We are giving away iPad2′s with seats of SolidWorks Premium! Undoubtedly, this is the best thing you’ve heard all week. I mean, think about it. You can get a Christmas present for your wife AND you can keep the iPad2!

Before I go on, let me field some questions.

Q. Does SolidWorks run on an iPad2?
A. No.

Q. Does Simulation run on an iPad2?
A. No.

Q. Okay, so, can these products interact at all?
A. Yes they can! Personally, I’m aware of three apps you might find interesting.

1. 3DVIA mobile app
This app is designed to take 3d models and superimpose them onto pictures taken with your device. (I wish I had this app when I was moving furniture for my grandma.)

2. CADFaster
This app allows SolidWorks users, as well as non CAD users, to view files that are placed on a cloud based system. I can see this app being very useful for a traveling manager who needs to make approvals.

3. SolidWorks World
Maps, calendars, classes – OH MY! Yes, you will look pretty cool at SolidWorks World with your iPad2.

Get yours before the offer expires on November 30th!

YES!

I don’t care if you just bought the software or if you have been using SolidWorks for five years or even longer. If you have never had any type of formal training, you should, and here’s why…

I was one of those people who never had training. The company I worked for when I started using SolidWorks decided that we were smart enough to learn the software without spending any money on training. And they were right – partly. Between the five of us using the software we were able to figure out a way to do almost every task that we needed to complete the job.

Check out our SolidWorks Courses and Schedule

After about three years of working with SolidWorks I considered myself a fairly accomplished user and decided to venture out and find a new job where I would again be using SolidWorks. That led me to Symmetry Solutions. Which confirmed how good I had become using this tool right? After all, I was hired to provide technical support for our customers.

Now feeling even more confident in my abilities, I was slightly offended when the on-boarding process at Symmetry Solutions required I attend the introductory training class, SolidWorks Essentials. During the first day I picked up a few shortcuts that I had not seen before. Well, I thought, at least it wasn’t a complete waste of my time. By the end of the class I realized how little I truly knew about this tool I had been using for years. The amount of time I had wasted over the past three years doing things the wrong way was mind boggling. In retrospect the amount of money my previous employer had paid me to do things the wrong way, the long way, was almost obscene.

Since then I have become one of the SolidWorks certified instructors here at Symmetry. Over and over again, I hear from my students that have been using the software for years that the knowledge they gain through the SolidWorks training courses is invaluable. Until you take a course you don’t realize how much you don’t know.

What do you use SolidWorks for?

• Sheet metal? We have a class for that.
• Assembly modeling? Yes, we have a class for that.
• Mold design? We have a class for that too along with many other general and specialized curriculum.

Sure, training revenue is part of what pays our bills. But I can honestly say that the investment you or your employer makes in training will more than pay for itself in a very short time. It is well worth the investment.

This week our tech tip will not be about SolidWorks. It’s time to give a little attention to the 3DVIA Composer users out there.

IMPORTING STEP FILES
When importing STEP files, be sure to clear the “Merge file into one actor per part” flag. This is important in that it ensures that the geometry nodes in the assembly tree contain names of the part rather than Object 1, Object 2, etc. Now when it comes time to update the STEP file, the update will have a higher success rate.

Happy Publishhing

As a rule, I do spend a bit of time each week browsing through other blogs about SolidWorks. I find things in these blogs that are relevant to some of my support cases. Some of them are focused on SolidWorks and some highlight other software and design tools as well. Below I have compiled a list of the ones I frequent, including some that are for specifics like PhotoView/PhotoWorks. If you have others that you follow, please leave a comment with the link to share with all of our blog readers.

http://www.fcsuper.com/swblog/ From a group of SolidWorks experts

http://www.solidsmack.com/ From Josh Ming

http://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/ From SolidWorks

http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/ From Matt Lombard author of the SolidWorks Bible series.

http://www.deelip.com/ From Deelip Menezes

http://robrodriguez.com/wordpress/ From Rob Rodriguez PhotoView/PhotoWorks

http://designsmarter.typepad.com/devonsowell/ From Devon Sowell PDM

So you’re working on an assembly. Everything is inserted and all of your mates are set. You’re just about done and looking things over when *poof* the entire asssembly disappears. You zoom to fit: nothing. You try zooming to a component: nothing. You do a Ctrl-Q: Still nothing. You close the part and re-open it: Nope, still gone. You’ve checked in the AssemblyXpert to make sure parts aren’t too far from the origin: everything is fine. All the parts are still there and you can edit the components and mates, but nothing but the background is in the graphics area.

The problem might be a glitch in the file that reset the bounding box of the assembly to be outside of the model space. How did it glitch? Well, not even SolidWorks knows yet. They do, however, know how to fix it!

To reset your bounding box and hopefully be able to view your assembly, do the following:

• Move your cursor to the graphics area.
• Hit space to bring up the “View Palatte.”
• Double click “Isometric.”
• Type CTRL-Q.
• Then save the assembly.

