Mike Puckett's Blog

Print Selection Box Returns to SolidWorks 2009 SP3

It seems that some of the most basic features in SolidWorks are sometimes some of the most popular.  Such was the casewhen SolidWorks 2009 SP0 temporarily took out the print selection box.  After I posed about the new look print interface I received quite a few comments and emails from people who already missed it.

SolidWorks 2009 Service Pack 3.0 brings that function back.  Let's take a look.  Under print range you select current screen image and then selection:

 

You will then get the ever familiar box that you can drag around and re-size to your delight:

 

The re-release of the print selection functionality should be a welcome sight to a few of you out there!  It was never meant to be gone for good, it was just in need of some re-coding to get it to perform better and for it to work better with new additions found in SolidWorks 2009.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

I am one of those fortunate ones to have not been affected by the huge amounts of job losses over the past year or so.  But if I was, are there jobs out there?

Based on a couple of options, its seems that jobs using SolidWorks are out there, you just have to look for them.  As part of a weekly update I get from Linked-In here are some of the offerings from them:

 

A search on Monster.com reveals approximately 500 jobs with SolidWorks listed in them:

 

On Monster.com SolidWorks produced more then three times the job listings than any other 3D Cad package.  So if you happen to be in the job market looking for your next gig here are a few helpful hints:

1.  Update your resume.  Don't be afraid to leave off the high school job at Mc Donald's in favor of making your resume more streamlined.

2.  Join Linked in and network with other SolidWorks users.  You can meet lots of industry people and directly connect with them.

3.  Attend a SolidWorks User Group meeting.  Many times there are cad managers looking to hire from dedicated talent pools such as user groups.

4.  Contact a recruiter.  Companies like pro-source are actively placing SolidWorks Users in temp to permanent jobs.

5.  Brush up on your skills.  You local VAR will be a great resource to get more training, and starting April 6th will be offering free SolidWorks training.

6.  Read the blogs.  Staying at the cutting edge of whats happening in the industry will make you a more attractive job applicant.

7.  Join Twitter.  In a strange time-line of events, I applied for my job at SolidWorks based on a 'Tweet'.

Not all is lost.  By following a few of these steps, you could be on your way to becoming another success story like this one:

SolidWorks Blog

SolidWorks Community Blog 

Be inspired and be the best, and nothing will keep you down! 

Linked In

Twitter Cad List  

Using The SolidWorks Certification Center To Structure Training

The Certification exams offered by SolidWorks have long been a means to test a users skills, and to gage their ability to understand the SolidWorks software.  Once someone passed they were issued a certificate, they printed it out and hung it on the wall.  Their interaction with the system was over and typically they forgot their log-in credentials for the Certification Center, and never found a need to go back.

This year the SolidWorks Certification Center has turned the corner and is on it's way to becoming an interactive area that will provide a number of tools that users and managers can use to do a variety of things.  The most recent release of the Certification Center includes some management tools that can help engineering managers discover the strengths and weaknesses of their team. 

When a team of engineers takes a certification exam, that data can be set up to be shared with a central person who can examine the results to get some idea of where his team is at.  Instead of trying to explain it via text, lets look at some screen shots.

In this first shot we can see the students that are in the 2009 Q1 M.E. Cad 101 Class:

 

It's a relatively small class with only two students, but it gets the point across.  By clicking on Mr. Luchini's name in the list I get the graphical feedback of how he did on his CSWA exam that he took.  As you can see he is in desperate need of help when it comes to mate and assembly creation.  Unfortunately he only scored a 40 and failed, but perhaps if he had taken more then a minute on the exam he could have performed better!

Next we click on Mr. Rochino's results and we see a little different outcome:

 

Avelino did slightly better overall which perhaps is a result of him taking an extra minute to complete the exam! 

