Graphics Systems SolidNotes

SolidWorks (All versions) Setup for XP and Vista: Pre Installation

1. Check to see what video driver you have loaded. There are several ways of doing this the easiest is to use SolidWorks Rx.  Under diagnostics it will tell you the driver version right at the top. If this is a new machine or you have uninstalled SolidWorks you can also check in the device manager under display adapters.  Double-click on your video card and then go to the driver tab.  You will see the driver version listed here along with some other info.
2. Check for the latest certified passing drivers for your video card on the SolidWorks webpage.  You can get there by going to http://www.solidworks.com and clicking on graphics cards under quick links or click here for a direct link.
3. If the driver you have is not the SAME(newer or older is bad) as the latest certified passing driver you'll need to DISABLE YOUR ANTIVIRUS and then load the latest certified passing driver.
4. Once your driver is loaded make sure and set the driver for SolidWorks.  This can make a big difference.  Even cards that supposedly pass can perform poorly and crash if they are not set to SolidWorks.
5. If you are using an LCD display (flat panel monitor, projector, or laptop) it is extreemly important that you set your resolution to the max.  If you're using a CRT monitor you can set the resolution to whatever you like as long as your video card supports it.  The reason for this is that an LCD display has a specific number of crystals and anything other than the native resolution(maximum) causes the computer to average the color for each pixel with the surrounding ones to get the color that will be displayed.  and in a display that is 1280x1024 at 60hz that's over 78.6 million calculations per second that would not have to happen if you just set your resolution to the maximum.  If you feel that the icons or text is too small there are other ways to fix that (much easier in Vista than XP, but can still be done in XP)
6. Set your virtual memory to start at 4050 and to a maximum of 4096.  To do this right-click on my computer and choose properties.  In Vista there is an extra step here: you will have to pick advanved system settings on the left.  You will then get a popup that says System Properties.  Select the Advanced tab and under performance choose settings(the top one).  You'll have to again choose the advanced tab.  Make sure processor scheduling is set to programs and then click the change button.  This is where you will need to set the Initial size to 4050 and the maximum size to 4096.  Make sure and press the set button before you click ok and you're all done here.
7. If you're running any antispyware and or antivirus kill the processes now if you haven't already done so(Windows defender also need to be killed). For instructions on how to do this read my other articles.
8. Install SolidWorks

Shell Mesh: When should I use Thick vs Thin Elements

Let's consider a cantilever beam, which can be modeled as a solid or as a shell.

The actual deformation of the real beam (not mesh) is the sum of the shear deformation and the bending deformation as seen below:

When modeled as a solid it is recommend to have a minimum of 3 elements thickness in all places so that the shear deformation can be calculated accurately.  If this is not possible because of the size of the model (there are too many degrees of freedom) we use shell elements.  This is the reason we have two types of shell elements.  Thick shell elements consider the shear forces (for thicker plating) and thin shell elements do not (for this sheet metal) because they are negligable and would just waste calculation time.

As a rule, thick shell elements should be used when the thickness to span ratio is greater than 5%.  That's a very simple rule as long as you understand one thing... How exactly do we define span?  Thickness and 5% should be perfectly clear but the span can be confusing.  To explain this let's again consider the same beam.  In this case the span is the length but not the width.  But to be a little more clear lets consider this piece of sheet metal:

In this case we first need to assume that the verticle section is rigid compared to the horizontal section.  The sheet metal may be very long and thin but because of how this load is applied, if you need to conseder the deformation of the flange you should use thick elements because in this case the span is the length of the flange not the length of the part.

It's hard to put a concise definition on span but in general I'd define span as the distance between where the load is applied and the place bending starts.

Disabling Antivirus: How To

To date I've written several articles listing the processes that need to be killed in order to ensure a specific antivirus program is completely dead and will not interfere with your SolidWorks installation or service pack upgrade.  I plan to continue to post more of these as versions change and as I discover new software in use.

What I didn't write before was exactly how to kill all the hindering processes and services; I just told you what they were and left that for you to figure out.  So here's the how to:

1. Download Process Explorer (works with XP and Vista) and get it running.  Here's a direct link to the download file http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/ProcessExplorer.zip.  If you're not sure what it is and want to know more go here and you can see some screen shots and additional info.  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/processexplorer.mspx  You must run process explorer as an admin user so you can see the Company Name column. This can easily be done with a right click, run as...
2. Once you have process explorer up and going take a look at the company name column and note every process that is associated with your antivirus and antispyware.  Also to double check, hover your mouse over each and every process and look at where the file is being executed from because the Company Name column is sometimes blank or not correct.  If it's from the folder where your antivirus is installed add that to your list of processes to kill.
3. As an optional step you can compare the files you've found to the files I have listed in my other articles to make sure you got'em all or let me know if you've found any new ones.
4. Once you have the list you can go through and right click on each one of the processes and choose Kill Process Tree.
5. If you can kill them all this way that's great but more often than not there will be one or more that will not die... for example rtvscan.exe with symantec antivirus and this is the one that really causes the problems so don't you dare ignore it and install anyways because you don't know how to kill it.  Keep reading... We'll get there
6. Right-click on my computer and choose manage... When Computer management comes up look to the bottom of the left-hand pane and expand Services and Applications and click on services.  Now in the right-hand pane scroll down untill you see the services associated with your antivirus software.  Be aware that the name of the service may not be the same as your antivirus software. For example McAfee's services are called Network Associates...  Once you've located the services, right click on them one at a time and choose Stop.  There will be anywhere from 3 to 8 services, which may or may not allready be stopped.  To verify, make sure and look at the Status column and confirm that it is empty.  It's important not to forget about your antispyware in this step.
7. If this did it and all the processes are stopped, you should now be able to kill that last of the processes, (step 4) if they're not already dead.  Be aware that just because the service is stopped does not necessairly mean the process is stopped, and in the end it's the process that we really need to kill.  If there is a process that will not stop, which again is more often that not, you'll need to keep reading...
8. For those processes that will not stop you will need to double click on the process and set it to disabled(most likely it is set to automatic before you change it).  at this point you will need to restart your computer and start from the top (step 4, assuming you still have the list you made in step 2).  The processes you already killed will be restarted when you reboot so you'll have to kill them again.
9. If for some reason you can't disable the service it is because you are not an administrator and you will need to log off and log back in as an admin to complete step 8.
10. Lastly after your Installation is complete make sure and remember to set whatever services you set to disabled back to automatic.

Keeping Dissection Data local

The new dissection functionality in SolidWorks 2008 is great for allowing the user quick access to the underlying feature and sketch data in their design files without having to store them in a library. A big plus is that the dissection information is not stored in the SolidWorks files themselves, which keeps them from becoming bloated with what is essentially "cache" data. Instead, SolidWorks stores them in a directory on the local drive:

C:\Users\{login}\AppData\Roaming\SolidWorks\Dissection

This can be a performance issue if you are using Roaming Profiles on your Windows network, because everything under the AppData\Roaming folder is copied to the server, and downloaded to the client workstation each time they log in. If you use dissection a lot, you can easily get tens of gigabytes of data in your dissection folder, which will make your logins very slow and cause your IT staff to call you names.

The solution is to make your dissection folder truly local to your workstation. Go to Tools > Options > System Options, and look under the Search page. You will see a place to specify the folder your dissection data is kept -- just make a folder outside of the Roaming section of your profile and it will stay home.

Of course, if you log in from a different workstation, your dissection data won't be there, because it's not part of your Roaming Profile; however, you can easily re-construct it simply by working with SolidWorks. Unless you spend a lot of time working on multiple machines, the trade off is very much worth it.