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…

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…

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…

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…

For those who just won’t allow that shiny, white MacBookPro to be torn from their cold, dead hands and insist on having the best of both OSX and Vista on one box, this post is for you. We’ve shown you how to go about soft-modding your nVidia graphics card for RealView graphics on a Mac…

You all are gonna flip, or rather, explode, when you see this. I’ve been looking for 3D CAD news out of Siggraph08 that happened last week, but have not found much beyond some announcements about rendering models. Fortunately, Mark Treadwell from Premier Rides came across some info and filled me in. A team from Berkeley…

It’s both parametrically intense and oddly invigorating to look at. It’s like jumping in the air through a small hole and coming out on the other side with all the knowledge of perspective while marching rhythmically outside the confines of an inverted parallelogram. What is it? Surrealism. An artistic expression of the early 1900’s that…

I know you all get excited when you have the chance to read about CAD news and the excitement happening around our tiny globe. This week has been chock full of interesting tid-bits of info. There’s so much in fact, that I didn’t even get a chance to tell you about them earlier, so I’ve…

Isn’t display technology just wonderful? No? You want something curved? well, if you’re not happy with the flat Microsoft Surface with multi-touch, get ready to literally wrap your hands around the Spherical version. Microsoft Research took the globular multi-touch screen out of the box today to reveal just how gaming, advertising and messing around with…

It’s absolutely insane, I tell you. How are you suppose to get a good nights sleep when your brain is obsessing about the intricacies of how to model inventive new products? I wonder what it is that makes us bring our 3D models into our nightmares dreams. Is it the challenge? the hours? subliminal messages…

Funny thing, these 3D CAD user interfaces. I figured I’d spare you any 2008/09 SolidWorks interface opinions and show you what the other CAD companies are doing. It looks like some are getting a little inspiration from each other, but really it just the onslaught of Ribbon bar bliss brought about by Microsoft and their…

Last week on June 20th, Google Trends for websites was launched to allow a look into competing sites and aid your plans for worldwide domination. Similar sites, like Compete (my favorite) and Alexa already exist, but this leverages the power of Google’s simple, yet masterful use of analytical data. Anyone can use it to find…

Look out people, there’s a new breed of CAD in town and it might make you slightly more social. Last week Dassualt Systèmes formally launched their V6 Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform that includes CATIA, ENOVIA, DELMIA, SUMULIA and 3DVIA. If you don’t use CATIA, you probably don’t care too much. However, this release has…

Yes folks, the CAD industry is alive and well with the raging pulse of an over-achieving band of gypsy circus performers. You won’t see that description in the latest CAD Report from John Peddle Research though. What you will see, is a $5,000 price tag and words like renaissance, combined revenues, emerging economies and my…

Oh, the trials of being a Mac user in the CAD world. There’s just no justice for your simple and elegant character personified in a simple and elegant computer. Who is out there to understand you? SolidSmack has your back and we want to show you how easy it it is to get SolidWorks runnin’…

My brother, who is trying to shed the hooks of life on dry ground for a life at sea, shared this site with me. It’s a giant repository for details of old boat plans that includes everything from row boats to ski boats and even a few sail boats. Ah, to escape to the islands,…

You’ll want to read Wiring Up an Event if you’re interested in the least, what is starting to come about in the the CAD world as it relates to the Web and the realm of social media. You’ve seen my post about Why I like Twitter and while Blogs and RSS are still a mystery…

It looks like something that doesn’t exist except in the movies. Since the Ironman Movie launched last week I’ve been trying to get my hands on some video of the stinkin’ cool 3D holo-CAD user interface he uses to design the MarkIII he goes kickin’ butt in. If you’ve seen the movie you already know…

“Yeah Josh? Ya know, what could be more boring that looking at trends?… especially ‘interweb’ trends?… la..ame. Move on!” I kinda agree, trend watching is a bit DULL, but they can be oh so revealing when it comes to technology. Here’s the golden egg, Internet Trends are technology adoption trends. That’s key, cause those people…

Sometimes it takes a little while to get a blog post up. Franco Folini from the NovEdge Blog last posted on December 17th, 2007. Ya see, he’s been busy… creating THE MOTHER OF ALL CAD DIRECTORIES … IN THE WORLD! I’m sure he’s tired, passed out on the floor, waiting for you to tell him…

Last night at 11 PM CST Microsoft let loose the fetters of Live Mesh, a new platform technology to synchronize and interact with data across any device and access it from anywhere from any computer or browser. Oh, but it’s so much more and it could, and I think will, affect how you work with…

If you were standing on the corner of the CAD block yesterday, you had obscure CAD terminology splashed all over your new pants. Everyone and their step-uncle’s mom was waxing intellectual about the ‘newest-in-new, right-up-in-your-face- and-hit-you’ CAD tech announce by Siemens PLM called (prepare for large phrase that makes you mildly uninterested)… ready… “Synchronous Technology.”…

I’m not sure about you, but I am increasingly frustrated in the separation between 3D design and data management. Yep, I have two hairs left on my head and permanent marker all over my face from nervous twitching each time something needs to be checked-in or out. There’s creating a model and then there’s managing…

There’s a conference that has been taking place for, oh, about the past 9 years, where the elites of the CAD industry get together and mash-up all the collective information and emerging interests of the CAE (Computer-aided engineering) industry. The conference is called COFES2008: The Future Of Engineering Software. It sounds like your boring my-stuff-is-better-than-your-stuff…

I’d like to hear it from the man himself, but according to DesignNews Jon Hirschtick, the nicest guy and founder of SolidWorks, was one of the original MIT blackjack team members depicted in the upcoming film, 21. The movie, based on the book of the real events, stars Kevin Spacey who leads a group of…

So, I was in the sphere yesterday, right, and the boss says, “You’re 3d models are all mis-shappened, are you using this thing right?” He just doesn’t understand the stress of having to be in this thing for hours. Ya gotta just love those virtual reality developers. They’re always thinking of the next way to…

Just about everybody wishes SolidWorks could do this or that or complains that it doesn’t do something really cool. I could throw down a list of things I don’t like, but that’s just makes the selection of fresh organic produce seem even worse than it actually is. Which is actually better than the selection of…