The ability to get this information is good, but what can you do with it.  On that same screen there is an export option that will export the data from every student or engineer shown in this list.  It exports an excel file that gives you this data:

 

The nice thing is once you get data into Excel, you can do lots of things with it.  As the instructor of this class I would make a simple bar graph and see the results of my entire class in a single picture:

 

As the instructor I could put in an entire classes results and see exactly what areas of SolidWorks I would need to instruct on, based on this graph.  If I was doing this as a CAD manager I would call my VAR and set up a specialized training session based on the low scoring areas.

As for these two students, well I think sending them back to essentials for the time being may be the best bet possible!

If you have a SolidWorks Certification, head over to the Certification Center and make sure all your information is up to date, and be sure that you can log-in.  Later in the year, the user information in the Certification Center will be used to aid in registration for the CSWP event at SolidWorks World next year, and you don't want to be left out of that if you are planning to attend!

SolidWorks & Fisher Unitech, News at 11?

Seems that Fisher Unitech's 'No Engineer Left Behind' program recently made the evening news:

You Tube Video

The SolidWorks Nationwide program of the Engineering Stimulus Package is set to be launched on April 6th.

Using Surface Tools To Fix Imported Models

While recently reviewing a presentation I give on mold design in SolidWorks, I went back over some of the material and thought I would share a quick example from it about repairing a broken face on a model I once designed a mold for.

Back when I was designing this mold, the customer had supplied us a part that was modeled in a different cad program.  Upon importing the model there were four areas where the model had issues.  This one was a case of some random holes on  a face of a surface:

          

You can see the blue edges which in SolidWorks is used to show open edges of a surface.  Anyhow to patch these holes using surface tools there are probably about three or four ways to do it.  Some methods will be more complicated, but it ultimately can be fixed using a single feature, the Extend Surface command.

After launching the Extend Surface command you pick an edge of the rectangular opening and set the distance of the extend so it coves the D shaped opening:

 

Picking the opposing edge of the opening will extend the surface to cover the other opening:

 

Click ok and you will get a surface that's complete and shows not sign of the patch:

 

It's good to try to achieve a complete surface so as to not create any potential issues down the road, and if there is no witness left you can be assured that the opening was completely patched.

Surface tools are very power full, even more so then the solid tools.  You can achieve things with surface tools that solid tools will never let you do.  While surface tools may seem like a scary part of SolidWorks to use, once you understand them you will start to see how power full they can be, and how much easier they can sometimes make your work.

Here is a view of the end of the same part and how bad of shape it was in when it came in:

 

I'll share how I easily fixed that in another post.

Spending Time With Students, Customers, Users & More Customers

The last week has been a quite eventful one for me.  It all started last Thursday when I attended the New Hampshire SolidWorks User Group meeting.  The meeting was held at the Academy for Science and Design.  Take a look at this graphic and take notice of the courses being taught:

Now notice in the text that these topics are being taught to 7th - 12th graders!  I was amazed to see the caliber of work being done by these students, and was glad to see that they have a school that fosters their interests.  The user group meeting had just about 75 people in attendance who got to see two great presentation including one on weldments by Bruce Holway from SolidWorks.

This past Saturday myself and Jeremy Luchini took a trip into Boston to attend the UsFirst Robotics Competition.  While walking around the pits we spoke to a few of the teams and it was amazing to see how passionate these kids were about engineering.  We would ask them a simple question about their robot, and there was no shortage of information they wanted to talk about.  Its great to see these kids so excited about engineering at such a young age.

While we were at the event I got the chance to meet David Planchard who writes what I think is hands down the best SolidWorks Book on the market, and the one that I always urge people to buy.  I owe most of my early education in SolidWorks to his book, and it was fun to chat with him.

On Tuesday of this week I flew to Michigan to attend the Western Michigan SoildWorks User Group and do two presentations.  The first was an overview of the Certification program at SolidWorks, and my second presentation of the night covered mold design in SolidWorks.  The meeting had a great turnout and I got to meet and speak with some very passionate users.

