National Instruments and SolidWorks Collaborate on a Virtual Prototyping Solution

National Instruments has begun shipping the production release of NI SoftMotion for SolidWorks, a pioneer mechatronics tool that helps mechanical and control engineers work together to lower the cost and risk of motion system design. Seamlessly connecting NI LabVIEW graphical system design software and SolidWorks® 3D CAD software, the new virtual prototyping solution helps engineers and scientists design, optimize, validate and visualize the real-world performance of machines and motion systems before incurring the costs of physical prototypes.

NI SoftMotion for SolidWorks requires SolidWorks Motion Simulation, included with SolidWorks Premium, SolidWorks Simulation Professional and SolidWorks Simulation Premium. Additional LabView modules may also be required.

National Instruments has an extremely information website with webcasts, whitepapers, getting started guides, etc. Check it out: http://www.ni.com/digitalprototyping/

As mentioned in a previous blog posting, Rockwell Automation is collaborating with SolidWorks on a very similar solution that will integrate RA Motion Analyser software with SolidWorks Motion Simulation. This software should be available later this fall. More info can be found at http://www.ab.com/motion/software/analyzer.html and http://www.rockwellautomation.com/partners/dassault.html

SustainabilityXpress Available NOW from SolidWorks Labs

SustainabilityXpress is a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool for SolidWorks 2009.   When determining the environmental impact of a product, LCA looks at everything that happens in the production, use, and final disposal of the product. This even includes all the transportation that occurs between the stages. Decisions on the material used, how it is manufactured, … can result in vastly different effects on the environment. SustainabilityXpress shows you these impacts and helps you to improve your design.

SustainabilityXpress is the first fruit of a technology partnership between SolidWorks and PE International, a global expert in sustainability and materials science.  The Xpress version if free and is limited to evaluating single parts.  A full-fledged assembly analysis tool will be introduced along with SolidWorks 2010 later this month.

SustainabilityXpress prompts the user for information about materials used, manufacturing method, where it will be manufactured and where it will be used.  Once the information has been gathered, SustainabilityXpress interrogates PE’s huge database and provides four to five pages of data on teh environmental impace of sourcing the material, processing it, shipping it, using it and then disposing it at the end of its life.  Finally, the system will help you evaluate alternative materials that may have a lesser environmental impact. 

SustainabilityXpress requires SolidWorks 2009.  Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available.  For more information and to download the software, please visit http://labs.solidworks.com/

Intel Quietly Ships Faster Xeon 3500 Series Processors

Without much fanfare, Intel has begun shipping new and faster Xeon 3500 Series processors.  The new W3580 and W3550 CPUs run at 3.33 and 3.06 GHz, marginally faster than the 3.2/2.93 GHz W3570 and W3540 chips introduced earlier this year.  So far, Lenovo is the only major workstation manufacturer listing these chips as options and they are priced exactly the older and slower parts.

Intel has also been releasing more details on the forthcoming “Lynnfield” processors, which will be the Nehalem architecture for mainstream and consumer markets.  The consumer versions of the processors will be dubbed the Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 and will require different (and much less expensive) motherboards from the current Core i7 and Xeon 3500 Series.  The Core i5 and new Core i7 look particularly interesting.  They will have only dual channel memory, which will reduce bandwidth somewhat, but will make up for it with faster turbo modes (important for SolidWorks performance) and lower power consumption.  It’s unknown whether Intel will come out with Xeon-branded versions with ECC memory support, but I hope they do.  This would be the optimal platform for entry and mainstream SolidWorks users.

The following are recommendations for new workstations for SolidWorks. See http://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/SystemRequirements.html for minimum requirements.

SolidWorks 2009 Hardware Recommendations 090812

Please contact Jim Zink at (763) 560-8600 x219 for more specific recommendations.