De-Constructing Designs is not a Big Deal

 A 3D mesh is the structural build of a 3D model consisting of polygons. 3D meshes use reference points in X, Y and Z axes to define shapes with height, width and depth.

3D Mesh modelling is required for clients who need vector representation of irregular or organically shaped object.

Let’s see how we can deal such kind of scenarios in SolidWorks 3D CAD. In general, we handle mesh files (Extracted from 3D Scanning, Cloud Points) inside SolidWorks is the big deal for CAD users.

Every year SolidWorks team work for the users to benefit their productivity. In that order we are going to see how the latest enhancement tools helps in improving the accuracy of the day to day work in terms of mesh files.  

We can open Mesh Files directly in SolidWorks and can perform various editing options in the file. One such operation is creating surfaces from mesh bodies which is available from SolidWorks 2018 Version and now let’s see how we can create it.

Creating a Surface From Mesh Feature

The Surface from mesh tool helps us in creating surface and solids from an imported mesh object. (“.obj” , “.stl” , “.off ” , “.ply” , “.ply2” ,  “.3mf ”). 

The tool has the ability to pick the various faces with regular prismatic geometry from the mesh body and create a surface from it.

For eg: we are able to select either plane , sphere , cones or cylindrical surfaces individually.

Procedure:

1.Open a mesh file and import it as a Graphics body.

2.Under Mesh Modelling Tab > click >Surface from Mesh

  

                         

3.Under the Facets, we can select the required type of surface that is to be created under the default icons.

Note: we can select a group of facets even in the graphics area to specify the surface areas that are to be created by using paint select Facets.

4.By holding the Left mouse button we can drag the pointer in the graphical area over the components faces to be created as surface.

Note: Areas that intersect within selection circle will be highlighted as shown in the image. (To deselect the unwanted faces hold ALT + Left mouse click)

5.We can also specify the extended distance of the surface created using Extend Surface Size option.

Note : The Extended surface will exactly fits with the surfaces selected.

6.Clicking  will add the Surface From Mesh feature in design tree.

On the whole, with help of SolidWorks 3D CAD, compact your design with Mesh Files that leads to increase in output accuracy with reduction of time and take your product to the market at the earliest.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

It's time to join SOLIDWORKS Innovation 2021 LAUNCH

REGISTER NOW FOR SOLIDWORKS INNOVATION DAY 2020!

Click Here to Register

20th OCTOBER: https://bit.ly/2STWoRU

22nd OCTOBER: https://bit.ly/3dpOAkw

It's time to join SOLIDWORKS Innovation Day as we unveil all new capabilities in SOLIDWORKS 2021 together with industry-leaders, leading engineers, designers, SOLIDWORKS experts and more.

Join us virtually and discover how SOLIDWORKS 2021 enhances the capabilities and workflows you use every day for design, documentation, data management and validation. 

Reserve your seat today:

• Learn more about enhancements and new workflows to improve productivity

• Test drive the expanded solutions that can shorten your time to market

• Engage with experts and learn about the new capabilities

• Exchange best practices with peers in your local SOLIDWORKS community  

 

You can attend the same event either on 20 October or 22 October, as per your availability and convenience.  

 

For detailed agenda click here: http://bit.ly/SWX-2021-KnowMore

Regards,

EGS INDIA

9445424704

mktg@egs.co.in

BRING PARTS TO LIFE - FLEXIBLE COMPONENTS

 Have you ever wanted to check the real time dynamic movement of a part in your 3D assembly?

Look no further, SOLIDWORKS 2020 introduces a new capability which brings your part to LIFE.

SOLIDWORKS prior to 2020 had the capability to show the working of a subassembly in the main assembly. Now with the new enhancement we can now also show the working a part in an assembly.

Some of the practical examples include

· Springs

· Bellows

· Hinges etc.

SPRING

BELLOW

HINGE

SPRING

BELLOW

HINGE

With the new enhancement you can massively increase efficiency in visualizing and validating assemblies with motion.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

Have the Things in your Hands!

Just imagine! What if you become the President of The United States of America? What if you could have a control on stopping the bullet train with 320kph within a second in some chances of critical situation? What if the UNO announces you to monitor the whole nations in the world? Very curious. Let we break it out. In 2013, SolidWorks has introduced one of the biggest assets to the management who handle large Designs. 

We can also say it is one of the most welcome tool that meets our users and management’s expectation. The tool none other than is CAD ADMIN DASHBOARD.

CAD Admin Dashboard would have a collection of details about the process and operations that are carried out in the Design area with respect to the graphical data representations.

Let we have just three simple steps to attain the core capabilities of CAD Admin Dashboard and feel why the users sense this tool as an asset.

STEP 1 CAD Admin Dashboard shall be seen in Customer Portal which is inside SolidWorks website. To access this tool, the user must hold a SolidWorks Customer Portal account. 

STEP 2 SolidWorks Account Tab displays. Login to the portal using your User ID and Password.

If You don’t have SolidWorks Customer Portal Account, please reach your VAR and hold an account asap. It is an added benefit tool.

STEP 3 Once you get Login. Go to References-> CAD Admin Dashboard.

Core Capabilities of CAD Admin Dashboard

Once you complete the above steps (1-3), you will be seeing the complete details of the CAD Admin Dashboard window.

The things which we get here is,

• Account Details Information
• Machine Details
• Lastly Updated Status
• Serial Numbers
• Service Pack details
• Groups
• Actions Taken
• Performance of the Machine
• Session Details

Really interesting right? The complete set of details about the SolidWorks Licenses, recent service packs installed, last updated status with date and time and moreover the performance of the machine hardware memory level and graphics support details. As we seen above, the session details of each designer’s activity [login and logout date & time] shall be taken with graphical form. Once everything noticed, the user can export the required details in EXCEL format.

However, the complete actions which shown above should have a definite source of master key to fetch [observe/monitor] all these details and displays cumulatively in a single window. In other words, there should be some source working behind these scenes. Right? Yes, here is the key. To observe/ monitor the complete set of actions, the designers should,

Open SolidWorks-> Go to System Options-> General Tab-> Enable the check box “SOLIDWORKS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM” option. This is the master key which helps to capture each and every process in the CAD Admin Dashboard. 

On the whole, I would like to express everything in simple words. “Have the Things in your Hands”. Catch up soon next. Have a great day.

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!