So Part 3 is going to take a glimpse into the future and what COULD BE a game changer for 3D CAD.  For years now, ever since desktop CAD was introduced on Windows in the mid nineties (SOLIDWORKS was one of the first to do so) processing power was limited to what the desktop computer was capable of.  Fast forward 20 years and things haven’t changed all that much in this area in mainstream CAD.  Most of the CAD users out there are still chained to the limits of the desktop (or laptop) computer.  Sure – processors, graphics cards, RAM, and data drives have jumped in speed by leaps and bounds, but the limits of the machine still remain in place.  Much of your CAD system’s performance is directly linked to how fast your machine can process the data.  Multi-threading has made its way into a few areas such as photo rendering, simulation, and a few aspects of file processing, but it really hasn’t been tapped into for bulk model processing operations.  Some might say that Windows itself stands in the way of more multi-threading capability, but I have a feeling that is just part of the reason we haven’t seen much progress in this area.

Imagine opening a large or extremely complex model and not having to wait very long for it to be ready for editing.  Imagine not having to employ all those all important Large Assembly techniques when your component count gets over 5,000+.  What if you could TRULY spread all those model calculations across a large number of processor cores?  I believe a truly hosted CAD solution is can make these thoughts a reality.

With some of its shortcomings (which I’ve mentioned in Part 1 & Part 2) aside, a hosted CAD solution truly has the potential to do this.  The reason?  There are no desktop processor limits.  The only limit becomes how efficiently the graphics updates can be ported to the display for the user.  Of the systems available today, Onshape seems to be the only solution that is truly capable of this.  Because all of the model storage AND processing is in the cloud, the system is in a position to take advantage of more processing power.  Is Onshape able to open ridiculously large assemblies in a matter of seconds yet?  No – but the potential is there.  Because their system was written from the beginning to be a hosted solution, they are certainly in a better position to have that capability in the future vs other CAD systems.

Let’s imagine for a moment that that “hosted” solution could be made available for an onsite/on premise installation?  That somewhat changes the game when it comes to some of the cloud security concerns.  Companies are much more comfortable with a software solution if it is behind their firewall.

If indeed SOLIDWORKS Xdesign ends up being a 100% hosted package, then they will also have the potential to open up more processing horsepower to the package.

Anyone remember the “SolidWorks in the Cloud” demonstration from SolidWorks World 2010?  Hard to believe that was over six years ago.  Processing power was one of the benefits touted.  Even if you couldn’t have your data on the public cloud, the thought of installing this package across an internal server cluster was intriguing to say the least.  If you look at what was shown in that presentation, much of that capability has become a reality today with Onshape.  If you would have told me then that six years later we still wouldn’t have a CAD solution that was capable of leveraging more processing power, frankly I wouldn’t have believed you.

So which CAD company is going to be the first to truly step up and leverage more processing power for model operations?  Only time will tell.

Till next time…..

I did beta test a little bit this year and was impressed with the stability of the product.  I didn’t log as many hours as I have in years past, but when I did, things seems to work really well.  A couple of my early favorites are 3D Interconnect, DimXpert/MBD upgrades, and some really nice additions to SOLIDWORKS PDM.

3D Interconnect allows you to open native CAD data from other systems (Creo, Inventor, CATIA V5, NX) into SOLIDWORKS without having to translate the file to a SOLIDWORKS format.  As the native CAD data is updated, those changes can be rolled into the SOLIDWORKS model.  This does look similar to something that PTC recently introduced in Creo 3.0.  (UPDATED 10-8-2016: PTC Creo does have something similar, but its an extra module called Creo Collaboration Extension.  Cost for that extension ranges from 3K-5K per type CAD format.)

As I get some time over the next few weeks I’ll dive into a few of the features for a little closer look.  In the meantime, you can register for a local reseller for a launch event near  you.  The corporate launch event is next week and can be streamed online.

More to come…

In this series of posts, I’ve laid out a few observations on some of the new trends in the CAD industry and where we might be heading as new platforms are developed for the future.  You can catch Part 1 here if you haven’t seen it already.  Let’s dive into Part 2.

