INSERTING FORMULAS IN TABLE CELLS WITH DRAFTSIGHT

With DraftSight 2019 users now have the ability to add formulas to their tables, just like one can add in a spreadsheet program. This feature is available in DraftSight 2019 Professional, Premium, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus.

Use the formulas in the cells with Arithmetic Operators and Sum, Average and Count.

• Sum - Used to calculate the sum of the values from the defined cells.
• Average - Used to calculate the average of the values from the defined cells.
• Count - Used to Count the number of defined cells.

A formula should always start with the equal sign (=).

To start with, you need to insert a Table in to your drawing. To do so, click on the Annotate Tab and select Table from the menu.

Once you have inserted your table, you can populate it to suit your needs. In the example below, I’ve created a small table showing Door Types, Quantity, Price and Cost.

The Cost column for door is specified in column C4 and the value for each row in it is calculated by multiplying B3 and C3 and other rows are filled by copying the formula.

User can specify cells and ranges of cells within a formula by selecting them or by referring to them using column and row labels.

If you click in a Cell, you’ll notice a new Property Table Menu for the cell appears. You can use this menu to Insert, Remove and Size Columns and Rows.

You can also Merge and Format Cells and, if you click on the Formula button, you will see a list of supported Formulas within DraftSight 2019 Professional, Premium, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus.

I have used a simple formula in creating the table as example Likewise many

Formulas can be used as we use in a spreadsheet in the DraftSight table.

        THANK YOU FOR READING!

Methods to Effectively Reuse the Design Data

Have we ever imagined how many workman hours we lose in trying to Reuse the Data which is supposed to be saving the time and money instead of losing them? It includes time spent on,

•  Searching right version of the data among many file versions created by our team members.

•  Finding missing references of data.

•  Recreating the File/Folder structure.

•  Maintaining Filenames/Folder names.

The losses may sum up nearly the savings we make from data reuse. Hence it needs a system that is as much effective as possible to ease the pain and improve the Return of Investment spent on maintaining and reusing the older project files. The system we are proposing for this data reuse is SOLIDWORKS Product Data Management. Being a proven data management solution, SOLIDWORKS PDM provides excellent data management and reuse tools like Search tools, copy tree, Branching and Merging.

SOLIDWORKS PDM Search Tools:

The initial time-consuming process in data reuse is running searches for various files and its references. To overcome this SOLIDWORKS PDM provides two kinds of search options – Embedded Search and PDM Complete Search Tool. The Embedded Search is same as we have in windows explorer that runs search for files and folder whereas the PDM Search tool provides a flexible and customizable search options. The Search keyworks can be filenames, folder names, file extensions and meta data combined with Operators like AND, OR & NOT. The SOLIDWORKS PDM Search tool provides a separate window exclusively with,
1. Search Toolbar – provides options like Run, Stop, Delete & Save searches.
2. Search Favorites – lists the frequently made searches and searches added to favorites list.
3. Searches – lists the different default and customized Search Cards based searches.
4. Search in Vaults – lists all the available vaults to make searches in multiple vaults at same time.
5. Search Form – Displays form of selected search card where we can provide search criteria.
6. Results – Lists the files and folders relevant to the search criteria we provided in search form.
7. Tabs – Shows file preview, data card, Version details, Bill of Materials, etc.

Note: The Embedded Search is available both in SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard as well as PDM Professional Whereas the Complete Search tools is available only in SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional.

Copy Tree Dialog Box:

Once finding the right data is a success, the next step is extracting the data without missing any file references and organizing them with proper file name and folder structure. For this, SOLIDWORKS PDM provides a tool called Copy Tree which acts similar to the SOLIDWORKS Pack and Go tool. Here the major difference is Copy tree tool can preserve the folder structure for parent and child reference files with Preserve Relative Path option. Also, PDM features like regenerating Serial Numbers for file Number, replacing file name with Serial Number, File Warnings, Check-in options are available with which projects can be copied and organized as per our requirement. The file versions can be either the version of the selected file or the latest version. Copied files can be developed as a new project without affecting the source data.

Note: SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional has a similar tool called Move Tree which moves the Selected file and entire file structure to the destination location.

