion Simulation using Visualize?  Come check out how to make it happen in 15 minutes!

Rob Stoklosa, TPM Application Engineer

 SOLIDWORKS is full of awesome little tools that enable us to create…well, almost anything.

Too often, I find myself discussing these features with clients and usually ending the sentence with ”….too bad you’ll never use it”.

So, I thought I would write about a practical application for a function that falls into this category.

Sketch Picture!

I recently was required to procure new wingtips for a single engine aircraft. Incredibly, the sketch picture function in SOLIDWORKS allowed for a precise fit to the existing wing, without the use of a scanner. I have illustrated the process.

Plane at the shop getting prepped for paint and other mods.

The moment of truth. You ain’t lived till actually have to cut the wingtip off a very expensive airplane.

 We needed to “precisely” capture the new wing cross-section to fit the new tips correctly. Scanning was not an option for us.

Utilizing the imported sketch, we simply traced the profile, and offset it to create a flange we could mate to the existing cross section. This was then used as a cross section to generate the new tip.

So, the next time your situation prevents you from having access to a scanner, grab a pencil and paper and get to tracing.

Steve Ostrovsky, TPM Application Engineer

The PDM Blueberry - You see it every time you open up SolidWorks, but might not know everything you can do with it. I’ll explain what the SolidWorks PDM Add-in offers users.

Toolbar Button Identification:

Status Icons – control how the colors appear in the add-in.

Luke Woodard, TPM Application Engineer

DriveWorksXpress is a tool that allows us to configure and customize new assemblies and speeds up repetitive tasks. In today's video we will show you how we apply this tool.

Cris Ivan, TPM Application Engineer

Whether it is document templates, weldment bend tables or hole callout format files, SOLIDWORKS searches under its set File Locations for the needed information.

So how do we change these location paths or reset them? Here, we are looking at three easy ways of retuning our default file locations. They can be Reset from System Options, changed from File Locations or totally reset them from within the Windows registry.

Mike Staples, TPM Application Engineer

Dive into one of the most popular Xpress tools and see how you can easily make informed design decisions using the Simulation Xpress Analysis Wizard.

Robbie Hoyler, TPM Application Engineer

Need a reason to fully define your sketches using SOLIDWORKS? Here are 10 of them to convince even the most staunch of offenders.

Luke Woodard, TPM Application Engineer

Within SolidWorks Simulation Premium, we can run studies on composite (Fiberglass, Carbon Fiber, etc..) materials. In this video, we look at how to define a part as a composite material to get you on your way to designing lighter and stronger parts.

Steve Ostrovsky, TPM Application Engineer

A typical Simulation process contains several steps. Modeling with CAD design data…. Pre-processing information such as materials, loads, restraints and mesh… Solve the setup…. Post-process the engineering results…. And finally provide reports for review.

And then do that over and over and over and over....

The challenge in maintaining the mounds of data created, destroyed, overwritten is to build intelligence of data. Intelligence to improve consistency, reliability and repeatability. This is where SolidWorks PDM can step in.

How can we build intelligence where the CAD software communicate with Simulation tools through the data management? To start, how about exploiting the integration between the CAD data and Simulation tools using the metadata information as a means to search and retrieve the same Simulation from the CAD data. In SolidWorks PDM terms - use the Data Cards variables to be able to search and reuse existing Simulation data.

In our Three Minute Thursday video, we demonstrate how to setup this integration.

So why do all of this? Simple. Create visibility among all levels of users so you don't have to reinvent the wheel - or better yet, re-run lengthy Simulations. This essentially can help reduce the design cycle and create accountability throughout the process.

• Who performed the Simulation
• What type of Simulation was performed
• Where did the Simulation data, such geometry (CAD data), material properties, load conditions, goals, etc. originate?
• Why was the Simulation run?

Don’t let your Simulation data just sit idly and tucked away on network drives. Include it with the rest of your engineering data under one roof with SolidWorks PDM.