In Part 1, I failed to give the collaboration element due justice – so lets dive into that realm a bit.  We are already seeing collaboration enhancements in some of the new offerings and most of them are centered around the data being stored in the cloud.  Many of the cloud connected apps allow for real time notifications to users when components are updated by another users.  The user receiving the notification can then load the new component to see the latest changes.  This really doesn’t fall that far from some of the existing functionality in PDM systems such as SOLIDWORKS PDM. (which is not cloud connected)

The most innovative approach I have seen so far when it comes to collaboration is the approach that Onshape is taking.  They actually have the capability to allow multiple users to modify the geometry of a document AT THE SAME TIME.  This happens real time so as when a feature is added by one user, the other user sees it appear on their screen as the feature is completed. Traditional systems really struggle with this as pretty much all of them are still locked to a single file concept.  Only one person can have rights to that file at a time.  Being able to show “what-if” situations real time on screen is powerful.  It removes the need to exchanges screenshots or file versions while you are trying working a collaborative design.  You can see a video of real time editing with Onshape by clicking HERE.

Cloud CAD data can usually be shared to those outside the engineering process for review rather easily as you would expect.  There are also some tools out there today supporting traditional file based systems that do this pretty well.  (GrabCAD workbench comes to mind.)  But that application requires you to go outside your CAD authoring system which is just another opportunity for a broken link in the chain.  Sharing data like this is efficient, but like I mentioned in Part 1, security is going to be a concern for some companies.

So let’s switch gears a bit and talk about product accessibility. Not necessarily from the standpoint of accessing data from multiple devices, but from the standpoint of getting your hands on the tool to try it out.  One of the trends I’m seeing with the more cloud centric companies like Autodesk and Onshape is that they offer a free version of their tool.  Both packages seem to have done a good job at allowing users to kick the tires of the product (with full feature functionality) without having to go with a timed or arranged trial version.  The free version has the proper limits set so that users will need to upgrade to the paid version if they get serious about using the product.  If I owned a company that was in the market for CAD software, I would be compelled to try out those tools first to see if they met my needs.  It is a simple process to sign up online and begin using the software.  For me as an experienced CAD user, testing another modeler is pretty easy.  I just have to figure out where the buttons are and how the product workflow is set up.  For the unexperienced CAD user, they will have a much steeper learning curve.  With all of that in mind, both companies offer some great online tutorials that are easily accessible.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here is, you can have the greatest product in the world, but if you make it hard for a customer to try it out, you are really losing a great opportunity to get that product in front of the customer.  I think some of the established CAD vendors need to take a close look at this and learn from it.  

Ok…so I had fully intended to dive into the topic of distributed computing in this post, but that is going to have to wait for Part 3.  You folks are busy so I’ll be trying to keep these articles a little on the shorter side.

Stay tuned for Part 3 soon.

Ok…so the title of this post could be taken a few different ways.  Do I want to reinvent CAD? Not really…but I’m always on the lookout for new ways to work reliably but efficiently.  Note that I didn’t title this post “CAD Cloud” or “Online CAD” or “CAD in the Cloud”.  I guess I would like to look at it from a bit of a broader perspective.  How are companies today positioning themselves for the next “big” thing in CAD platform transformation?  Online and the cloud will no doubt play a part in that as we have already seen. (That is if you have been even paying half-attention to the industry the last two years.)

So let’s start with some of the “Cloud” packages.  This could include systems that only store data in the cloud or systems that are entirely cloud based.  The first word that comes to mind is “Flexible” and the second word is “Collaborative”.  Having the flexibility to access your data from many devices on different platforms is powerful without a doubt.  Naturally since it is on the web, the collaboration options are light years ahead of emailing files and pulling them up in viewers.