Branching and Merging:

Branching a file is like taking a copy of source file to work with for a sustained development period and later merging it with the source file to combine the file as a new version to the source file. This can be done to both CAD and Non-CAD documents. The same source file can be branched many times. The branched files can also be re- branched if needed. The branching and merging dialog box are similar to Copy Tree dialog box with all the options available similarly. In addition, branching dialog box will have a separate test box for providing a name to the branch operation. The branching operation will be recorded to the history of the file so that it can be referenced in future. Merging dialog box will provide no option for destination file location since the files will be merged only to the source file in the source file location. With branching and merging source data can be reused to build a separate project as a version of source project and later if needed both projects can be merged to make the source project as a updated revision. Hence Branching and Merging not only provides data reuse capability but also the older data replacement capability for minimizing duplicate file stack-up inside the vault

THANK YOU FOR READING!

SOLIDWOKRS TECH TIP - SOLIDWORKS PROPERTY TAB BUILDER

The Property Tab Builder is a stand-alone utility that you use to create a customized interface for entering properties into SOLIDWORKS files.

Traditionally, designer's use to modify the drawing template to insert custom property such as Description, Part No, Material, it’s a manual method. so, designers have to modify the custom property or metadata on each time, simultaneously BOM creation is also manual which increases a run time and errors in BOM table. It's also delayed the release of entire project.

Three ways to create a customized interface for property template.

• In the SOLIDWORKS software, on the Custom Properties tab in the Task Pane, click Create now.
• In the SOLIDWORKS software, on the SOLIDWORKS Resources tab of the Task Pane, click Property Tab Builder
• From the Windows Start menu, click All Programs > SOLIDWORKS version > SOLIDWORKS Tools > Property Tab Builder version.

To create the property tab, you will need to first create a new file inside of SOLIDWORKS. A new application window called the Property Tab Builder will pop up. In Property tab builder have three columns.
The left side column is a list of types of properties can be used. Mid column is what will be shown in SOLIDWORKS when the property tab is ready. The right column is the options/settings for each parameter.

Group Box: The Group box is essentially a container that allows you to group the other items.Textbox: This item accepts free-form text and stores it as an associated property.
List: List boxes present users with a list of predefined values that once selected will be stored.
Number: A number box accepts only number inputs to store as a property.
Checkbox: With a checkbox you can have the user select between two predefined values to place as a property.
Radio: Radio buttons allow you to define a selection of up to three predefined values that can be used to show or hide elements in the dialog.

By Assigning attributes to the properties. You will get final Property Box.

To Save the tab templates in the same location as the properties.txt file. You can create multiple templates for each document type. The file extension indicates the template type
➢ . PRTPRP for part
➢ . ASMPRP for assemblies
➢ . DRWPRP for drawings
➢ . WLDPRP for Weldments

This is done the same way you would for your custom templates. But instead you’ll select the “custom property files” in System Options > File locations.

You can see the applied properties in file property in below image.

Property Tab Builder lets you to create your specified properties in a single window and can be share it to all users so that properties can be applied by a single click, resulting in saving design time.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

Enhance Your 2D Drafting Experience to Achieve Best in Class Results Using Draftsight

Latest DraftSight Offerings

DraftSight helps users to create new drawings and access or edit existing DWG files with a strong CAD solution that meets their 2D and 3D DWG file needs. DraftSight provides a far better 2D drafting and 3D design experience for engineers, architects, and construction service providers (AEC), also as professional designers, CAD users, makers and manufacturers. This product is brought to you by Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE company, and provides flexible offerings for users to choose from:

•      DraftSight Standard
•      DraftSight Professional
•      DraftSight Premium
•      DraftSight Enterprise
•      DraftSight Enterprise Plus

DraftSight Standard Capabilities

For individuals who required a straightforward 2D CAD drafting solution with a well- known interface.

•  Draw tools to make basic elements like lines, polylines, arcs, circles, ellipses, tables, hatches, clouds
• Modify tools to perform the move, copy, rotate, mirror, pattern, scale, trim, chamfer, split
• Dimensioning tools to measure distances between objects
• Layer tools to organize a drawing
• Blocks to mix a set of entities together into one named object
• Attach Drawing to feature external regard to the present drawing
• Print to output a drawing to a plotter, printer or shareable file
• SVG scalable icons to support high-resolution (4K) clarity displays

DraftSight Professional Capabilities

For professionals and corporations that need a sophisticated 2D CAD drafting solution with powerful, time-saving productivity functionalities and APIs to help bring their designs to life quickly and easily.

