Graphics Systems SolidNotes

Windows 7 and SolidWorks

Just over two years ago we were talking about Windows Vista and SolidWorks 2007, and now I’m starting to look towards Windows 7 and SolidWorks 2010. Before I comment on this let me tell you what SolidWorks has to say on Windows 7.

When Microsoft Windows® 7 is released; will there be a new release of SolidWorks that will be officially supported on this platform?

At the present time, SolidWorks does not have any official information regarding the support of running SolidWorks on Windows 7.
Please refer to the SolidWorks System Requirements webpage for the currently supported operating systems:
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/SystemRequirements.html

As we can see SolidWorks is not commenting on this release of Windows but from what I remember the same was true with Vista when it was first announced. With the start of the SolidWorks 2010 Beta program and Windows 7 as a release candidate I think we can expect to see this operating system fully supported with in the 2010 release of SolidWorks.

I am testing Windows 7 on my laptop as I write this blog, what I can tell you is SolidWorks 2009 SP3 is working and stable on my PC – so far so good. I have found a few glitches here and there and look forward to a fully supported version on Windows 7 hopefully in the near future.

Until then stay tuned for more information as I get it.

PDM Document Status Icons

SolidWorks 2009 Enterprise and Workgroup PDM use icons to display a documents status inside their local views. This provides a real-time visual update on the document(s) you may be currently working on. Copy these handy references to further enjoy the benefits of using SolidWorks Enterprise or Workgroup PDM.

 

Protect Your SolidWorks Serial Number

Have you ever worried that someone who has access to your PC for a short period of time may be able to steal your SolidWorks serial number?

SolidWorks provides an easy way to hide the serial number in the help about dialog while leaving just enough of it so that calls to support can be uniquely identified.  The part not hidden is used mostly for internal communication between SolidWorks corporate and the VAR and referred to as the Seat ID.  The only reason it's only used internally is because by the time you explain to someone what the Seat ID is you could have just asked for the whole serial number and figured it out yourself.  But if both parties know that you’re talking about the Seat ID it's not a problem.

Here's the solution:
1.  Make a new text file (name it something like 'Hide SW Serial Number'
2.  Paste this text into the file:
        Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

        [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SolidWorks\Security]
        "Serial Number Hide"="1"
3.  Save the file
4.  Change the file extension from .txt to .reg
5.  Make sure SolidWorks is closed and Double-click on the .reg file and click Yes when it asks you to continue and OK to confirm the changes have been made successfully

Here's the Result:

It's time for "FEA - CREEP Analysis using SOLIDWORKS SIMULATION"

What is Creep?

Creep is a time varying, permanent strain due to long term application of constant or near constant stress level. Creep is observed in most engineering materials especially metals at elevated temperatures, high polymer plastics, concrete, and solid propellant in rocket motors.

Creep Analyses require detailed materail data that are dependent on duration of load and the magnitude of initial stress and temperature. Creep is not a significant concern for most metals until operating temperature reach 35% to70% of respective melting points.

Creep Curve:

Creep curve is a graph between strain versus time. Three different regimes can be distinguished in a creep curve; primary, secondary, and tertiary (see the following figure). Usually primary and secondary regimes are of interest.

 

Follow Simple and Easy Steps to Simulate Creep Study in SolidWorks Simulation:

Step_1: Define Nonlinear as a type of study 

Step_2: Define the materail properties with Creep effects

 

Step_3: Define Operating Conditions - Loads/Restraints and Mehsing 

Step_4: Properties set up, Run & Post Process the results 

 

  

Conclusion:

Based on this creep analysis study using SolidWorks Simulation (Premium Module), the model set up, meshing and analysis run was done very quickly. The challenge was to get the Creep constants for the materail along with temperature data.

In order to run any Nonlinear Creep Analysis, Graphics Systems Simulation team request all users (designers, engineeers and program leads) to work on gathering materail stress-strain curves and creep constants inputs as a  parrallel activity to desgining the parts and assemblies. This will save tremondous time and cost in product development. SolidWorks Simulation Premium, which is integrated within SolidWorks has all features necessary to do Nonlinear and Linear Dynamic analyses.

Most of Graphics/Systems customers recovered the software investment costs within few months time!

Meshhh.......Control..........THAT WAS EASY

I am not saying that generating the mesh is very easy if thats really what you are thinking. We often use the h-adaptive or p-adaptive techniques to get a refined and acceptable mesh. Thats true for the static analysis. How about a frequency or a buckling analysis? Have you every tried using the h-adaptive and p-adaptive mesh for these two studies ? I tried too and did not succeed. However, if you complete the static analysis with the required type of adaptive technique and copy the mesh onto the frequency or buckling analysis, it would let you copy the mesh. Its true that the displacement values obtained from the mode shapes of these two respective studies do not mean much but those of you who would like to use the required adaptive technique, this is the way to go. Well, that was easy.

