If you’re like me, you rely on Convert Entities in SOLIDWORKS sketches to help capture Design Intent. Now, how many times have you converted entities and then decided that you want to change them? It never happens, does it? SOLIDWORKS 2019 introduces great new functionality that allows you to fully modify any converted spline and using it couldn’t be easier. But first, let’s look at SOLIDWORKS 2018 so we can fully appreciate this new functionality. When we use Convert Entities, […]
Over the last few releases of SOLIDWORKS, there have been several enhancements that help us increase productivity with assemblies. SOLIDWORKS 2018 introduced the Assembly Open Progress Indicator and new visualization tools for folders in the Design Tree. SOLIDWORKS 2019 introduces some great tools to help you organize your assembly mates and increase productivity. As we all know, the number of mates in our assemblies can increase exponentially and may get difficult to manage. My trusty RC helicopter model isn’t a […]
The wait is over. SOLIDWORKS 2019 SP0 is released today and available for download. For those eager to upgrade, log into the SOLIDWORKS Customer Portal and begin the process. For those who prefer to wait for the media kits, things are changing this year and SOLIDWORKS Corp. will not be proactively mailing Media Kits for SOLIDWORKS 2019. When you select the Download and Updates link you’ll be taken to the familiar Downloads page and you may notice two new selections. The […]
SOLIDWORKS Routing is a powerful tool that automates the creation of any type of piping, tubing or electrical route. When creating electrical routes, it’s common to have multiple wire routes joined together into one main route. SOLIDWORKS Routing makes this a piece of cake and here we can see an example of it. What isn’t a piece of cake is trying to add a component to reinforce the “Y” junction. In previous releases, we may add a note to call […]
The new release of SOLIDWORKS 2019 is just a month away and here at Computer Aided Technology the Tech Team is excited for this release. We have been working hard to find the best new features that SOLIDWORKS 2019 has to offer and are looking forward to sharing them with you and the SOLIDWORKS community. Starting TODAY, the CATI Tech Team will be starting our 5th annual What’s New Blog Series. The Tech Team is shooting for close to 90 […]
Actually, it’s been out for a few weeks. Can you believe it’s that time of year again? It’s time to take SOLIDWORKS 2019 for a test drive, check out the new enhancements and participate in the Beta program. What is the Beta Program? Participating in the in the Beta program is more that just taking the next release of SOLIDWORKS for a test drive. It’s about connecting with the BETA community, interacting with the SOLIDWORKS R & D team to […]
The Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine is the foundation that gives SOLIDWORKS Inspection (standalone) its power and makes it so easy to use. Having a high quality and clear PDF goes a long way in SOLIDWORKS Inspection. You can capture your characteristics as fast as you can drag windows around them. Let’s look at a few tools and techniques that can further improve the OCR capture success. The first step is to set the OCR dictionary to a font that […]
I think this one of those great forgotten gems. With so many features in SOLIDWORKS, I find it impossible to keep track of them all. Usually it’s a command that you don’t use frequently, and you’ve found another way of getting your design finished. This week, I needed one of these forgotten gems: Modify Sketch. Another user had a sketch where the origin was upside down in relation to the part origin, and Modify Sketch was the answer. It’s located […]
Reclaim Control of Your Routes SOLIDWORKS Routing makes it extremely easy to generate complex routes of rigid pipes, flexible tubing or electrical cables in your assemblies. One of the many tools that makes the process so fast is Auto Route. In this simple electronics enclosure all I need to do is select the beginning and end points of the connectors and Auto Route takes care of the rest. While this technique is fast, it’s not perfect and a just a […]
Why is my Assembly invisible in SOLIDWORKS Composer? If there is one thing I’ve noticed over my years of supporting SOLIDWORKS is that products are becoming more complex. Assemblies are continuing to increase in component number and the parts themselves are becoming more and more detailed. You may be wondering why I’m talking about SOLIDWORKS model size in detail when the blog title is Why is my assembly invisible? These larger assembly files can cause some strange behaviors in Composer, […]