SolidWorks 2010 will be the last release to include PhotoWorks. PhotoView 360 will be its replacement and the photorealistic solution for SolidWorks software.

So what is PhotoView 360?

Product Description
PhotoView 360 makes the creation of stunning photorealistic images as simple as a single mouse click. It establishes SolidWorks as the leader in rendering technology. PhotoView 360 comes as part of SolidWorks Premium, SolidWorks Professional or SolidWorks Office.

Positioning
PhotoView 360 is a new photorealistic rendering application for users who need to quickly create stunning images with as little as a single mouse click.

Technology Overview
The PhotoView 360 renderer is a fast standalone ray‐tracer that uses High Dynamic Range Images (HDRI) for photorealistic lighting. It is highly scalable on multi‐core systems, delivering nearly linear speedups as more processors are added. It supports full associativity with SolidWorks in the areas of assembly instancing, and the accurate transfer of RealView appearances.  PhotoView 360 was first released as part of SolidWorks 2009 SP1.

To view a gallery of rendered images, go to http://www.solidworksgallery.com/

Starting with 2010 SP3.0, SolidWorks is checking whether you are on subscription before you install the service pack.  With SP3.0 you will just get a warning if you are not on subscription but starting with SP4.0 you will not be able to install. 

For network licenses, the expiration date is saved on the license server and that is the date that is checked during installation.  Depending on the date the SNL Manager was activated and the subscription expiration date, you may get the message that your subscription has expired even though it has been renewed.

SolidWorks Help is terrific – IF you can find what you are looking for.  With the new online Help in SolidWorks 2010 you can use the Google search engine to easily find the information you need.   Simply add 

site:help.solidworks.com

to your search term.   For example:

extrude site:help.solidworks.com

Try it.  It works pretty well.

There is a problem in 2010 for automatic updates for administrative images. SW 2010 SP0 installation does not update automatically after upgrading Admin Image. This issue only affects Installation Manager-based administrative images; no other images are affected by this. The problem is due to the swspamanger.exe installed with SolidWorks on client machines failing to check and install the latest Installation Manger/Administrative Image.

The workaround for updating client machines is to deploy the service pack similar to deploying a new administrative image (i.e. ask users to browse to the \StartSWInstall.hta). NOTE: The person responsible for deploying SolidWorks, often a system administrator, should not send the .HTA file via email as the paths will not be recognized; instead the system administrator should send a shortcut/link to the .HTA file so it runs directly from the administrative image folder.

The issue will be resolved in SolidWorks 2010 SP2. Please note the fix will not be implemented until SP2 is installed (i.e. the automatic update won’t work until going from SP2 to SP3). To upgrade to SolidWorks 2010 SP2, the same method described above must be used.

There is also an issue when trying to update an install as per the work around when there is an admin image install of 2009. The only way to get this to work is to remove the 2009 install.

These two issues are covered under SPR 530079 for the auto update and SPR 530818 for the 2009 image install. They are both slated to be fixed in 2010 SP2.

The 2010 Installation Manager has changed again, but in a good way. All of the options can now be found on a single clickable dialog on the Summary page. As you can see from the image below, there is a checklist on the left, which tells you what page you are on. The first three pages are very much the same as in previous years, so I will focus on the Summary page. Here, you have selectable options that can be changed to suit your specific installation needs.

Let’s start with Products. When you select “CHANGE”, it will open that page and you have the option to select or unselect all products available for your serial numbers. If you have a network serial number, the default install will be at a Premium seat, even if you do not have it. So, on the Products Selection page, you can remove the products your license does not cover.

Download Options:  this is for all installs, whether you need to download or not. The options here include “Download” and “Install” for an individual install, “Download Only” to do a full download to share, and “Install Only” if you have already downloaded. You can also change the location to download to, as well as select to conduct a manual download.

Installation Location: This allows you to change where SolidWorks is installed. The default location is C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp. It also tells you what the size of the installation is and asks where you want to install from.

Toolbox Options: This tells you that SolidWorks is currently referencing a Toolbox if there is a previous install. It then needs to know what you want to do: 1) Create a new Toolbox, 2) Upgrade an existing one, or 3) Upgrade an existing one in a new location. The option you choose depends on your installation needs. If it is a new install, or you are not sure what Toolbox is, create a new one. If you are upgrading an existing install and removing the previous, just upgrade the existing one. But if you need to keep the previous install and have custom parts in your Toolbox, copy that one to a new location, add a new name and upgrade it. If you need to have multiple instances of SolidWorks on your computer, as I do, put the version of SolidWorks as a suffix to the folder name. For example, I have folders named SolidWorks Data 2009 and SolidWorks Data 2010. I do this for the installation folder as well.

On each of these pages in the lower right corner, there is a “Back to Summary” button. This brings you back to the Summary page, where you can select the next page to change or continue with the install. The button in the lower right will either say “Install Now” or “Download Now,” depending on if you have already downloaded the required data. If it is “Install Now,” it will go to the install page. If it is “Download Now,” it will go to the download page, and then continue to the install page if you are doing both a download and install. When it is done doing the tasks you told it to do, it will go to the finish page. Here it allows you to check for updates, see “What’s New?” or fill out a survey about the process. It also asks if you want to participate in the SolidWorks Customer Experience Program. I do recommend this, as it will send crashing issues directly to the SolidWorks development team. That enables them to see what is causing the crashes and helps them determine patterns of crashes. Also, if you need to send an Rx into Symmetry tech support and are not participating, the SolidWorks performance log does not fully attach.

I hope this information helps make your installation process easier.  If you have questions or need further assistance, we are happy to help. Please contact  Symmetry’s Technical Support Team at:

763-560-8600, option 4

support@symsolutions.com