Talk of using the cloud usually leads to a discussion of security.  How safe is your data in the cloud?  If you work for a commercial company this topic may not be discussed as much but it is still an important one to have.  If you work for a company that deals in sensitive data, then cloud data is often met with a healthy dose of skepticism followed up by an abrupt “No”.  For some companies data breaches can be disastrous, so it certainly is a topic that should be taken seriously.  There really isn’t much that I have found in security standards or protocols that seem to work well with online cloud systems such as Amazon, Google, or Microsoft.  So if any of the CAD companies hope to ever lure data sensitive customers over to a cloud offering, there is going to have to be a much more structured approach to security.  Perhaps with some certified security protocols in place, things could begin to change.  I’ve seen some companies already looking at methods to employ multi-factor authentication.  I think this is a positive direction.  There is no doubt that all vendors with cloud apps are going to have to amp up their access methods if they want to continue to grow their market share.

Another big push I think we’ll see is the streamlining of model/feature processes.  We’ve all seen the “CAD Feature Wars” fought for years.  Most of the packages that have been around for a while seem to have leveled out a bit in that area.  Thats not to say that there certainly still isn’t room for improvement as far as new features go.  I just think we don’t see as many of the “big gun” feature additions like we did 10 years ago.  Because of this I think you’ll see efforts to develop new methods of applying these common features we use everyday in solid modeling apps. Featurescript from Onshape is an example of this.  It allows users to design their own “canned” features.  It is the only capability I’ve seen that allows users to create their very own custom features that look and function like regular features within the CAD system.

In the next post I’ll talk about “try before you buy” apps and how processing power could play a big role in the near future.

That’s all I’ve got for today….Part 2 coming soon.

The performance has been pretty good in my testing so far.  (The VM could probably use a little more CPU – but hey – its just getting started.)   This offering has some good potential to increase the amount of users running the software and testing out new features.  Check out the SOLIDWORKS Beta Site for more details.

Looks like SolidWorks World 2014 started off with a bang today with the release announcement of SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual.  With an NDA that still appears to be in place, I can’t comment much on the specifics of it, but it does have some very unique tools for conceptual and mechanism design.  Currently it is available in a “hosted” environment on Dassault’s servers.  I thought I read a report on Twitter (but can’t find it now) that a version that runs behind corporate firewalls is planned.  (That is still going to be a must for some companies.)

According to many reports on Twitter, the release date is April 2014.  The cost will be  $250.00 per month or $2,988 per year.

I’ve got to admit…I’m a bit shocked at the price.  I’ll hold further comments until I find out more details. 

Every year at SolidWorks World during the Wednesday General Session, users get a preview of what is coming in the next version of SolidWorks.  Its an event that many look forward to and is a great way to cap off the week.  So…here we go!

As in past years the new features were presented in the form of a skit.  This year’s skit was “Jeremy’s Designer Gift Show” which was a parody of a home shopping channel show.  As usual the skit was hilarious!  Three “make believe” products were “featured” on the show.

The first product up was the “SolidGrill 3000” with its designer Neil Cooke.  While demonstrating that a computer can indeed double as a grill, Neil was able to show off a few new features coming in SolidWorks 2014.

Replace View Model – This new feature allows you to replace the reference for a given view or views inside a Drawing.  Once you bring up the feature inside a Drawing, select the view or select the checkbox for all views and browse to replace the model.  All of the dimensions and annotations are preserved.

Existing View Icons – When you access the View Pallette in Drawings, SolidWorks will display an indicator (icon) as to whether or not the view is already placed in the drawing.

Display Style Context Menu – Context menus for Drawing Views now contain a dropdown menu that will allow you to change the Display Style of that particular view.  (For example, from Hidden Lines Removed to Shaded with Edges)

High Quality Shaded Views – With this setting, a shaded view in the drawing will not show and “bleed through edges” on thin surfaces

Angular Running Dimensions – Ordinate Style dimensions that can be utilized around circular parts.  You can add dimensions at any time.  (Similar functionality to Ordinate Dimensions.)

Split Table by Row Count – In SolidWorks 2014 you will be able to split a Bill of Materials in a Drawing by row count.  When you add components to an assembly, the setting is retained and the BOM will continue to split based on the number of rows you set.