After that, you either rejoice that your assembly is back and viewable, or call your Tech Support Team!

As a member of the Technical Support Team at Symmetry Solutions, each year we are required to be recertified by SolidWorks.  Part of the recertification test is focused on new functionality and features for the latest release of SolidWorks.  As you may or may not know, there is a “What’s New” file for every new release of the software that documents these changes.  You can access this file from your help menu in SolidWorks.  Like many, I am one of those people that scan the document for some highlights when I install each new release.  However, since my recertification test was approaching, I thought I would give it a more thorough read.  You know what I discovered (again)?  There is a lot of good information in that document.  I won’t try and summarize the entire thing, but here is one tip that I think may be useful if you are in the process of updating hardware:

“You can transfer a license from a computer even if SolidWorks is no longer installed on that computer. You can download and run SolidWorks Activation Wizard from the SolidWorks customer portal to transfer the license.”

So now when you get that annoying message about “Activation Count Exceeded” because you forgot to transfer the license off of your old computer, you no longer need to call technical support to resolve the problem.

Note, the tool is new and currently only applies to SW2011 installations.

Take some time and read through the “What’s New” document (again).  It may not be the most fun reading material available, but I recommend it for all SolidWorks users, as it can help you get the most from your software.

P.S.  You will be happy to know that all the members of your SolidWorks Technical Support Team here at Symmetry Solutions passed their recertification test.

A rubber band stretches over a can.  Simple, right?  But when the rubber band is half the size of the can, simulating that sort of expansion over a large body becomes an enormously complex task.   It was day one of Advanced Non- linear Simulation Training in Chicago.  By the dumb expressions on our faces, Jandra Novak, our Czechoslovakian instructor, knew that we were stumped.  “Try this.” He said.    

We watched as he proceeded to silently work.  We all leaned forward and closed our laptops.  He entered values into the software.  No words, just numerical values.  It’s a language we all speak.  

Without getting into too much detail, simulating the rubber band going over the can was not possible.  The size difference was too great for any simulation software to handle.  What Jandra did, was simple.  He shrank the can and placed it in the center of the rubber band.  Then, he made the can grow.  The rubber band expanded as it came into contact with the can.

To any non-super-nerd it was all just numbers.  But to us, it was physics.  Glorious physics.  (It’s as close to reading the code from The Matrix as I’ll ever get.)  

He clicked “Run” and we waited.  

As we reviewed the result, I leaned back in my chair and had only one simple thought:  I understood everything that just happened. 

I’m smart.

As I walked into O’Hare,  I grabbed my ticket and looked down.  C33.  Gate C33, I thought.  For those of you who have never been, O’Hare is one of the largest airports in the country.  Getting to gate C33 was no small chore.  It took 3 miles of walking to get to.  As I reached the end of the terminal, I read C30, C31, C32.  No C33.  Confused, to say the least, I asked, “Excuse me miss, where is gate C33?”  

“Let me see your ticket,”  she replied.

I passed it across the counter.  I watched her type for what felt like an eternity.  

“C33 is your seat number.  You’re 5 miles away from your gate.”   

Defeated, I plopped down in gate 32.  I leaned back and had only one simple thought:  I’ve got a lot to learn.

-Nick Luyster, Applications Engineer (Simulation)

Wow!! This year’s SolidWorks World was packed with sessions, events, meetings and great fun! Our team had a great time with customers and partners and we learned a lot as always. If you couldn’t make it this year, please try and get to SolidWorks World 2012 in San Diego! You won’t be sorry.

The buzz is still loud in the blogosphere regarding the conference. You can get started at the SolidWorks blog. A few new products were announced: SolidWorks n!Fuze, Post3D, and SolidWorks Live Buildings for the AEC market. We were reacquainted with New SolidWorks CEO Bertrand Sicot. Bertrand has been with the company 15 years in various roles and we’ve enjoyed working with him on many occassions.

We especially want to thank our customers for their business in 2010. Symmetry Solutions received the “Elite 190 Club” award for the fourth year in a row. The award recognizes the top subscription service resellers worldwide. We were one of only four VAR’s in North America to receive the award.

Permasteelisa, a long-time customer of Symmetry Solutions, and world leader in curtain wall design, production, and installation,  played a large part in engineering the design of Beekman Tower, New York’s tallest residential high-rise.  The 76-story lower-Manhattan tower, designed by Frank Gehry, is 867 feet high. It includes highly-shaped curved steel surfaces that create a unique ripple effect. Permasteelisa’s virtual construction and precise 3D-models created using SolidWorks played an integral part in the successful completion of this impressive building. For more details on how this project came together, you can view a video here.

Beekman Tower, New York

Please take a minute to vote and let us know what you’d like us to cover in the upcoming SolidWorks “What’s New For 2011″ Webinar.

Thanks!