In our customer surveys, we've noticed the importance of creating exploded views, particularly for manufacturing assembly instructions and user manuals. For some, creating exploded views can be an extremeley tedious--and ultimately costly--process. However, Composer's explode tools make the process of making these views instantaneous and intuitive. With Composer, pre-programmed explode... Continue reading

As summer sets in and vacation season begins, productivity and time management are two topics that cross an engineer’s mind. How much did your team get done this week? Were you able to manage your time well? Were you efficient when you did your work? How much time did you... Continue reading

The team behind My.SolidWorks.com has just released some new functionality for the site that makes it even easier to use and introduces even more data sources. Here's a brief explanation of what's new starting today. We've added 3DContentCentral as a data source, and new models are included in the recent... Continue reading

So you've finally got your masterpiece finished, or perhaps not so much a masterpiece, but rather the tedious design the company needed. Everything works, you've checked the tolerances, everything has been virtually tested, and the design is flawless. Now comes the challenge of explaining it to someone who may not... Continue reading

Summer is back at the office in Waltham, MA – we can finally enjoy the warm, sunny outdoors. Some of you may be busy firing up the grill or planning your next fishing adventure on the lake. Even though my fishing experience is short, I remember how hard it was... Continue reading

When you index a vault archive, the search tool can use the content search option to search a document’s contents or properties. The first step is to set-up the Enterprise PDM index server, on the SQL Server hosting the vault database. The SolidWorks Enterprise PDM Installation Guide (found in the... Continue reading

SolidWorks Composer is an powerful, easy to use tool that can help you create all kinds of technical communications, assembly instructions, animations and more very quickly. To go along with all of the great features packed into SolidWorks Composer, we are proud to introduce the new SolidWorks Composer YouTube channel!... Continue reading

SolidWorks 2013 has some very nice enhancements for bend notes. To start, bend notes can now be controlled directly from a selected view’s PropertyManager. Bend notes can also have more information added beyond direction, angle, and radius. Simply click on the buttons below the Bend Note field in the PropertyManager... Continue reading

So, we talk to a good number of customers about improving their internal pubs to reduce assembly errors and assembly time, and usually, the customer’s work instructions start off looking something like this: That’s the image the assembler has to use for all twenty steps of the installation process. And... Continue reading

Having recently joined the SolidWorks technical team at TMS CADCentre, a lot of my time has been dedicated to expanding my SolidWorks knowledge by participating in SolidWorks training courses. Although I had used SolidWorks extensively in my own design work and considered myself somewhat of a seasoned user, I was... Continue reading

Have you ever wondered, after running a SolidWorks Simulation study, whether or not your results are correct? Continue reading

It has always been our policy that customers are required to contact a local SolidWorks Value Added Reseller (VAR) for technical support. However, customers sometimes run into problems that don’t necessarily fall under the ‘support” umbrella, and are unsure about whom to contact--their reseller or SolidWorks? So who should customers... Continue reading

Have you ever bought a piece of furniture and then had to assemble it yourself? If you have, chances are you’ve come across the hieroglyphic-esque assembly instructions that came in the box. Whether it’s the hard to understand text, or the pictures that can leave you scratching your head, getting... Continue reading

Do you enjoy taking these tests? I know I do. On reviewing results from similar types of spatial aptitude tests, the results are basically: men test better than women, and those who test well make good engineers. This may be so (my sister, however, did well on these tests—she happens... Continue reading

In my opinion, one of the most underutilized tools in SolidWorks Simulation is the Design Study. Design studies allow you to easily set up a number of ‘what if’ scenarios and run them all with the click of a button. Continue reading

Why do I find myself underwhelmed with the offerings on the electric bicycle market? I want to feel like I’m riding a piece of modern engineering and not yesteryear’s moped. I have come to the conclusion that the factors that make one want to purchase an electric bike are much... Continue reading

If you’re like most mechanical engineers, you’re probably not very good at typing. And even if you are, you probably don’t enjoy every minute of it. There’s a theory that an infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite amount of time will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare,... Continue reading

In honor of this week’s Offshore Technology Conference, which features offshore resources for drilling and exploration, SolidWorks has released a video that details how to improve your oil and gas design capabilities such as plant design. This video outlines tools you need to respond to mission-critical challenges such as design... Continue reading

Has this ever happened to you? Imagine that you get this super complex model with a lot of intricate internal details from your customer or supplier. The file size is huge and the rebuild times are long, considering that you only need it for any one of these reasons: Use... Continue reading

Have you ever experienced that SolidWorks moment when you'd like to see a part feature available in an assembly? Continue reading

Last September I wrote about Day2Night Ladies Footwear, a SolidWorks customer I first met when we invited some 2011 Mass Challenge finalists to visit SolidWorks headquarters in Waltham, MA. If you’re not familiar with the Mass Challenge, it’s a Boston-area organization that connects early-stage startups with the people and resources... Continue reading

I find that the best way to learn about the tools available in SolidWorks is by using them. And one way that SolidWorks helps you to do this is by including an extensive selection of tutorials on a wide range of tools. These tutorials are fully incorporated into SolidWorks and... Continue reading

Something that has been confusing to students in my Weldments training classes is the proper way to create Sub-Weldments so that they retain all the work you have done creating properties for the cut-list items. As of SolidWorks 2012 this is definitely possible but you have to do it in... Continue reading

Sustainable and renewable energy has become the way of the future. Before long, we may even be living in a world similar to the Jetsons (robot housemaid not included). Many car companies, such as Honda and Toyota, are developing hybrid and electrical cars to help us move away from fossil... Continue reading