Another technique I want to share with you is applying the Mesh control. The way you start any study is to first define materials, apply contact conditions, apply loads, generate mesh and run the analysis. This order is very useful when you want to apply the mesh control. Consider faces between any two parts for which the contact set has been defined. If you want to apply a refined mesh control on these two faces, you would pick them one after the other, right ? Some times, this can be painful when you try to hide one part and select the face and repeat the same process for the other face selection. You can also use the "Select Other" option but that can be painful as well with too many clicks. Well, all you need to do is highlight the contact set from the Study tree and then right click on mesh and select mesh control. The faces for contact pairs have already been selected. Well, that was easy, isn't it ?

 

How to use SolidWorks Task Scheduler to automatically create PDFs

Whenever I train my students, I always ask them if they've used SolidWorks Task Scheduler.  Based on anecdotal surveys, I have noticed that very few people use this feature.  Thus, I've decided to devote several blog posts in discussing the underappreciated and underutilized Task Scheduler.

As we all know, PDFs are a ubiquitous requirement in daily engineering life.  You typically have purchasing or sales asking you to send out PDFs of drawings for a vendor for quote or to a customer for approval.  Wouldn't it be nice to set a procedure that would automatically create PDFs for you?

There are two ways to perform this task.

1. Run the Task Scheduler as if you were performing a batch print job, or;
2. Run the Task Scheduler as if you were executing a batch export files job.

For this post, we will focus on the first method.

To perform the PDF creation automatically, you need the following:

• SolidWorks Professional - SolidWorks Standard will not have Task Scheduler.
• A PDF printer - The best one out there is Adobe but you may also use free PDF printing software such as PrimoPDF, CutePDF or PDFCreator. 
• Ensure that you have a SolidWorks license while the task scheduler is running.

The procedure is as follows:

1. Install the PDF printer and let it create a PDF print driver.
2. Open up SolidWorks Task Scheduler (Start... All Programs... SolidWorks 2009 SPx... SolidWorks Tools... SolidWorks Task Scheduler).
3. Select Print Files as the task.  A "Print Files" dialog box will come up.
4. You have the option to either Add File or Add Folder and select the files or folders that you want to create a PDF of.
5. Click on Options... and select your PDF printer.
6. Select what date and time you would like to run the task.  You also have the option to select the frequency of the task, meaning that you can run this task automatically every night if you prefer.

SolidWorks will generate the PDF through the following process:

• The created task will generate a list of subtasks for each document.
• Run the first subtask.
• Open up SolidWorks. 
• Open up the document.
• Print the PDF.
• Close the document.
• Close SolidWorks.
• Run the next subtask and go through the cycle again.

Several things to be aware of:

1. If you have any SolidWorks add-ons that require you to log on a username and password (such as in PDM systems), please set SolidWorks not to turn on the add-ons at startup.
2. If you are using a floating license of SolidWorks, you may either opt to run your tasks when nobody else is around or set your licenses to not expire immediately after closing SolidWorks.
3. If you do run your tasks at night, make sure that your IT doesn't have a setting which either logs you out or turns off your machine when the task is scheduled to run.  Otherwise, the task will start running when you come back in the morning.  
4. If you use PDM, please consult your SolidWorks reseller first before running these tasks.

I hope that this helps you become more productive. 

Thank you and have a great summer!

Happy Trails to You! 3DVIA Trails that is

For those of you using 3DVIA you may be asking “how I can create trails for my exploded views?”

We have two ways to make trails. Create a “Polyline 3D” this is a hard way to get what you want especially if you have a jog in the trail. So what do I recommend: use automatic trails created from an animation.

Here are the steps we need to take to get the trails were looking for.

We will need to make a simple animation to replicate the view we want to create. This will work best if you do not have an animation to this point in your SMG file. If you do have an animation, we will need to save it first so we can recall it later. From the Animate pull down menu select "Save scenario..." and save the smgSce file to a location of your choice. Remember this location; when you’re done creating the views you can then restore the original animation form the "Load scenario..." option. To clear the animation timeline you will need to select “Clear tracks and remove all child scenarios” from the Animate pull down menu.

