I’m working on a new video, but before that I wanted to add a small post as a way of an answer to a question I’ve been asked quite a few times already: where do all those buttons and toolbars that you’re using come from?  I know this is something that the more experienced user already knows, but it is a very real and very justified question when you’re just getting started. So here it goe...

Learning how to properly do drawing and detailing in SolidWorks isn’t precisely the most exciting thing in the world, but it’s necessary, so I try to keep at it, even when it seems I’m making progress in an extremely slow fashion. Anyway, I was learning how to create Annotation Favorites, when I noticed that something was different about Favorites for SW2007 and SW2008, when compared to SW20...

I know this little piece of information is extremely basic for those with lots more experience in SolidWorks, but believe me, I just found out about this one while working my way through the SolidWorks Drawings training manual. Well, you know there are multiple views you can choose from to display your part or assembly, right?  You have top, bottom, right, left, isometric, trimetric, etc.  Did y...

The inspiration for this post came from a question a friend asked me about an alternative way to have a component in an assembly display in different colors, without using a configuration for each of the colors. He complained that the assembly was growing large in size due to all the different configurations. I suggested he used Display States, instead, since I remembered I had done something simi...

I’m still in the adjustment phase with SolidWorks 2008. I’ve been trying hard to resist the urge to do everything in SolidWorks 2007, just because it’s the “familiar” environment and I already know where everything is. Instead, I’m trying to spend more time working on SolidWorks 2008, and, as a result, I keep finding new things (or things that have changed) here and there. This time, ...

Last week’s meeting and all the talk about automation got me really inspired, so I decided to try some of the suggestions myself.  While searching through parts and assemblies that I could use for my experiments in automation, I happened to notice something that is actually new functionality included in SolidWorks 2008. RMB clicking the part icon on the top of the Feature Manager for a part wit...

Just as promised, here’s the second part of the post.  For this one, I managed to film Brian Titus as he was introducing the group to several strategies and tools for automating SolidWorks, such as macros, part and assembly design tables, mates, smart mates, smart components, and KBE tools. I was impressed by the KBE tools he demonstrated, since I had never heard of them. Others in the room...

Last week I attended the second meeting of the Tri-Valley SolidWorks User Group. I’m glad I was able to make it to this one, because it turned out to be a great learning experience for me and, I think, for many of those in attendance. Meetings such as this one are great for getting exposed to tools and strategies that otherwise you may not hear about. The agenda was changed a few days before the...

I finally got the new DELL configured and all the software installed and running. I also made sure to copy all my files and download the files I’ll need to work my way through Matt Lombard’s new Surfacing book.  And so, at last, the moment of truth had come:  it was time to fire up SolidWorks 2008 and see for myself what it really looked like!  First, it was the shock of the unfamiliar.  L...

What a great combination!  Well, the New 2008-2009 student edition of SolidWorks has just been released, with all the functionality of SolidWorks 2008 Office Premium, plus COSMOSWorks, COSMOSMotion, and COSMOSFloWorks.  So, for up to 24 months, students from middle school all the way through graduate school will be able to take advantage of the full potential of SolidWorks, everything, all th...

It may just be that I’m running a fever as I write this, I’ve been as sick as a dog all this week, but I can’t help feeling this way.  Can I pour my heart out to a listening ear out there on this vast cyber universe?  Well, it’s like this. My own copy of the newest SolidWorks book I had been (un) patiently waiting for so long finally got here just a few days ago. It is, indeed, a great b...