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Thursday, March 31, 2011
SolidWorks allows for a lot of user customization of which we have explained how to do a lot of this in previous posts. What I would like to show you now is how you can add toolbars to the heads up toolbar that sits at the top of your modeling window. I personally use the "S" a lot which allows me to access a flyout toolbar that contains the most common toolbars of which I can also customize what is available on this menu as well, but in this post I am going to show you the heads up toolbar. Out of the box this toolbar allows you to access differant view points, display styles, appearances, scenes, view options and graphic options. A feature I use a lot is the plane command which is located under reference geometry on the features toolbar and I am going to show you now how you can add this to the Heads Up Toolbar so it is easily available. 
The 1st step is you must go to the Options Icon and from the drop down select "Customize".
The 2nd step is to select the Commands tab on the Customize menu and in my case I select the Reference Geometry which will then bring up the toolbars under this menu drop down. 
I have recently had a few queries from customers wanting to know how to hide/show bodies quickly and I have found the simplest way to do this is add the command as a mouse gesture.
You can find the hide/show bodies feature under the view menu and the other way you can hide show is by a Right Mouse Button click on a body and select the specticles Icon which will hide bodies. The issue is when you want them back, which you can do by going to the solid bodies folder and again right click and select show. This is tricker when it is a Weldment though because you then have to try find out which cut list folder the body is in and going to the view drop down can be slow.
So instead set up a mouse gesture which can be done by going to customize on the Tools drop down menu. Use the search in the mouse gestures options to find the command hide/show bodies and then assign a gesture for the part, assembly and sketch levels.
You will now find it a breeze to hide and show bodies by a simple press of the right mouse button
with a slight mouse movement and you can then activate this command.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Who is your local SolidWorks Technical Help and what do they know about SolidWorks?
I thought I should introduce myself as I have placed a few blogpost so far and spoken to nearly every customer in WA and quite a few around Australia and New Zealand and it seems appropriate to give you a bit of an idea on who I am.
My name is Magnus Whittall and I was born and raised in the Shetland Isles which is a small island located between Scotland and Norway that has a population of 24,000. I came out to Western Australia in 1998 as 18yr old that had barely seen sunlight and landed a job as Welder for Austal Ships in Henderson which builds Catamaran Passenger Ferries. I quickly moved to be a Fabricator working in the Large Components shed building hull frames and due to the nature of the shipbuilding industry I also worked at WaveMaster and Image Marine which built smaller Cats and Private Boats.
After a few years I went to Curtin University and studied Product Design and this is where I was 1st introduced to SolidWorks in 2003. I used SolidWorks for most of my projects and one of my Electrical Designs was featured on the New Inventors show on the ABC. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s1649862.htm
Once I graduated my wife and I moved to London in 2006 and I was employed as a Product Designer for a Display firm. This job also involved me using SolidWorks for not only concepting, but also for creating manufacturing drawings and models for prototyping. One of my 1st designs won 3 Shopfitting and Display Awards at a prestige awards night at the London Hilton. SolidWorks was such a valuable tool for me in this job as all of my designs where manufactured in China and having a 3d model helped in communications. I also found features such as the Evaluate tool to find out the mass crucial in putting together quotes for customers as I could accurately work out freight costs before any manufacturing had begun. I also had the pleasure of visiting our factories in China and this has given me an insight into the requirements our customers in WA face when having goods produced in China.
After having spent enough time living and working in London I went to work for Cadtek which is a UK reseller of SolidWorks and had an office just outside of London. Cadtek have been established for over 20 years and are the 3rd largest reseller of SolidWorks in the UK. After a tough recession we moved back to Western Australia where I landed a job with a Subsea Intervention company using SolidWorks to design and create manufacturing drawings for Subsea equipment.
When a job became available in July 2010 I joined SolidTec and since joining I have become one of a few SolidWorks Experts in Australia and a Certified EPDM support technician. Just last month I was honoured to be awarded Top Perfoming SolidWorks Support Technician for Australia and New Zealand.
Well that lets you know a little bit about me :-)
Happy modeling!
Magnus.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
WARNING!! Warranty void if seal is broken, etc. etc. If you decide to muck around with your SolidWorks system files, be prepared to reinstall if everything goes pear-shaped!
Do not proceed if you are uncomfortable with the steps outlined below.
Most Windows-based programs use images for icons, cursors and backgrounds. These image resources are stored in DLL, EXE and OCX files. To access and modify these files you need a resource editor.
