Mike Puckett's Blog

What's New In SolidWorks 2010: Well, The Whats New Guide

The What's New Guide is completely new and is a great way to browse all the new stuff for 2010.  You can view the What's New Guide for SolidWorks 2010 at Ricky Jordan's What's New Document Site.

Each year when the beta program would launch, one of the first things I would do would be to print out the guide and then take it to Staples to get it bound.  It made for a handy desktop reference during the beta program, and also as a way to see all the new stuff.  Ricky also has a bunch of great videos covering the whats new stuff at his site as well.

  

What's New In SolidWorks 2010: Sketch Fillet Preview

The sketch fillet tool in SolidWorks 2010 has gotten some improvements.  The first is the dynamic preview.  By simply hovering your mouse cursor over an intersection, you will get an orange preview of what the fillet will look like at that intersection before even selecting it:

 

Once the fillet is placed, you can dynamically drag the fillet to any size by grabbing the fillett and draging it, as you do you also get a full dynamic preview of the change of size as well as a numerical value:

 

Lastly you can now check the option to dimension each fillet as you create it:

What's New In SolidWorks 2010: Help System

The help files for SolidWorks 2010 are going online!  That will make it easier for a number of planned updates in the future and once something like this is online, the opportunities are endless as to what can be done with it.  The biggest benefit is that it can be updated at any time and the content will go live instantly, there will be no more waiting for it to be updated in a service pack.  Not to worry though if you have web access restrictions the current form of the help system will also be available and it will be updated as usual.  Here is a look at the new interface:

 

There is much more to come in this area of the software, so stay tuned to even more new stuff coming to the help and documentation system.

What's New In SolidWorks 2010: Remove All Appearances

SolidWorks 2010 now includes the ability to easily remove apperances from faces, features, bodies, or entire parts.

 

By clicking a face and then clicking the appearance orb you get the resulting menu above.  Simply click on a red X and that appearance is removed.  At the bottom of the menu you can even remove all appearances at once.  This new functionality saves you time in having to determine what has the appearance applied to it, and you no longer have to go to the feature manager to perfrom these options.

What's New In SolidWorks 2010: Hole Wizard 2D Sketch

Have you ever clicked the Hole Wizard tool in SolidWorks only to realise you are creating a 3D sketch once you enter the selection part of the tool?  Well if you are creating hole wizard features on 2D faces you no longer have to remember to pre-select a face before you launch the hole wizard tool. 

SolidWorks 2010 intorduces the option to create a 2D position sketch even without pre-selecting a face.  Here is how to do it:

Launch the hole wizard, select your feature and sizes, then click the position tab at the top of the feature manager.  The next screen you get will be:

 

Notice in the feature manager it is asking you to select a face to place your hole wizard feature on.  Of course if you want to do hole wizard features say on the cylindrical body of that part as well as the face, just click the 3D Sketch button and you will be in that mode.

What's New In SolidWorks 2010: Mouse Gestures

Definately one of my favorite SolidWorks enhancements in the past few years has been the Shortcut Toolbar.  It makes for such a faster interface experiance.  SolidWorks 2010's new Mouse Gesture feature takes it to a whole different level.

So what is a mouse gesture?  In SolidWorks 2010 you simple right-click, then drag just a slight amount in any direction to get the following item:

 

Then by continuing to hold that right mouse button down, you simply move your cursor to the tool you want and it activates.  What I have shown here is my mouse gesture setting for Sketch Mode.  Notice that I have added the Shortcut Tool bar to the right quadrant of the Mouse Gesture Wheel?  Now I no longer have to hit the "S" key on my keyboard, or hit the coresponding button on my Space Pilot Pro.  That is a time saver.

Of course you can customise the Mouse Gesture Wheel to have different commands in four different modes: Sketch, Part Mode, Assemblies, and Drawings.  You access the customization by right clicking on any tool bar and then clicking customise.  At the top there is a tab for Mouse Gestures:

  

This is where I think the User Interface Team did an excellent job of designing a very easy to use, intuitive interface to change the options for the Mouse Gesture.  You can search for toolbar items, and look at the drop down you get so you can assign the command, very easy and straight forward.

Is eight available commands too many for you?  Well as you can see at the top of that menu, you can select for instead of eight and get this:

 

The reason I want to point this out is because the suggestion to offer two options here came directly from a post in the Beta Forums.  Thats why it's important to participate and provide feedback in Beta.  This suggestion was made, and it was in the next Beta release.

Much more to come, in fact stay tuned for the next month to see something new everyday!

What's New In SolidWorks 2010?

I had a feeling my iGoogle RSS reader would be full of SolidWorks 2010 stuff this morning, and I was not disappointed:

 

As Josh over at Solidsmack calls it, it's SolidWorks 'riot week'.  That's because the non-disclosure agreement between SolidWorks and people beta testing ends today. For the past couple of months, several thousand users around the world have been testing out SolidWorks 2010 and providing feedback to the developers here in Concord.  That in turn has kept the developers on their toes fixing bugs, and making even more enhancements to the next release.