Ok so now we have a clean slate to make our animation for the exploded view. Start by switching to animate mode and make sure the parts are collapsed. Now move the timebar to 1 second and using “Translation mode” move the actor to the first position, let’s say in the Y direction. Now move the timebar again to 2 seconds and move the actor to the second position, in the X direction for instance. Now the same steps one last time. Move the timebar to 3 seconds and the actor to its final position. With the actor selected you will notice a red trail marking the path the actor took to get to this position. Keep the actor selected and from the “Collaborate” select “Path” and then "Create non-associative paths from a selection of paths". This will turn the red path into a trail. Repeat this procedure for the other actors until you have your desired exploded view and new trails. The last step is to save the view. Look at the newly created view and you will see all the trails. One last thing to mention, the option "Create an associative path" will create the path in the animation only and will not show in the view.

What The Heap?

64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista allow 64-bit applications (such as SolidWorks) to access memory above the "3GB barrier" that's hard-coded in good ol' 32-bit Windows. If you're running out of memory, you already know that SolidWorks and Windows itself give you warnings to that effect.

What is generally known is that even if you never work on large datasets, you can still have problems in 32-bit Windows. Not because you're running out of memory overall, but because you're exhausting your "interactive heap memory."

Every time you do something in a Windows program, you have objects like icons, tabs, and the like that have to be loaded into memory. It doesn't matter if it's a big program like SolidWorks or a simple program like Internet Explorer -- they all eat away at the memory allocated for handling those things. Unfortunately, 32-bit Windows XP Professional -- by far the most prevelant operating system on corporate desktops today -- has a limit of 3MB (yes, that's megabytes, not gigabytes). When this is exhausted, any command that will open up a new menu, dialog box, tab, etc. will cause the unsuspecting program to crash.

How does this manifest in SolidWorks? Crashing when editing a dimension, putting on a mate, or basically anything that opens up a new window or object on the screen. They can appear to be totally random crashes. You will see this window pop up:

   

So how do you increase your memory allocation 32-bit Windows? You don't -- it's hard-coded in the OS.

It's another example of an OS living longer than it's intended time, changing technology and user demands on their software and hardware. It's another barrier that is hard-coded and cannot be changed. It's also another great reason to make the move to 64-bit Windows, where running out of interactive heap memory isn't a problem.

I'm not a spokeperson for 64-bit Windows, just a satisfied customer :)

More on Rebuilding

So, last month I talked about the CTRL-Q "Forced Rebuild" command.  I mentioned that you need to do a Forced Rebuild on each part, assembly, and drawing. Why is that?

SolidWorks is a single-point database system. Each piece of information needed by SolidWorks to do something will be found in one place and one place only. Features of the part, while they are visible and accessible from the assembly, are not copied into the assembly. The assembly provides a "window" to the part information, which is loaded into RAM behind the scenes when the assembly is open. Likewise with a drawing: the part features are not copied into the drawings, although they are accessible through the drawing.

What does Forced Rebuild do? It goes through the instruction set and carries out each instruction, which then provides the result from the modeling engine as topology (faces, edges, etc.). The instructions for a part are not in the assembly, so the part isn't being rebuilt when you do a CTRL-Q in the assembly; rather, each feature of the assembly is being rebuilt (mates, assembly features, and in-context features which are defined within the assembly). In a drawing, Forced Rebuild rebuilds the "features" of the drawings (like the views).

It's really very simple: the Forced Rebuild rebuilds those items actually in the file. Since parts aren't copies into assemblies and drawings, parts aren't rebuilt when you do a CTRL-Q in an assembly or drawing. Bottom line: do a CTRL-Q at each level, at least once (before you release the item in question). See last month's blog entry for more on CTRL-Q. Oh, yeah, and make sure you turn on Verification on Rebuild before you do the Forced Rebuild. (Tools, Options, System Options, Verification on Rebuild.) You can turn it off again after the CTRL-Q. I'll be writing about this switch in my next entry.

Process Explorer : A Powerful “Free” Application

Ever curious to know what processes SolidWorks is using? Need to find out if your Anti-Virus is running? Maybe you’re in search for a utility other than Task Manager? Sounds like a good time to discover the benefits of using Process Explorer.

Process Explorer provides you with a detailed visual representation of your systems' currently active processes.

 

It displays the processes' corresponding program icons, a command line fly-out, and it color-codes the processes' status.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process Explorer also comes with a powerful search tool that shows you which processes have certain handles opened or DLLs loaded. You can even use this search utility to track down viruses and malware.

 

In the end it can provide some meaningful insight on how SolidWorks, Windows, and many other applications work. Download it for free from Microsoft TechNet's Windows Sysinternals : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx