One of the great new enhancements that we have seen with the release of SolidWorks 2013 is the ability to utilize Luxology custom appearances for rendering within PhotoView 360.  SolidWorks recently has updated the customer portal with the links you will need in order to access the Luxology appearance assets to start downloading and using these fantastic appearances for you SolidWorks renders.

The Luxology appearance assets are located on the Luxology website (Luxology is the partnering company that has created the software for the PhotoView 360 add-in), but don’t be fooled and try to create an account with Luxology, you will not be able to download any of the assets from their site if you do so (unless you have a license of Modo).  Further more if you have already created an account for the Luxology website, make sure you are logged out before accessing it through the SolidWorks customer portal.

Login into the customer portal through www.solidworks.com, you will see a login link on the upper right hand side.  Once you have logged in, click the customer portal link to access the main page of the customer portal, here you will see a new link that is added for PhotoView 360 appearances.

This link will bring you to another page with another link to get you to the SolidWorks Asset Sharing:

This will bring you to another page with one more link:

Finally you are on the Luxology assets page; from here you can look through their library and download appearances  for all of your rendering needs!  Keep in mind that some of these appearances will actually render off of the surface of your model, giving a much more realistic final render than what we saw with previous appearances in Photoview 360.  There is an example at the end of this blog that has ‘Chipped Paint’ as an appearance which gives an extra 3D feel.

So now that you are logged into the assets site for Luxology, how do you start downloading and using these appearances for your rendering?  One method is to download and unzip directly to the default location for SolidWorks <Installation Drive>/Program Files/SolidWorks Corp (2013)/SolidWorks/data/graphics/Materials.

Or create a specific location for your Luxology appearances to separate these appearances from the standard appearances that came from the installation.   I created a Luxology folder in my working drive, with sub folders similar to the default folders in SolidWorks.  Either way works just fine!

Be sure to add the folder location to the SolidWorks system options if you do it the second way.  Tools>Options>Folder Locations>Custom – Appearances

Now you are set to start applying these appearances to your part/assembly for rendering.  If you start applying appearances and it doesn’t look anything like what you thought, don’t worry!  The Luxology assets for PhotoView 360 are generally only visible in the preview and final render windows.  When I went to create a Christmas Snow Globe the view from the SolidWorks window is far from what PhotoView 360 will see:

But when you create the final render, you get amazing appearances!

I have always found that the routing tools to be an interesting part of SolidWorks but was never able to really learn all the ins and outs of it. So a while back I started looking a little closer at it. I am right now working from the Piping & Tubing portion of the training manuals.

I always thought the rules for creating the routes were very consistent and that you needed to have connector points (CPoints) and route points (RPoints) to be able create any route. Well I found a tool to be able to start a route without a connector.

This is very helpful if the component you are using is an imported model from a vendor and they supply the connector but you are not sure what it will be. They did let you know the size of pipe/tube/wire and a location for where it will be on the component. So know if it is not all ready on the model you will need to create a cylindrical cut to represent the start point.

The tool to use in this instance is Start at Point and is available on the all three routing tool bars Electrical, Piping, and Tubing. Once you select the appropriate tool you then select the cylindrical face from the hole for the starting point and it gives you a nub start so you can then continue the route in whatever manner you need to complete this.

So as I continue to dive into the routing tools I will add any interesting features that may be hidden or not really well known.

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.

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)