When the group of bloggers visited SolidWorks earlier this month, they had already been using SolidWorks 2010 for at least a month and a half so the questions they were able to ask were far more advanced then say someone who had just recently seen a demonstration of what's new.  That's why reading the information these guys and gals will be going to put out over the next few weeks will be invaluable.  It will be a review of the next release from a point of view that pretty much can only come from a blogger, that of someone who uses the software full time as part of their job.  So stay tuned to the blogs for the next few weeks, it should be information overload.

And in keeping with my tradition of the past two releases I will also be putting up daily updates covering my favorite enhancements of the next release.  Right now the list is just over 20 items, so let's call it the Top 20 Enhancements to SolidWorks 2010.

Lots of SolidWorks News

While the late part of summer is typically a slow time for SolidWorks news, there is actually quite a bit going on. 

SolidWorks 2010 Beta News

First off Beta for SolidWorks 2010 is still ongoing and has been quite successful.  There is still time to join the beta program, and any and all help is greatly appreciated from users around the world.  Also as a benefit to beta testers, regardless of what version of SolidWorks you may have, beta 2 for SolidWorks 2010 will allow you to beta test SolidWorks Premium. So there is your chance to see what Premium has to offer for free.  To get more information about SolidWorks 2010 Beta, visit the Beta Website today.

As part of SolidWorks Beta 2010 you also get to put your hands on PhotoView360 2010 which includes a number of great enhancements.  There is a separate contest going on in which users can submit renderings created in PV360 2010 and compete for some very nice prizes.  Take a look at these Week 1 Winners and see if you can see some of the new functionalityavailable.  More info about the contest can be found Here. 

SolidWorks World 2010 News

And believe it or not, but registration for SolidWorks World 2010 has been open for a few weeks now.  While I personally wish this was a month long event that happens, well every month of the year, I like everyone else have to wait that long 12 months between SolidWorks World every year.  It's hard to believe that were just about 5 months out.  Be assured that everyone involved with SolidWorks World has been hard at work planning next years event, and Jeff Rays comment about SolidWorks World 2010 being a defining moment for SolidWorks, you sure do not want to miss next years event.  All the details including discount information, fees, and hotel deals can be found at the SolidWorks World 2010 Website. 

CSWP Event At SolidWorks World 2010

Speaking of SolidWorks World, we can't forget about the CSWP event held on Monday night.  Over the past few months we have released a couple of videos teasing the event and two weeks ago on twitter we released the final video covering exactly what to expect at the event.  Now for the first time outside of Twitter you can see the video Here.  So if you are into driving remote control cars, and would like a chance to win one of your very own, you will definitely want to make plans to attend ourevent at SolidWorks World 2010.  But remember you have to be a CSWP to get in the door!

California Companies Can Get a Free Upgrade

Are you in California and wanting to upgrade to SolidWorks Premium for free?  Well until September 30th, if you buy SolidWorks Standard, you can get upgraded to SolidWorks Premium for free.  Simply visit this Link to get more information, but it is only open to companies in California.  

SolidWorks World 2010 Registration Information

 

This week registration for SolidWorks World 2010 in Anaheim California opened.  Next years event will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center January 31st thru February 3rd.  Take a look around the site for various information including hotel discounts, and a very cool event mapping tool.  SolidWorks World 2010 is shaping up to be quite an event and should be another fantastic four days full of great break out sessions, tons of networking, and of course the ever popular off-site event and exclusive CSWP party.  I have heard a lot of speculation about where the off-site event is going to be held next year and all I can say is that the event is one you will not want to miss!

There are quite a few options as to how much it will cost you to go ranging from free to of course paying full price.  Josh Ming's over at SolidSmack has the entire cost run down posted  for your viewing pleasure (don't worry, there is no name dropping in the post!).

My main focus of course will be the CSWP party on Monday night.  In fact next week we'll be revealing just what we have planned for our party that is expected to draw about 700 CSWP's from around the world.  Here is a hint, it will be fun on four wheels, but on a scale you may not expect!

So what is to be expected at next years event?  Want some inside information?  Well then I would definitely pay attention to the official SolidWorks Blog over the next few weeks as more and more details are revealed.  I will leave you with one insidee tidbit, SolidWorks World 2010 is being billed as a major turning point for SolidWorks, so I would take that to mean you do not want to miss out!  Also according to the event mapping tool, the general sessions will be held in the on-site arena which should provide a very unique setting for the ever popular general sessions.

Oh, and if your on Twitter, the official hashtag is #SWW10 (yes it's actually the 12th SolidWorks World, but those two extra characters mean a lot when you only have 140 to use!)