If you’re wondering how I worked this out, you can batch export every image from every DLL in a directory in Resourcer >> Tools >> Batch export. Then I sorted the images by size to find the biggest images, which turned out to be the splash screen, etc. The name of the exported file references the location of the image inside the DLL.
If you want to have transparency in the image, make sure you save the image as a PNG so that you can keep the Alpha channel (describes how transparent each pixel in an image is) so that it blends nicely over everything else.
And yes, it would be possible to completely “re-skin” all of the menu items, toolbars, etc. but I’ll leave that up to you :)
Do not proceed if you are uncomfortable with the steps outlined below.
Most Windows-based programs use images for icons, cursors and backgrounds. These image resources are stored in DLL, EXE and OCX files. To access and modify these files you need a resource editor.
- Download and install Anolis Resourcer
- Backup any DLL files you intend to change by Copy+pasting them
- Open the DLL in Resourcer
- Open the PNG folder in the DLL
- Select the image you wish to change
- Action >> Replace resource >> browse to the PNG file to replace it with >> OK
- Save the DLL
- Fire up SolidWorks!
- C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidWorks\
- SwStyleBlueu.dll – contains the background image when you start SolidWorks
- Background is PNG_BACKGROUND
- SolidWorks logo that goes over the background is PNG_SWLOGO
- \lang\english\sldresu.dll – contains the splash screen
- SwStyleBlueu.dll – contains the background image when you start SolidWorks
- SWX version type is resource 1635 – 5621
- Cool product shot is resource 10025 - 10033
If you’re wondering how I worked this out, you can batch export every image from every DLL in a directory in Resourcer >> Tools >> Batch export. Then I sorted the images by size to find the biggest images, which turned out to be the splash screen, etc. The name of the exported file references the location of the image inside the DLL.
If you want to have transparency in the image, make sure you save the image as a PNG so that you can keep the Alpha channel (describes how transparent each pixel in an image is) so that it blends nicely over everything else.
And yes, it would be possible to completely “re-skin” all of the menu items, toolbars, etc. but I’ll leave that up to you :)
Monday, March 28, 2011
The SolidWorks Toolbox is a database of commonly used fasteners and parts, available if you have SolidWorks Professional or Premium. You can customise the Toolbox with your own part numbers, descriptions and other fields you may wish to show on a Bill Of Materials.
This video shows you how to customise the Toolbox to reflect the fasteners you use in your designs, and how to quickly add a large number of properties to those parts using Microsoft Excel.
The Toolbox runs off a database which contains all of the available sizes and dimensions for each part it contains. When you select a certain component for the first time in SolidWorks, it generates that particular configuration or part based on the dimensions contained in the database. If you wish to change the size of an existing Toolbox component, and the new size has not been used before, you need to RMB on the part (on-screen or in the Feature Tree) and select “Edit Toolbox Definition”. This will open the same original Toolbox Property Manager box, and generate the new config when you press OK.
Alternatively, from the Toolbox Configuration window, from the same button where you export settings to Excel, you can choose to "Create configurations" to generate all configurations for the component. This means you can use the ordinary method of changing configs in the assembly. But be careful using this – I did it on the bolt in the video with 198 configs and the result was a 25Mb part file. If you choose to do this, make sure you remove unnecessary bolt sizes and lengths first - you can always add them back in later.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
SolidTec offices in Australia and New Zealand regularly offer customers and anyone curious about SolidWorks to come in and try it for themselves. Last week I ran a Simulation Test drive in the WA SolidTec office that allowed attendies to see for themselves the power and ease of simulation inside SolidWorks. Their are no pre-requistes for these test drives, so please do not be worried if you have only just heard of SolidWorks or in the test drive have no FEA experience as the 2 hour session is guided by a SolidWorks Applications Engineer like myself that will guide you through every step.
I will briefly explain what was covered in the Simulation Test Drive so that if you are interested you know what to expect if you sign up for the next event. All attendies are supplied a computer to use with SolidWorks, so it is vital that if you are interested in attending one of these events you book a place as early as possible as spaces are limited and the events are very popular.
The simulation example that was used was a model of Remote UnderWater Vehicle and the aim was to run an analysis on the lens module to find out if the design would cope with the Subsea pressure. As the Test Drive is a hands on event the attendies follow my lead and learn how to set up a model for simulation, apply materials, apply fixtures, apply loads, apply a mesh to the model and then how to interpret the results once the SolidWorks has completed the analysis.
The Test drive is run at a gentle pace and allows for questions to be raised and any mistakes made to be corrected. If a Test Drive of SolidWorks interests you please contact your local SolidTec office to book a place on the next event.
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