Order Independent Transparency – This appears to be a new method of applying transparency to models so that overlapping faces in the transparency blend properly.  The result is a much better (and more accurate looking) rendering of the transparency.  This wasn’t talked about specifically, so I had to do a little web research to make sense of it.  J

Sunlight and Sunlight Animations – Sunlight is a new lighting option in the Appearances tab.  It allows you to enter your location, date, and time of day to get the accurate sunlight settings.  (Wow…I was surprised it goes to that much detail!)  You can also you PhotoView 360 to animate the changes in sunlight position.

Network Rendering Animations – You can now use Network Rendering (which was introduced in SolidWorks 2013 for still images) in rendering animations.

CircuitWorks Thermal Properties – CircuitWorks now supports Thermal Properties such as Specific Heat & Thermal Conductivity.  The properties can be imported from ECAD files or manually entered.

Link to SolidWorks Flow Simulation –  SolidWorks Flow Simulation can use the above mentioned thermal properties established in CircuitWorks to runs simulations.  This can reduce the amount of data input when setting up thermal studies in Flow Simulation.  You have the ability to choose which CircuitWorks properties to use and which ones to ignore.

The next product up was Justin Burton’s “SolidWorkOut”.  This was a bicycle with a laptop mounted on the front and the rear wheels suspended so that the pedal motion can supply power (to a workstation!)

Slots in Hole Wizard – Slots have been added to the Hole Wizard in SolidWorks 2014!  (I think this was on one of the previous top ten lists.)  You can create regular slots as well and counterbore and countersink slots.  You also have options for position and orientation of the slot.  One really neat thing about this is that if you have hardware already mated in place, the mates will not be broken if you switch from a hole to a slot.  (Very slick!)

Path Length Dimension – The new driving dimension option in sketches allows you to designate a path length dimension for a closed loop combination of entities.  The example given was a sketch of the path of a chain on a bicycle.  It also has the ability to add components tied to this path length dimension by increments, such as links on a chain.  (I’m not quite sure how they are doing this…but it looked pretty cool!)

Fixed Length Spline – Splines now have a fixed length setting that will force the spline to maintain a specified length as you drag the points of the spline around changing the shape.

Style Spline – This is a new type of spline that yields a “higher quality” spline with more control.  The control vertices look different than the existing spline tools.  You can add relations and dimensions to the control vertices as well.  The curvature comb of the Style Spline has less “bumps” and inconsistencies versus the older spline option.  This is one of the tools that I can’t wait to try!  Side note while we are talking about splines.  Rich Allen mentioned in the press conference after the General Session that there are also enhancements to the Surfacing tools coming in SolidWorks 2014.

Replace Sketch Entities – This one really looks like a big enhancement.  You can replace existing sketch entities with newly generated entities and all of the references will be updated.  (This is another one I really want to test.  It will be impressive if they can deliver a consistent solution that updates all the references to the entity being removed.)

SolidWorks Electrical Harness – This one is interesting.  You can now create harnesses inside SolidWorks Electrical 3D straight off the schematic with the click of a button.  You also have the ability to view schematics within the SolidWorks interface.  (This brings up an interesting question as to how this fits with the current SolidWorks Routing Electrical Product.  This looks to be capability that is added to SolidWorks Electrical and is totally separate from Routing.)

Reuse Existing Harness – You can take an exiting SolidWorks Electrical Harness and “reuse” it to create an new harness that routes to different points.

Clips in Flattened Representation – You can now include clips in Flattened harness views.  (This looked like what exists in Routing today…so I’ll probably have to get some clarification on this.  I’ll update the post if more information is given to me.)

Colored Connector Pins – Connector views will automatically populate the pin locations with a solid hatch that matches the color of the wire.  This will make it easier for workers on the shop floor to identify which color wire goes in each contact position on the connector.

Bolt Mapping – SolidWorks Simulation can detect fasteners within a model and automatically create matching connectors in the Simulation Study!  (This looks like a really neat trick.  I’m curious to see if this still works for companies who DO NOT use Toolbox fasteners.)

