Just as I promised before, here’s a bit more of what’s new in SolidWorks 2010. This time, let me tell you about some improvements that have been made to the user interface for the Simulation products. Simulation Xpress got some of the biggest changes.

I must confess I hadn’t checked any of this out until after I heard about it while visiting DS SolidWorks offices in Massachusetts a few weeks ago.  What we’re going to see now is that the workflow of the user interface in Simulation Xpress has been changed so that it works just like the rest of the Simulation products. So now you’ll see that when you go to the Simulation Xpress Analysis Wizard it starts in a task pane, just like regular Simulation advisor does too, and you’re going to find that it goes through a lot of the same steps as the core Simulation advisor does. Notice also the links available, such as this one over here about free online training on SolidWorks Simulation Fundamentals.  If you click on it, it will take you to a website where you can access free online training opportunities on Simulation Xpress.

The task pane on the wizard works a bit like an index that tells us where we are and what we need to do. It sort of walks us through the whole process and also goes adding checkmarks next to those steps that have already been completed.  Furthermore, when we hover over the hyperlinks included in the task pane, we get visual examples and additional information that applies to each of these steps specifically. For instance, in this image you can see the kind of visual information I get about fixtures.

In this other one you can see one of the many examples of forces that are provided. These are actually very nice animations, by the way, but of course you can’t appreciate that in the screenshot.

Notice how the user interface looks exactly the same as the one in regular Simulation.

 One thing that has been added with this new release and that wasn’t available in Simulation Xpress before is the ability to change mesh density from coarse to fine. It’s a global mesh density, though, no localized mesh control.

After running the Simulation, results will begin to be provided right away, using the same solver Simulation does, and once it’s finished the wizard will ask if this is the way you were expecting your part to deform. If it’s not what you were expecting, you can always go back to change fixtures or loads that were previously added. 

If, however, this is what you were expecting, it will go ahead and create a Simulation Study that you can then take right into the core Simulation product. This is also something new in this release, and the main idea behind allowing you to do this is to provide consistency for those users that may be working inside a team where part of the engineers may not have Simulation while others do, as well as make life easier for those users that perhaps started out with the SolidWorks Standard version and could be thinking of upgrading to SolidWorks Premium, for instance.  They will no longer feel like they have to re-learn how to do simulation, because it will look, feel and work just the same way.

Although the optimization process is not precisely something new, notice once more the change in the user interface.  After viewing results, as usual, the wizard will ask if we desire to optimize the model. Notice how the new changes in the user interface make it easier to keep track of what we’re doing and our goals in this optimization process. In this example, we have the variable to optimize (one of the dimensions in the part), minimum and maximum values for that variable, our constraint (maximum stress value), and our goal which is to minimize the part’s overall mass.

After a few iterations, we obtain an optimum value for our dimension according to our goals and constraints. In Simulation Xpress we can’t however, see the values of all the other different iterations, only the optimum.

But these are not the only changes in the user interface. Simulation (not Xpress) also got a few ones of its own. For instance, check out what happens when you hover over in the graphics area; you get instant feedback on loads and fixtures as you hover over these items. And not only that, but also by simply double clicking on their icons, you can now easily edit loads and fixtures as needed.

Other small improvements are, for instance, when presenting results; it now shows them in floating decimal notation by default, instead of scientific. This is sort of a response to the struggle many users seemed to have with that kind of scientific notation. Plus, you can now use comma separators! I know, not a big deal, but all those zeros can be confusing.

All throughout Simulation you’ll see that you’ll now be able to edit the definition of several similar items at the same time, like this group of bolt connectors, for instance. All you have to do is Shift + Select them all and then right click and choose Edit Definition, then make the changes you need to do and they will apply to all the bolt connectors in the list you selected. That simple!

In Simulation, the advisor now goes a lot deeper than before while walking you through the process, asking better questions than before and providing several examples and visual aids.

Little enhancements, perhaps, but they help improve the user’s work experience and that’s what this is all about.

Stay tuned, more to come soon! And make sure to check out all the other SolidWorks blogs, as well as SolidWorks brand new website, to find out about all that you’ve been missing if you haven’t been Beta testing this year.