• Toolbox library allows to quickly access generate hardware, holes, balloons, bills of materials, welding and surface finish symbols
• Batch Printing helps to send a gaggle of drawings and sheets to printers during bulk printing of drawings
• Drawing Compare tool graphically compare entities between two different drawing documents
• Power Trim to trim multiple entities, adjacent entities by dragging the pointer across each entity in the viewport
• G-Code Generator generate codes to talk with a CNC machine for fabrication
• PDF Underlay to attach pages of a PDF document to a drawing document
• Macro Recording helps to start out programming and record actions performed interactively within DraftSight interface
• DraftSight APIs to allows end users to customize and automate the DraftSight functionalities
• DGN Import allows to import and convert the DGN drawing directly into a DraftSight for direct editing
• Insert Centerlines to allow selecting two segments and generate a centerline equally in-between
• Pattern Along a Path to make pattern along with a predefined path entity
• Split Dimension to create a gap in between dimension lines because when dimensions are intersecting with other drawing entities, it will give even more clarity to the drawing
• Curved Text to place text along an arc to control the text direction and location even better
• Hairline to help machines to consume directly .dwg or .dxf file output for laser cutting
• Image Tracer to convert an imported raster image type file (ex. floor plan, logo) into vectorized line entities to make layout designs
• Formulas in Tables to support basic formulas in table cell such as sum, count, average, equations
• Trim Hatch to trim and modify the existing hatch patterns

DraftSight Premium Capabilities

For individuals, designers, makers, manufacturers, professionals, and corporations that require a strong 2D drafting and 3D design experience to assist meet their needs on drafting, modeling, prototyping, manufacturing, laser cutting and 3D printing. It includes all the time-saving productivity functionalities and APIs additionally to the complete 3D tools and constraints capabilities that are exclusive to the Premium version.

• 3D Modeling tools to make geometrical shapes (ex. Pyramid, Cylinder, Box), more complex 3D objects using Extrude, Loft, Revolve, etc. and to get 3D surfaces with the help of sort of mesh tools
• Constraints to regulate drawing entities parametrically by specifying geometric and dimensional properties of entities
• All Professional features that are listed within the DraftSight Professional section

DraftSight Enterprise Capabilities

For large organizations with many users or multiple sites that require a complicated 2D CAD drafting solution with time-saving productivity functionalities and APIs to assist bring their designs to life quickly and easily. It includes complete technical support, deployment and a network license to enable concurrent usage across the organization.

• All Professional features that are listed within the DraftSight Professional section
• A network license to enable simultaneous usage and compliance across the organization
• The Deployment Wizard to enable large groups of users to put in or upgrade DraftSight
• Full technical support to answer questions or troubleshoot issues associated with DraftSight

This offering can be purchased through a reseller and is out there as Subscription or Non-Subscription (one-time purchase). It runs on Windows with a minimum of two licenses SolidNetWork License (SNL) is required. Should a customer prefer Dassault Systèmes License Server (DSLS) the minimum order is 5 licenses. Email and telephone full technical support are included.

DraftSight Enterprise Plus Capabilities

For large organizations with many users or multiple sites that require a strong 2D drafting and 3D design experience to assist meet their needs on drafting, modeling, prototyping, manufacturing, laser cutting and 3D printing. It includes all the time- saving productivity functionalities, APIs, full technical support, deployment, a network license additionally to the complete 3D and constraints capabilities that are exclusive to Enterprise Plus version.

• All Premium features that are listed within the DraftSight Premium section
• A network license to enable simultaneous usage and compliance across the organization
• The Deployment Wizard to enable large groups of users to put in or upgrade DraftSight
• Full technical support to answer questions or troubleshoot issues associated with DraftSight

This offering can be purchased through a reseller and is out there as Subscription or Non-Subscription (one-time purchase). It runs on Windows with a minimum of two licenses SolidNetWork License (SNL) is required. Should a customer prefer Dassault Systèmes License Server (DSLS) the minimum order is 5 licenses. Email and telephone full technical support are included.

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