Results Symmetry – If you setup only half of a model to run a simulation, you can now use symmetry to view the results of the full model.  (This assumes your model has true symmetry.)

Residual Stress from SolidWorks Plastics – You can now use residual stress information from SolidWorks Plastics in SolidWorks Simulation studies.

Mark Schneider was up next to show the “DesignBelt Premium”.  This was a tool belt with a laptop attachment.  Watching him hammer boards together on top of the laptop was pretty funny (especially when the laptop blue screened).  Here’s what was shown in this part of the skit.

Environment Themes – Ok…I have to describe how this one was introduced.  The first image was a screen that had virtually EVERY toolbar on the screen active, which of course doesn’t leave you much of a graphics area for your model.  (I’ve actually seen people who setup SolidWorks like this over the years…not so much these days though.)  Here’s a picture below:

Ok, now let’s talk about Environment Themes.  You can setup “themes” which load only certain toolbars or tabs on the CommandManager.  You can even add specific buttons to toolbars, hotkeys, or mouse gestures that are only present in that particular theme.  This looks like a nice customization option.

History Folder – The History Folder is located at the top of the FeatureManager and always displays the last five features you’ve accessed.

Flexible Assemblies Context Menu – The title here pretty much describes the new feature.  You can now make a subassembly flexible by using new tools that pop up in the context menu.

Streamlined Save As Copy – In SolidWorks 2014 you can do a Save As on an assembly and choose Save As Copy much like previous version.  But there is a new option that leaves the new copy open.  Within this interface, you can create copies of components all in one shot.  (The UI looks very similar to what you get when you choose use Pack and Go.)  When you use this tool, any upper level assemblies that were open when you performed the Save As Copy command will still reference the original model (not the copied one).

eDrawings with Augmented Reality – This was previewed last year at the SolidWorks 2013 press event.  This tool allows you to superimpose your SolidWorks model into the eDrawings for iPad (or Android soon) by using the device’s camera.  A QR code printed on paper is used to “locate” the model.

Sheet Metal Corner Gussets – You can now add corner gussets to sheet metal parts.  Options for this tool include impending depth, controlling each length, width, and draft.  Gussets are automatically ignored when a sheet metal part is unfolded.

Lofted Bend Transitions – You now have more control lofted bends in sheet metal.  You can specify the number of bends in the loft through new options in the PropertyManager.  The flat pattern of the part gives all of the break lines for the lofted bend.

Smart Mate Delay – Smart Mates no longer immediately snap to any geometry you slide the cursor over.  There is now a customizable pause period that waits for the mouse cursor to stop before attempting to apply the Smart Mate.  You can set this period to whatever interval you desire.

Feature Driven Component Pattern – You can now base new component patterns off of existing component patterns in the assembly.

Rotate Exploded Views – You now have an option to rotate components in Exploded view.  This can be used to rotate screws as you remove them from their secured position or move components angularly to its exploded position.

Quick Mate Context Menu – This looks REALLY interesting.  The context menu in assemblies now has the ability to display Quick Mate icons based upon your selections.  It works very similar to the mate options available in the context menu of the sketcher.  The Quick Mate context menu displays the most common mate types based upon your model entity selections.  With this tool you can quickly mate components together without ever entering into the Mate command.

This was a pretty good list of features and as always, this isn’t ALL of the enhancements coming in SolidWorks 2014.  Look for SolidWorks 2014 Beta towards the middle of this year.

Thats all for now.  Stay tuned…more to come!

The BIG news of the day on Monday at SolidWorks World 2013 was the announcement of SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual.  Over the last three years speculation has run rampant since the now infamous “Cloud” announcement was made at SolidWorks World 2010.  To begin with, I’m going to give you an overview on what was presented.  I’ll then follow up at the end with a few comments.  Fielder Hiss made the presentation for Mechanical Conceptual on stage.

