Starting with the release of Windows Vista and continuing with Windows 7, Microsoft has included Aero themes with the several editions of the operating system, from Home Premium up to Ultimate. The Aero themes are intended to provide a more aesthetically pleasing interface (apparently Aero stands for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and Open … I thought they chose the name because it was a cool word …). The themes give a “glass” like translucency to the Windows interface, as well as using live icons and new animations to enhance the user experience (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/What-is-the-Aero-desktop-experience). This however requires a significant amount of resources when compared to the old Windows Basic themes. As a result many tech bloggers have recommended shutting off these themes to improve system performance.
If you are using SolidWorks however, DO NOT TURN OFF AERO THEMES!
Once you have justified the purchase of a 3D printer and chosen the technology that best fits your requirements, it is now time for budget considerations. With most 3D printing technologies the price range is very wide, and can lead to confusion.
To help you make the right decision you should start by identifying the main price drivers and compare them with your real needs. Deciding on the required envelope size, special features, material variety, and warranty / service options will determine the final price for a 3D Printer.
Answering the following questions will help you to narrow your budgetary scope:
What is the average size of the parts you need to print?
What features offered by the manufacturer do you really need? Are some of them just a nice to have?
Are your prototypes intended for concept modeling and form / fit testing, or do you really need high end specialty prototyping materials?
Do you want peace of mind with your printer operation? A service agreement is an option to consider.
Upgrading your equipment in the future: Is it a likely scenario? Investing some money today may make a future upgrade easier.
Align your budget with your real needs, and don’t underestimate potential needs in the future.
Coming soon: How to present the project to the management.
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:
If you recently updated your SolidWorks to a newer version and use network licensing, you also need to update the License Manager otherwise will you receive a “License server does not support this feature” error when you launch SolidWorks at the client.
The same installation media that was used to install SolidWorks can be used to update the License Manager. On the Welcome page of the Installation Manager, under Server Products, select Install SolidNetWork License Manager.
In the 2010 release of SolidWorks, Mouse Gestures were introduced. In SolidWorks 2012 this functionality has been further enhanced with some NEW commands. Now you can assign the Ok, Cancel, and Escape commands mouse gestures as well as keyboard shortcut keys.
Do you need to be able to use more than one release of SolidWorks on your system? For instance you may use SolidWorks 2012 but for one supplier or customer you also need Solidworks 2011 since they haven’t upgraded yet and you need to share some files with them. How can you install two or more versions of SolidWorks on your computer and keep the installations stable and completely separate from each other?
Managing complex components with multiple symbols and representations can be a challenging task in any design environment. The complexity is magnified in the hydro industry with devices like IEDs especially with design tools not really built with any electrical intelligence.
E3 is right at home when it comes to these complex device structures. The ability to track every symbol and eliminate unwanted duplication helps reduce the errors and time consumed in correcting them by helping you do it right the first time.
Here’s an example of an IED in E3 showing the simplicity of component management.
Installation files for SolidWorks Workgroup PDM server, the SolidNetwork License Manager, SolidWorks Explorer, SolidWorks API SDK, just to mention a few, can often be downloaded faster using Manual Downloads. To ensure that all prerequisites are installed, this method is not recommended for updating SolidWorks.
Even though Elementary wiring Diagrams and Connection Wiring Diagrams share the electrical information in a project and they are just different views of the same device we spend double engineering time than we should.
You can create the EWD and get CWD done automatically, that right there saves you all the time you spend in creating CWDs!!
Food for thought :How long does it take to create CWDs?
See how we are automating the CWD creation without any extra effort.
In the 2010 release of SolidWorks, 
