The Javelin Technologies Blog

When working in 3DVIA Composer you will notice that there is a DDS symbol on the ground. If you want to remove this, or change it to something else you can.

3DVIA Composer - DSS logo on ground

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For this blog post I am going to show you how to take existing CAD data and render it using 3DVIA Composer. For this example I am going to use a model that already has texture on it.

The first thing I am going to do is adjust the lighting. I prefer to create custom lighting so that I have more control of the final render. To do this you go to the Render tab and choose lighting mode, and turn on Per-Pixel and Shadows. Read More »

This tip is especially useful for users with a Floating Composer license!

If there are multiple users of 3DVIA Composer that would like to share a common library location, it’s not obvious how to go about configuring them all to do this.  With a bit of text editing and copy/pasting, it’s fairly straighforward thankfully.

First off if you tried to figure this out yourself, you will probably start by going to (in Composer): File -> Preferences -> Data Paths, and you’ll see this:

Data Paths Dialog

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For those users of 3DVIA Composer that periodically need to ask a SolidWorks designer to export files into the native Composer file type, this tip is for you!

This is a very specific scenario where the users of SolidWorks do not have 3DVIA Composer installed on their machine, but they do have the Composer plug-in installed to allow them to export their SolidWorks files to the native .SMG Composer file type.  In this scenario, the SolidWorks user has no easy way of customizing the export options that are used when creating the Composer file.  So as a result, things like file properties (metadata), could be missing or you may have surface bodies appearing in Composer, or solid bodies not showing.  In this case, it would be nice to be able to customize the options used for the export.  The answer is not an easy one unfortunately.  Reach out to your VAR and they can provide assistance.  There are some registry settings that we can supply to allow customizing these options.  When you contact your VAR, mention SolidWorks Solution ID #S-023057.

See image below for a view of the Composer plug in, in SolidWorks.

Composer Plug-in menu in SolidWorks

San Diego February 12th-15th – What do you get when you have almost 6000 people, hundreds of great SolidWorks technical sessions and hundreds of exhibitors in a partner pavilion to satisfy every technical SolidWorks requirement? SolidWorks World 2012! Check out the video below for highlights of Solidworks World 2012 from Javelin’s perspective:

Javelin attended this year and captured all the excitement. Watch the highlights as we step into the partner pavilion exploring the vendors showcasing their SolidWorks related gear and technology! See how CSWP’s were treated to amazing event on the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier. One morning SolidWorks even gave everyone attending a sneak peek at the SolidWorks 2013, it looks awesome! All this and a great block party for more than 4000 people (thanks to HP and SolidWorks).

For one evening a few blocks of the historical Gaslamps district was closed off for great food, beverages and entertainment on every corner. Javelin attended, busy learning more about the great technology we support. Some of the Javelin folks were even showcasing technical information in the breakout sessions. Next year SolidWorks World is off to Orlando, Florida!

Did you attend? How was your experience at SolidWorks World 2012? Will you be attending the 15th SolidWorks World in Orlando at the Swan and Dolphin on January 20th-23rd 2013? Please let us know.

Licensing of Composer is done though a FlexLM license service which is very common in the software industry.  All licenses of Composer are Node-locked to a computer “MAC” address (even Standalone ones).  Activation is common with SolidWorks but not Composer.  Whether you have a Standalone or Network license type, the “Media Access Control” address or “MAC” address (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address) of the machine that is going to issue the license for the software is needed.  The software license is “locked” to the MAC address provided.  In the case of Standalone, it is the MAC address of the machine that the software will be used on.  In the case of a Network license, it is the MAC address of the license server machine.  If needed, the MAC address can be changed and a new license file created.  There is a form to fill out and submit to SolidWorks.  Please allow at least 2 business days for this.

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When installing 3DVIA Composer there some things that are good to know before you start the install.  Here is some background information.  If you visit the 3DVIA Composer download page through the SolidWorks Customer Portal, you’ll find that there are a few choices.  We’ll go through what these are.  See image below:

Composer downloads

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Psst, hey you…come closer.

Don’t tell anyone, but did you know that some of the best marketing material you could possibly have to work with for your company, is in fact right under your nose?

Look down there. Down the hall. No, no, not the water cooler in the corner, the door beside it. Yes, the engineering office. There’s smoke coming out the bottom of the door…but that’s okay, that’s just all those smart guys using those big brains of theirs to create some amazing things. (Many of these amazingly smart engineering types also write a majority of the blog articles you read from Javelin – Shameless Plug)

Yes, these guys are super-smart!

Did you know all those super smart engineering folks, have some awesome 3D geometry for you to work with? With products like SolidWorks, your engineers are already creating full 3D representations of your products. Yes, they’ve been doing this for years, and have hundreds of different models for you to choose from. As a matter of fact, they could have already created photo realistic representations of your product, all ready to be used in your marketing material.

SolidWorks Goodness!

Now, let’s take it one step further. You can use all this fancy pants 3D stuff that your smarty-pants engineer folks have, and market more effectively across the web. You can totally immerse your customer in your product, whatever your product may be. Whether it be facilities design, or retail product, you can put it in your customer’s hands virtually. You can even allow your customers to collaborate together and discuss your product online, all leveraging existing engineering data.

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When exporting an SMG project to PDF, you may want to have a certain view (of many in the project) active by default when the PDF is opened.

Before exporting the file to the PDF format, the “Launch in View Mode” option needs to be turned on.

Go to File -> Properties -> Document Properties -> Project, enable the View Mode option.

Next, move the view that needs to be displayed to the top of the list in the Views tab (Drag and Drop).  You can now publish the PDF.

Also, if the Launch in View Mode option is turned off, it’s possible to set the animation at time zero to look like a view by simply dragging the view to time zero in the timeline.

In 3DVIA Composer it’s possible to show the columns of the BOM in the Assembly Tree area.  This can help to show which properties have been filled in, at a glance.  Follow the images below to setup BOM columns.

The area where you can show the BOM columns

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