This is the first product developed on top of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.  (Absolutely no mention of V6.  As best I could tell, this is the name of the new platform.)  The tool is complementary to all the products that SolidWorks users use today.

Conceptual

It is a tool for mechanical designers to do their concept design work.  Its specialty is with mechanisms (moving parts).  Its purpose is to help get ideas or concepts into 3D right away while fostering an iterative design process and maintaining multiple configurations.  According to SolidWorks, 31% of project time is spent working with concepts.  On average, there are 6 conceptual iterations in an individual design.  There are often both internal and external groups that are part of the conceptual process.  Ease of use in collaboration is important in making this process smooth, so that all groups can give input into the design.  This is where the Social aspect comes in, which we will talk about in a few moments.  The detail design process within SolidWorks can often limit creativity in the conceptual process.  This tool is designed to capture concepts digitally, provide capability to manage multiple iterations, and most importantly be easy to use and easy to change.

Social

Social integration is designed into the “foundation” of SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual.  Designs can be shared with both internal and external groups who are “stakeholders” in the project through “private communities”.  The example page shown appeared to be a derivative of a 3DSWYM page that allowed users to post comments on the design.  No other details were given.

Instinctive

SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual is always saving designs and capturing iterations as you work.  Not only does this allow you to easily go back and use a previous design, it also remembers how components were used.  Speaking of components, there is a BIG difference in this area.  SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual introduces a single modeling environment (which of course is quite different from SolidWorks).  This allows the user to NOT have to worry about the file structure, Bill of Materials, or subassembly order while developing the concept.  It was said to be a “more natural” way to do concept design.

Here a couple of key statements made about this software:

• “SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual merges the benefits of history, parametrics, and direct editing into a single interface.  It is the best of all worlds.”
• “It will be easy to make a change (any change) and respect the previous design intent that they had already put into the design.”

The software was said to be “instinctive” and is constantly learning.  Since everything is stored in a database, the software understands how you use components and becomes smarter with every use.

Motion Simulation is fully integrated into SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual.  It uses this simulation to validate the function and to show life-like behavior in the design.  The example shows both motion paths and envelopes.

It also has integrated Structural Simulation.  This will allow the user to verify that the stress is within limits – all while still in the concept stage.

Connected

SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual is always connected online.  It prevents the loss of data due to deletion, application crashes, or accidental over-writes.  It provides a connected interface (without the burden of a PDM interface) to other team members so that screen shots can be shared within the interface and designs can be updated real-time for teams working in separate locations.

As a “complementary” tool to SolidWorks, the models developed in SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual can be brought into SolidWorks when the detail design process is ready to begin.

The information can be accessed anywhere at any time.  Mobile access tools can also be used to access this data.  The example on the screen shows a model being brought up with on an iPad via a 3DEXPERIENCE app.

Ricky’s Comments:

First and foremost.  The only thing I know about this software is what was shown today.  So the statements I’m going to make below are purely my opinion at this point.  To be blunt…I could be totally wrong on some of this…so bear with me.

As far as the modeling/sketching capability goes, the software looked very MUCH like SolidWorks in many ways and also very DIFFERENT than SolidWorks in many ways.  What appeared to be sketch relations shown on the screen looked very much like what we have today in SolidWorks.  Even the way they are applied (with a context menu) looks similar.  The way some of the sketch entities were created looked very different.  Some of the “elements” of the sketch appeared to be REALLY easy to create while automatically receiving a shading of sorts which looked to differentiate it as a separate element from other entities.  This fell right into quickly creating a 2D layout with full motion capabilities.

The direct modeling tools looked really easy to use.  Extrusions and cuts were made with simple push/pull actions.  This probably won’t be much of a surprise to many as many of the modelers out there that rely heavily on direct editing already do this.  You could see a list of features briefly, but no details were given on the specifics of how they worked.

The social aspect of the software looked very easy to use.  You could see many design cues taken from popular social apps out there today and since it is built into the software, generating these messages to other design team members looked easy.

There was a History Browser shown that appeared to let the user roll back to previous designs.  Again…looked pretty straight forward to use.

