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!