Since we’ve been talking about viewing SolidWorks files on an iPhone, how about we talk a little about viewing an iPhone in SolidWorks. Better yet, how about we model up the back of one to see how we can get those continuous smooth shapes in SolidWorks. We’ll be using surfacing, and the fine art of…
There’s hope for your carpal tunnel syndrome, worn out wrist supports and squeaky chair. In the future, they may be replaced by the joy of getting into your work… literally. Lauren Argo put pen to paper to churn out the idea of pen to air on 3D canvas. The idea uses “iGPS”(?) to capture a…
How many times do you look at somethign and say, “yeah, that would be MUCH COOLER in 3D.” Ya know, stuff like a book, a movie, or set of schematics for a miniature fusion reactor. Yet, with all of the possibilities, there’s just something way to simple about the glyphs representing the English alphabet and…
Shhhh, in all actuality, this will not only show you how to add custom lengths to a Bill of material (BOM), but will allow you to harness the almighty power of custom properties in SolidWorks. It’s quick, it’s easy and it’s this week’s two-minute Tut. Often, the shop or purchase department need a little extra…
Put the crackers down. The shop is calling. Nope, not to tell you they have to remake everything, but to let you know the part-makin’ is going perfectly. Why? You knew what to look out for. On the screen it looks spectacular, right? but can it actually be made? For many designers and engineer’s designing…
So, you like to draw a bunch of sketches and create really complicated sweep geometry in SolidWorks huh? You should be commended for your bravery, but sometimes there’s a simpler way to get curvy with your parts. All you need is an open part file and about two-minutes… depending on how mad your 3D modeling…
Allright, I’m not doing anyone any good by delaying some SolidWorks tutorial goodness just because I can’t get my video act together, so without further ado, I will introduce the SolidSmack 2-minute Tut… soon to be video-ized. 2-minutes of your time in exchange for lessons in glorious 3D SolidWorks, along with supporting images. I’ll post…
Ok, someone has asked me what my single greatest SolidWorks tip for large assemblies is. That, all you SolidWorks Pros may know, is a large request in itself. If I had to split my knuckles across the edge of my desk about anything, it would be the frustration that comes with large assembly management in…
It’s not as if robotic cats are out to keep you from gaining knowledge about certain SolidWorks drawing features, but with their hollow gaze and reduced allergens they certainly would have that power in the right cubicle space. While they’re indeed much more adorable than a stodgy, ol’ FeatureManager in SolidWorks, they won’t provide you…
Look out unemployed and soon-to-be-unemployed engineers and designers… SolidWorks has gone and done the nearly unimaginable… free software. For a limited time, they are offering a free trial download of SolidWorks 2009 to stimulate the corpuscles out of your ever-loving, unemployeed facial pores. And although your excitement may instantly look like a bad case of…
Stop your clikcin’ and a’drawin’ there for a few seconds. There’s a way to make your SolidWorks drawing experience much more enjoyable and your Bill of Material manipulation a whole lot easier. SOlidWorks BOM’s have gotten a lot of nice functionality, but somehow, there’s bits and pieces of working with them that 1) take getting…
Yes, you’re sitting waiting for a drawing to load again. You look out the pretend window you’ve drawn on the wall with a dull sharpie and sigh as you long to eat at that taco place your grandpa took you to years ago. *Sigh* May as well get some coffee, it’ll only be a few…
Ok, you’re in a room of SolidWorks experts and starting to sweat. You feel like bustin’ out you modely moves, but wonder if they’re good enough. You start to twitch a little and get into the groove, but only the cat gnawing it’s paw in the corner seems to notice you shakin’ like André 3000.…
Set the sticks and mud aside. Playing with objects in our physical world is nothing against the impending sensorific-digitized-virtual-realitastic onslaught of completely augmented playtime for you and the kiddos. You may be seeing Frantz Lasorne very cool concept for a ‘blaster bot’ style kids game floating around. It uses nothing but the pure goodness of…
Guess what. You’re most likely moving a little mouse cursor around, selecting this link or that link (clicking anything to escape this post?), perhaps not realizing that soon, instead of a mouse cursor you’ll be using your digits or some other multi-point device. We’ll get into that tech in future posts. For now, we’ll take…
Oh man are we about to blow the door of your creative gourde WIDE OPEN. You might just call a meeting to discuss new ways to design those pump housings you model all day. Be warned. I’ve been wanting to find some simple design to showcase. Simple design that can inspire designers and engineers alike…
