Rich Hall’s BLOG

A few weeks ago, I was privileged enough to have been invited up to SolidWorks Corporate HQ for a preview of SW 2010.  As my busy schedule permits, I will be posting a few things about 2010 and the new functionalities.  For now I want to share the highlights of the visit and some of the items shared by SolidWorks.  A few of the well know bloggers joined me on the trip and a couple of the west coast guys didn’t make it due to illness and prior commitments.  The posts from everyone there can be found by following my links in my blogroll. 

Day 1 consisted of a review of a product that was released on SolidWorks labs, Sustainability, Jeremy Regenerus showed a presentation put together by Rick Chen.  Rick called in and walked us through the full package that will be available with new features and capabilities in SW 2010.  Next we had a quick update from Bob Miner  and what’s going on in SW Labs.  If you haven’t been there, go check out what’s new.  One of the questions we were asked to consider is “What are some ideas for mobile platforms?”  If you have some ideas, just post them in the comments below with SW Labs in the comment. 

We next had a presentation From Marie Planchard with some information on SW education programs.  Marie was kind enough to give us an education version to share with someone back home.  I gave mine to a recent HS graduate who is currently in Junior College pursuing an associates degree in drafting and design.   I’ll be touching on this more in one of my Educators Corner pieces. 

Lunch was with Jeff Ray and several interesting topics were discussed.  One statement that I asked Jeff to expound upon was in regards to hiring.  His statement, and the sentiment of previous CEO’s of SolidWorks, is that hiring is the most important thing to be done in a company.  The discussion was that if you hire good people, you end up with good work habits and good products.  This was quite interesting and I wish it could be applied in all companies.  After lunch we were treated to a few min. with Jon Hirschtick former CEO and one of the founders of SolidWorks.  Jon is now the “future technologies” guy at SW and he shared a few things he thinks are going to be key in the future of CAD including the transition back to hardware.  Another interesting product is very small projectors that could eventually end up in you phone which would be a boon for collaboration. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent with the User Experience Group, formerly the Usability team of  Jim “Wilkie” Wilkenson, Tom Spine and Lynn Churney.  Tom shared with us the 3 steps that were used to create SW 2010 and will also be used to service future versions.  The steps are:

1. change the design process
2. creating artifacts of design
3. usability testing early and often

Since the group is always looking for ideas, if you have any just reply to my comments and put “usability” in the body

We also had a quick visit from John Slocum who discussed 3D Content Central where he told us of some new features including self service supplier catalog publishing with and online subscription model.  This allows suppliers to publish their models in a catalog format while being able to control how and when they publish.  John also mentioned that the 3DCC Beta sight would be up soon, check it out and participate.

Later that evening, we were treated to a few laps at F1 Boston, a very large indoor cart track.  It was a lot of fun but not so comfortable.  Some of us looked like stuffed sausage:

After all was said and done, Ricky Jordan of Rickyjordan.com was the overall winner after several qualifying heats.  Congrats RJ!

He kinda looks like the “Stig” in this photo huh. 

I would like to thank SolidWorks and all those who were responsible for inviting us up and for the great hospitality we were shown.  I would like to give special thanks to Nancy Buchino and Matthew West and to all the other bloggers who were there.  See you soon guys, 

admin Uncategorized 3d content central, CAD, SolidWorks, solidworks education

A new update to 3D Content Central (3DCC) has been released just in time for SolidWorks World 2009.  What is 3DCC you might ask, well it’s a companion website to the SolidWorks software that has lots of downloadable content.  I use the word content because along with the expected 3D models, there are also categories for features, blocks and macros.  The content contained in 3DCC is from various suppliers catalogs along with user supplied items.  The models range from usable blobs of common hardware to fully configured mil-spec connectors and everything in between.  I have been an active user since 2004 and you will find guys like Ricky Jordan and Brian McElyea have made contributions to the user content located in the user library.  You will also find components from suppliers like Fischer Connectors, Misumi USA and Moog along with hardware from ANSI/ASME.  There are several way to get to 3DCC.  The first way is simply to go to your web browser and type www.3dcontentcentral.com.  This will take you to the home screen where you will need to register for an account.  Once you have an account you will be able manage all the content including downloading, uploading and rating the content.  The second but not so obvious way is on the “design library” tab of your SolidWorks desktop.  If you click the tab, 3DCC is in the tree menu.  Once you have an account, a click on one of the items will open the 3DCC website inside SolidWorks.  You can size the windows and use them as you would on the web.  One quick note here is that you must have IE or other browser running for SW to connect to the website.  The third way to get to 3DCC is to log into the customer portal from the SolidWorks website.  Once logged into the customer portal, you will find 3DCC listed under “Download” below the Self-Service heading.  Once again this will take you to the 3DCC website.  Another note here is that if you check the remember me box at log in, when you take any of these methods to open 3DCC, you will be automatically logged into your account.   

Some of the updated features in 3DCC are the ability to control your own content by using the “My 3D ContentCentral” (My 3DCC) feature.  In this release your profile is set up similar to other “social networking” sites where you can list personal information and create contacts and monitor their 3DCC activities.  Other great features of My 3DCC are My Portfolio, which contains all the content that you have uploaded, My Comments, which shows all the comments you have added to the content and My Downloads/Views which contains all the content you have downloaded and/or viewed on 3DCC.  The drill down filters have been visually revamped and are easier to use when doing a search.  Several filters are available during the search including supplier, content type and category.  The thumbnail of the content has been enlarged in the preview window so it’s easier to see the details (yea!).  Inside the content window there are options for downloading, rating the content and tagging it so that it’s easier to find.  This last one is important because different industries use different nomenclature to describe different items.  Other items of note in the content window, are the ability to send the link to someone by email, add to your favorites, post an alternative version and even embed it into a blog like this:  Download 

With this latest release, I think SolidWorks and the 3DCC team are almost there.  This is a great resource for getting content from know suppliers, hard to find parts that you need a model for, a hot new macro to solve your problems or a forming tool that you don’t have to create.  I’m looking forward to seeing some new content.  Get on 3D Content Central and show us what you’ve got.  Who knows it might be just what I’m looking for.

admin CAD, SolidWorks 3d content central, SolidWorks, SolidWorks World