Graphics Systems SolidNotes

Add it in!

We're all familiar with SolidWorks Add-Ins such as COSMOSWorks, PhotoWorks, or Third Party items such as DriveWorks. But did you know that some productivity softwares, such as MS Excel also utilize add-ins? It's true. Furthermore, you might realize that you are already using one! If you don't know, allow me to show you- in MS Office 2007- where to go. So, start up Excel... go ahead...

At the bottom corner of the Start menu for Excel, you'll note the Options button.

Note the "Add-Ins" category. By selecting this you can see what add-ins are available and which are active or not. Some add-ins are loaded when you install some other piece of software. Others are additional content for and through Microsoft Excel that need to be downloaded before using. (You can select the images to make them larger)

Here to the left, I clicked "Go" from the previous screen and you can see I've chosen one of the add-ins provided to us by Microsoft. This particular add-in allows me to perform histograms, covariance analysis, and random number generation among others.

So what?  What could this possibly have to do with SolidWorks. Well, quite a bit if you frequently work with Design Tables or use third-party SolidWorks add-ins such as DriveWorks. Both of these examples heavily rely on Excel. For example, if we used a design table to capture important dimensions of a part and the MROUND command to round up the values for displaying within the part drawing, we would be concerned if whether the Excel Add-In that contains that function was installed lest the design tables fail to round the values accordingly.

This problem, like others with Excel, can often be abrogated by simply insuring that you are using the most recent version of the tool. This however isn't always available as an option. So, as a friendly reminder from another SolidWorks user who has been bitten in the backside by Excel, please be sure to check your add-ins. (especially if your company is upgrading from one version to another) And who knows? You might find that useful command you were looking for that you never thought Excel could do!

If you are a DriveWorks user then setting up Excel shouldn't be something new. Along with Add-Ins, you also have macro and security settings to consider. But this, as the expression goes, is "another episode."

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.

Selection Through Transparency

Have you ever had trouble picking behind a transparent face in an assembly? Perhaps you are in the Edit Part mode and your system settings force assembly transparency for the components you aren't currently editing. In such cases you can see the edge or face you want to select through a transparant model, but SolidWorks won't let you select them, even though you may switch from shaded to hidden lines visible. Why?

The culprit is likely a switch in Tools, Options, DIsplay/Selection, Enable selection through transparency. If this switch is turned off, then as long as your model is transparent, you will not be able to pick trhough to hidden edges. Enable it, and you are able to pick through just fine.

You may very well want to leave that switch disabled, however, to lighten the system load or just make it less likely that you'll accidently pick through a model when you're working top-down style. In that case, to temporarily allow selection through transparency, hold down the Shift key and you'll be able to pick through the transparency.

Why can't I have Configuration Specific part numbers in my BOM?

Actually you can, and there are two different ways of doing it...

The first is to have the configuration name be the part number.  To do this you must go into each and every part and subassembly and change the Bill of Materials Options (inside Configuration Properties, as show) for each configuration in the model.  This sounds like a big task but That's what it's gonna take.  You are goin to have to change it from saying Document Name (SW Default) to Configuration Name, and then name each configuration what you want it to be.

 

 

 

 

The second, and preferred by me, way is to use a configuration specific custom property.  The trick to using a custom property is that the Bill of Materials Options (inside Configuration Properties, as show) must be set to User Specified Name and $PRP:"PartNumber" (where PartNumber is the name of the configuration specific custom property being used).  Again this initial change must be made to each configuration in every single part and sub assembly in your assembly. 

Here are several reasons(In no particular order) as to why I prefer this method:

 

 

• Confugurations can be named as you please
• Custom properties are easier to edit than configuration names
• Changing a custom property will not affect the ability for an Assembly to find the correct configuration
• Part number can be controlled in the same place as all the other properties in a model
• All the other items in the BOM are custom properties (or should be, and I mean it)

 

Here's another tip when doing this... An easy way to tell if all the configurations in a particular model are properly set, is to simply look at the configuration tab and to the right of the configuration's name it should say [ $PRP:"PartNumber" ] as shown.

 

And now for the best part... to all of you who bothered to read this whole article I am including a macro that will add a configuration specific custom property to each configuration and rename the Bill of Materials Options to User Specified Name with the value set to show the property name specified. Click Here to Download  The use of this macro is at your own risk.  Graphics Systems Corporation is in no way responsible for any damages that occur as a result of using this macro.  The macro is provided as is and will not be supported in any way.

All of the knowledge necessary to write this macro can be achieved through the SolidWorks API class offered at Graphics Systems.  Please see our class listings for the next available class.

Customizing your SolidWorks Material Library

Included with SolidWorks is a Material Library that, straight out of the box, contains many metals, plastics, and non-metals that one can apply to their parts.  Moreso, these materials come with material properties such as Young's Modulus of Elasticity, Density, and Yield Strength in addition to visual properties and RealView Graphics properties.

It is not uncommon for new users to either ask during training or to call our Support personnel how they can modify this library.  The very short and incomplete answer is: you can't.  The complete answer is: (click the image to enlarge)

So, how DOES one modify their library of SolidWorks materials?  Begin by right-clicking the Materials folder within the Feature Manager of your part. Click "Edit Material" and choose any material you wish, simply to activate the "Create/Edit Material" pushbutton.  Click this pushbutton and from the Database Selection pulldown, choose <New Material Database>.  SolidWorks will prompt you where to store this new file.  If you wish to share this database with others in your organization, store it to a networked disk that others have access to.