I was REALLY surprised to see both Motion Simulation and Structural Simulation built into this tool.  This is much more than I would expect to see in the first release of a concept modeler.  I’m very glad to see it there though.  Time will tell as far as it’s usability and capability.

The connected portion DID appear to rely heavily to an online connection.  There was absolutely no mention of the “C” word, but what I saw lead me to believe that online hosting was going to at least be one of the options offered with this package.  Nothing was said to indicate that a “database” couldn’t be installed locally as well, so we are just going to have to wait on see on this.  I don’t think we can speculate one way or the other as to whether this a “cloud” only offering at this point.  (There was more discussion at the press conference…which I was unable to attend.  I have the audio from that but having listened to it yet.)

Export to SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual models to SolidWorks:  The immediate question that popped into my mind was “Do the parts have features?”.  That was of course not shown, so we will have to find out those details later.

All in all, SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual looks like a very interesting package, but I can’t say how good/bad it is until I get some seat time with it.

Limited Beta testing with select companies will begin in May and an October/November full release date is the target.  No pricing details were given.

Stay tuned….more to come!

SolidWorks World 2013 officially kicked off this morning with the Monday General Session. SolidWorks CEO Bertrand Sicot greeted over 4,500 attendees to the conference. There are 280 Technical Sessions here and over 100 solution partners in the Partner Pavilion.

SolidWorks crossed the 2 million user mark in December 2012. They have 25,000 schools all over the world who have SolidWorks and 2.5 million students a day are using SolidWorks. SolidWorks now has over ½ million fans on Facebook. There was a quick review of the products released in 2012, which included SolidWorks Plastics, SolidWorks Electrical, and E-Drawings for iPad. Bertrand mentioned that an E-Drawings app for Android will be released soon.

As I mentioned yesterday, My.SolidWorks.com was “officially announced”. One new tidbit offered up today that I didn’t hear yesterday was that the site was built using both Exalead and Netvibes. (Both recently acquired by Dassault Systemes.)

Bernard Charles came to the stage next to discuss the direction of Dassault Systemes and its products. Much more emphasis was put on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform (which was announced last year). This year it is referred to as a genuine platform which will soon have products (more on that later).

The BIG news of the day was the reveal of a new SolidWorks Product. SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual is the first product developed across the entire Dassault Systemes platform. I’ll have more on that in a separate article. There is much to talk about there.

Wrapping up the session was an interview with some members of the Red Bull Stratos design team. They talked about how the project was started and the design cycle (5 years) from start to finish. The capsule that took Felix Baumgartner up to 120,000 feet for the drop was designed in SolidWorks. The story of the space suit Felix wore was interesting. It was designed by the David Clark Company, who has designed many different space suits for NASA and the Air Force. They designed a suit worn by an SR-71 pilot who ejected at Mach 2+ (and survived). It was interesting in that no matter how many times it has been played, the video showing Felix jumping off the capsule still to this day causes many people to gasp.  This was truly a great achievement by the Red Bull team.  Congratulations to them on a successful mission.

That is all for now.  I’ll update later with more from Monday night’s events.  Stay tuned…more to come!

And so it begins.  Sunday at SolidWorks World is always a busy day.  The highlights of the day included the CAD Managers Boot Camp, Certification Testing, and numerous Roundtable Sessions.  (To name all the sessions would take quite a few lines.)

During the CAD Managers Boot Camp, SolidWorks announced My.SolidWorks.com.  This is a website that will allow you to combine feeds from the SolidWorks Forum, Blogs, YouTube, & Twitter.  You can take these feeds from all of these sources and customize your view of the items on this site.  That is the extent of my knowledge on the subject at this point….but I’ll report more as I get some time to play with it.

The Partner Pavilion opens at 5:30pm.  I’ll post pictures later tonight to my Flickr Stream

Make sure you watch the #sww13 hashtag tonight as the SolidWorks Tweetup will start around 7:30pm (EST).

Stay tuned…more to come!