If you’ve upgraded to SolidWorks 2009 SP2.1, you might notice a message for an obscure feature that helps you make lil’ bumps on faces. The Shape feature. Turns out, this particular feature will not be available in SolidWorks 2010. Yep, so now, you and that one guy in South Dakota who use it to make…
If you overslept or forgot to feed your hairless cat the past couple weeks, you may have missed the newest SolidWorks Service Pack (SP) that not only fix’z a bit o’ broke stuff, but also give you a handy new feature. In fact it was #4 Enhancement Request from users this year. Charles Culp discovered…
As if those potatoes will peel themselves. Ok, so apparently they do, but it’s got to be the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen, besides that disco family of Sumatran rabbits and these links. Wayne Barlow – Yes, speaking of creepy. Wayne wins for his creature art. A fleshy sac on the back of a 3-legged…
I was showing some people on Twitter how RealView helped to cure confusion and ignorance with manufacturing. It just so happens that Twitter, also helps to cure confusion and ignorance. My ignorance. I complained about tangent edges showing in shaded mode. I really needed to have them off, but thought, Oh well, nothing I can…
After really thinking about this post, getting some feedback and losing a slap fight with an angry camel trader, I’ve decided to totally revamp the former SolidWorks Success post and put them in all together. It lacks the detail I originally determined I wanted to put into the points, but the angst about not having…
You want’em? We got’em. Hot, steamy nuggets of SolidWorks tipage you can wad up and stick under your pillow, give to your coworker or completely ignore. Let me warn ya. These are not your regular old tips. These are the most obvious…and when I say obvious, I’m talking around 38-41% mostly obvious… give or take…
Do you wish you had just a sprinkle of magic CAD dust to make you a 3D modeling force to be reckoned with? I’d say, this article is it… but it doesn’t smell as nice and there’s a bit of an aftertaste. Nonetheless, barring the aptitude you have for engineering and design and your eye-jabbing…
So, you love your cushy design engineer job, but part, assembly and drawing creation is an assembly line of repetitive horror and the screams are about to come blasting out. If you’re like me, you love the design process, but starting everything from scratch, especially on similar components uses up a lot of extra time…
Speaking of touchscreen display technology you’ll want to take a look at this. Found at Joe Moak’s, Hey, That’s a Great Idea via Develop3D, a revisit to the I(heart)Sketch. INDEED. You’ve seen I(heart)Sketch on SolidSmack before, but this actual demo of a ship being created is glorious. It’s even more amazing than the normal touchscreen…
Why, it was only a few days ago you were enticed to get your Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP) certificate. Now, however, SolidWorks is elevating the enticement by offering the exam to current subscription customers for the rest of 2009… for FREE. Customers wishing to take the exams must redeem their code no later than December…
Oh, the joys of using a really poorly modeled part and trying not to tear someone’s head off. Quell your rage with this. We’re going to deconstruct a simple part to show you exactly how to optimize part building in SolidWorks. The part is simple but each tiny facet hold the possibilities of wrecking havoc…
This bicycle concept has been on the web… A LOT. You may have seen it, but you may not know that it was designed using 3D. Yes, I know, it’s almost obvious. The design is also being refined in SolidWorks and that’s where you come in. Brad Waugh has a cool idea. A hubless bike.…
I saw it yesterday, a big ol’ metal silo that inches along the ground. It was filled with raccoons and smelled like cheese puffs. So, instead of calling the authorities, I sat down, had a cookie and looked at these links. Mecha Illustrations – Duster132 does mecha up so right. Excellent and inspiring illustrations to…
There are some things in life that are scary and others that are just plain fun. Robots and magneto-coaster-toy-thingies are both of those. If you’re a CSWP (Certified SolidWorks Professional), this year’s SolidWorks World CSWP event is full bore, roboteriffic, coaster-building fun. You have the food, drinks and a contest that’s even open to CSWP’s…
So, how many times are you sitting admiring the sunrise, contemplating the various ways to mirror an assembly in SolidWorks when you suddenly realize that’s not a bagel you stuck in the toaster, but your right thumb. With files sizes on the mind, you may have a tendancy to avoid mirroring SolidWorks assemblies as much…
It’s bound to happen. You’re walking past your local incinerator with that nice new shirt on and instantly your fine woolen threads are vaporized LEAVING YOU COMPLETELY UNPROTECTED AGAINST THE ELEMENTS. Scary isn’t it? So is not being able to protect those 3D models you’ve spent 1/3rd of your life working on. Fact is, sometimes…
Stop pouring Teriyaki all over your desk for a few minutes, Mr Ginsu, and take a look at this. You have the power to sizzle up one single pattern on different faces… of different parts… in an assembly. The shock and horror is overwhelming, yet your deeply drawn to find out how you’re able to…