From here, you have begun the laborius process of providing 1. a Material Classification and 2. a Material Name. After that, it is simply a matter of cycling through the three remaining tabs atop this dialog window, starting with "Visual Properties."  Click the image it make it larger.

The Textures within Visual Properties are also a database.  They are bitmap images that you can point SolidWorks to for more choices. (Go to Tools, Options, System Options, File Locations, and from the pull-down, choose Textures, add a new file location)

The Physical Properties tab is like a spreadsheet in that you can double-click the value for each proper to change it.  Which begs the question: where can I get material properties from?  We recommend starting with the MatWeb site found at www.matweb.com.  Not only can one search for material properties, but with a Premium Member account, MatWeb is capable of exporting directly to SolidWorks!  Thus, creating new material libraries has been made much easier thanks to the work of MatWeb.

Other sources of material properties can be found in texts from associations such as ASME, SAE, and the like.

One last note of interest: for those of you who are XML savvy, the finished materials database is XML-based, so editing it manually is quick once one learns the terms used within the file.  For more on material databases and their uses, please don't hesitate to give us a call or drop us an e-mail here at Graphics Systems!

Getting a "pretty picture" out of SolidWorks

Your manager has asked you to put together a quick report on the status of the new project you're working on.  He's not very CAD savvy and has asked you to include pretty pictures. You think you've read something, awhile ago, about Photoworks- a photorealistic rendering add-in for SolidWorks- but don't know if your company owns it nor do you have the time to learn it if they did.  What will you do!?!

Have no fear! Screen capturing techniques are here!!

OK, all cheesiness aside, quickly grabbing screen shots of your SolidWorks parts, assemblies, or drawings is easy.  So let's review some common capture techniques.

• PrntScrn- Have you seen this button on your keyboard and ever wondered what it does?  Well, in Windows, PrntScrn will capture the entire screen you are working in at that time and place it on to the "Windows Clipboard." (a type of temporary area for holding "stuff") From there, in the target application (such as MS-Word or PowerPoint), use Edit, Paste or ctrl-V to then paste this content.  But there is a drawback: PrntScrn captures the entire screen.  And for SolidWorks, that means not only the design pane, but your toolbars, feature manager, and any other panes that might be active. Using ALT+PRNTSCRN will capture the active window or dialog box.
• File, SaveAs, .jpg- SolidWorks has one of the largest built-in collection of translators in the industry!  Everything from .dwg, STEP, ACIS, IGES, and even native formats for ProE and Catia to name a few!  But, did you know that you could also save a part, assembly, or drawing as a JPEG file?  Yes!  And best of all, it only captures the design pane (and not toolbars, etc.). This quick trick buys you a nice, 96X96dpi (dots per inch), color, screen capture in the compact and widely accepted JPEG format.  But wait!  There's more...
• New in SolidWorks 2007 is an easy-to-use screen capture tool called... are you ready?... Screen Capture.  The icon is also very easy to understand: a older-styled shutter camera!  This new tool can be accessed most readily from the View pull-down menu.  Like the above technique, this too will give you a 96X96dpi image.  The difference is that, unlike directly creating a .jpg, Screen Capture places the contents of the design pane onto the Windows Clipboard, which can then be pasted into the target application. One advantage this technique offers is the ability to paste into a photo editing software and saving the results as some format other than JPEG.
• Last but most certainly not least is purchasing a third-party screen capturing software such as TechSmith's SnagIt. SnagIt is an easy and fun-to-use software that allows the user to capture anything from his or her computer screen.  This includes (but is not limited to) whole screens, windows, panes, and regions. And the capture can be saved in any one of many formats. (including compressed formats such as GIFs and JPEGs to larger formats such as bit maps, targa, and paintbrush to uncommon formats such as encapsulated postscript, raw, and WordPerfect) Included with SnagIt are a studio and editor that, while there are better softwares available, is a benefit since they're included for the price. TechSmith also sells video capturing software... but that's for another episode.

Now that you know that you can capture screen shots from SolidWorks, and you know a few different techniques, what can you do to appease your boss? What exactly is a pretty picture?  I suggest- if it is a part or an assembly you're capturing- to make it look as "clean" as possible.  And to do this, turn off such things as coordinate systems, sketches, the origin, and planes.  If you are trying to make a semi-realistic looking picture, turn on the use of shadows while shaded, use "shaded without edges" as your display style, and either turn on perspective or use a SolidWorks camera. (the camera, also, is for another episode) Add realism by adding colors and textures to faces, features, bodies and parts/components. And lastly, if your video card supports it, active RealView graphics and choose a nice looking material. (or, make your own.  Yes, that too is for another episode) All of these settings can be easily accessed from the View pull-down menu.  See the picture below and click on it to make it larger.

I hope you've enjoyed and found useful this blog entry.  We appreciate your time in reading this.  If you have any comments or questions, I can be e-mailed at christopher.schaefer@gxsc.com. Stay tuned for future posts.  And if there's something in particular you'd like us to report on, please let us know!

Gimmie my auto view projection in 2007!

There are a number of great enhancements in SolidWorks 2007, but one of them is personally not my cup of tea. In drawings, one of the new 2007 enhancements is the View Palette. This is the new palette available from the Task Pane that shows you all of the defined views of a particular model. While I like being able to snatch a view from the View Palette once I'm working on a drawing, I don't like how it works when I'm first creating a drawing from a model. I prefer to have the Insert Model View command pop up and let me place projected views the old way. If you want to restore that behavior to your own 2007 installation, it's easy to do through a SolidWorks system option. Tools > Options > System Options, and in the Drawings category you will find "Show view palette." Turn that off and the View Palette won't jump out in front of you when you make a new drawing.