While I was here in Western Michigan, Jason Raak arranged for us to do a series of visits today in the area.  The first stop was Gentex Corporation located in Zeeland.  Gentex is a manufacturer of multiple products but their main offering is mirrors for cars.  They have some very cool technology including auto-dimming rear-view mirrors, rear-view mirrors that have back-up camera screens mounted in them, and also mirrors that will automatically turn off a cars high beams if another car approaches.  They design all their assembly line equipment in SolidWorks, and their innovation shows in the quality of their product.

After a quick lunch we were off to Greenville High School to meet with CAD instructor Marc Nelson.  Marc had asked me to come speak to his upper level CAD class and give them a brief overview of my Career and to speak about choosing a Career in engineering.  It was great to be able to see the passion that these students also had for using SolidWorks and were excited to see all the various industries that SolidWorks is used in.  I got the chance to see some of the students working on projects in SolidWorks, and everyone I spoke with was anxious to show off their models they had created in SolidWorks.  I would have loved to have had a class like this when I was their age, and from what I could tell, every student in the room was enjoying what they were learning.  As a parting gift all 30 students in the class received a SolidWorks Student Design Kit compliments of the EDU team at SolidWorks.  One student even asked if they could turn in an assignment after the weekend just so they could use the new home install they had just received.

Our final stop of the day was at Wolverine World Wide who is using SolidWorks to design a wide array of shoes.  We got the chance to see some of the modeling techniques they use to create the soles of their shoes, and how they have used SolidWorks to improve the speed of their design.  First stop when I get home will be to pick up a pair of Wolverine Shoes!

Now while it probably wasn't the best idea to come to Michigan in the middle of a cold spell, the trip was completely worth it.  Certainly one of the highlights of this trip was getting to speak with the students and I wish I could have had an entire day to speak with them and see what they were doing in SolidWorks.  I can see exactly why Marie Planchard loves her job as much as she does!

3Dudes Gone 3D

A series of funny marketing videos about three guys forced to work together in a cramped environment.  What will happen to these guys as the work space gets smaller, and interaction gets more creative:

Check out the links that follow each video, and be sure to look out for the 'Da Vinci of cooling system's!

The New SolidWorks Certification Center

There is a whole new look to the SolidWorks Certification Center thats available to anyone who takes a SolidWorks Certification exam.  You can login to the center at this LINK.  Your login is the email address you used when you took your exam.  Let's look at some of the highlights.

Once logged in you will see a whole new user interface with tabbed browsing:

 

The first tab will show any certificates you have achieved.  In the case above this user has both the CSWP and the Advanced Surfacing Specialist Certification.  It is from this page that you can also view and print a copy of your certificate.  A new added feature is the "Publish Certificate" tool that allows you to share your certificates with other via email.  You can use this tool to show perspective employers your achievements, or share them with current managers when asking for a raise.  Subsequently a manager can compile the certificates of his employees and export the results into an excel file where he can use the data to focus needed training and to see where his team is strong and weak.

On the Exam Results tab a user can see the results of exams he has taken, and can query the results to see how he did on different areas of the exam:

 

Note that due to database limitations at the time, topic results are only available for exams taken after CSWP R2 (approx July 2008).  All future exams will take advantage of this function.

The Credits / Vouchers tab is where a manager can take a block of exam credits and distribute them to his team.  By doing this he will also be able to track their individual progress and see the results.  It's a way to capture a groups knowledge of SolidWorks and see where they need further training:

Also new to the Certification Center deals with searching for Certified SolidWorks users.  The search can be performed at this LINK.  The search now combines all CSWP's into one two categories: CSWP & CSWP:

When you search for a CSWP you will now see a list of CSWP's and also see their Advanced Certificate achievements as well:

The SolidWorks Certification Center is made possible through the collaborative efforts of Tangix Design & Development, CadCase Consulting, and the SolidWorks Certification Team.