The ‘S’ key. A single key on that clicky ol’ keyboard that can give you the POWER to HARNESS… tiny little icons… on a customizable pop-up toolbar. Power? Yes, faster access to commands and less time between them. Everyone knows it’s easier to get away from going through the menus by setting up keyboard shortcuts.…
Cut, trim, copy, paste, delete, trim, spin, slap, aRRRG! It’s the same teeth-gritting routine to get one edge to match another edge, one face to move with another. What we need is an easier way to get multiple parts to capture change and make that model rock your bosses eyes out of his ever loving…
I’ve got an idea. Let’s make starting a project really easy. Throw a bid at the screen and watch the assembly build itself. While that isn’t exactly happening (yet), SolidWorks Labs is stirring the boiling cauldron of 3D CAD efficiency in an attempt to bring that one step closer. The Treehouse project allows you to…
Ah, it’s that special time of year. That time of year when we consider the ramifications of firing a harpoon gun blindly into the air and also the pain of asking the IT department about upgrading to the next version of SolidWorks. Point that spear away from the whirring server room and settle in. If…
You could mess around with sticks and Playdoh trying to mock up an idea for a design contest, but if you’re like me and end up eating throwing the Playdoh and burning the sticks, there’s a better solution. SolidWorks sponsorship. Not only will you get to put a neato SolidWorks decal on your entry, SolidWorks…
For most in the US, there’s dancing. It’s a three day week as happiness surrounds the Thanksgiving holiday and ensuing riots to get 90% off a ham brazier. We’re excited about the same here at SolidSmack, not with finely charred ham, but with.. oh yes, finely charred tips. A short week, with a limited fewer…
They’re a little bit easier to handle than the teething undead, but all the relations in a SolidWorks sketch can make modeling, and specifically concept modeling, a relation re-defining nightmare that is way less interesting than cleaning up after a zombie child. One of the biggest problems you’ll have with relations automatically added to your…
SolidWorks has a TON of useful features and ways to model the most amazing chunks of 3D your nimble fingers can sketch and extrude, but some features are a fiery heap of performance hindering options that just get in the way. We’ve put together 12 features you can turn off right away to get better…
It’s all great fun to chill with your friends and model up some of that 3D junk with your own sketches, but sometimes you need to take some of their really crappy sketches, toss their lazy buttss a cold beverage and import them to SolidWorks. Let’s just assume, that you’re starting with an AutoCAD drawing…
What do ya say we cause a little trouble? Last week I made some extremely riveting points about setting up your SolidWorks interface for a better workflow. I’m sure it cause mild shaking and maybe a distant shriek of terror. However, one thing that frustrates me to the point of making a really disturbing face,…
It’s rare, but you just don’t get a highly optimized SolidWorks part by holding your breath and pushing really hard. That’s a chronic medical condition you should probably have tested. It’s time to brush up on that structural engineering and add some interpretive analysis to those fine SolidWorks parts. SolidWorks in partnership with SOLIDProfessor has…
I know. It happened here as well. Five people and a large parrot fell over convulsing when they thought of the possibilities. It’s one thing to use SolidWorks to turn your design and engineering department into a concept-crazy, model churning machine of product-cycle pleasure. It’s quite another to whip that interface into a tool that…
What’s the last thing you’re thinking of when you wander into a den of wild asps? …What system is best for running SolidWorks on 64 bit Vista. That does absolutely nothing for your survivability quotient. It’s a common misconception that SolidWorks doesn’t run very well on 64 bit Vista. If you look into installing Microsoft…
There is really an endless amount of interesting object you can make with SolidWorks and a lot of interesting and unusual way to get there. Some readers on the Most Obscure Feature Combo post had excellent ideas and I even got a few via email. This crazy spiral, by Jeff Mowrey (@idesignhaus on Twitter) of…
Listen. Is that the sound of a 65% speed increase and 250 eye-peeling enhancements coming at you with the ferocity of a one-eyed lemur? It is, give or take a few percentage points. Suddenly, your ability to blink repeatedly is compromised by the idea that SolidWorks 2009 is speedier. And perhaps you are perplexed by…
It’s that moment you’ve been waiting for. That moment where your coworker pick his keyboard up, drops it, picks it up again and lifts it over his head. You would like to tell him about a couple SolidWorks Macros that would help him out, buuuuuuuut you’re being entertained and office rage is content YouTube is…