This process, outlined in the steps below, is similar to creating exploded views with assemblies.

1. Create a New Configuration

Manage exploded views by putting them in their own configuration. Click on the Configuration tab > Right click below > Click “Add Configuration” > Add Name “Exploded View”

2. Create Exploded View

Go to the Insert menu and click on “Exploded View”. You may also locate the exploded view using the command search in the top right corner of the SolidWorks window.

3. Explode Steps

This will bring up the Exploded View Property Manager. Select the bodies to explode then drag the manipulation handle in the desired direction. You may select single or multiple bodies to explode in a given step. These steps are added on the left side titled “Explode steps”. Under “Settings” it lists the bodies selected, the direction, and the distance. To add additional steps, just select different bodies and drag.

4. Auto-Space Components

Clicking the “Auto-space solid bodies after drag” option will take all of the components selected and space them equally apart from each other.

5. Edit Explode Steps

Right-clicking on the intended step and selecting Edit Step allows you make adjustments to the selected components, their direction, and distance. Components may be added or deleted. The direction can be edited by selecting an arrow and toggling the reverse button. You can align the drag handle to a specific entity by right-clicking the drag handle and selecting: Align to, Align to Component Origin, or Move to Selection. After aligning the drag handles, select an arrow for the direction. You may specify a different distance next to the “D1” field. When finished, click “apply” and then “Done”. You may continue to edit existing steps or add new ones. Click the green check-mark when finished.

6. Finished Exploded View

To go back and forth between the collapsed and exploded state, go to the Configuration Manager tab and expand the “Exploded View” configuration; inside is a derived configuration that holds the exploded view with its explode steps. Right click on the derived configuration to collapse or explode the part. Edit Feature takes you to the Explode Property Manager. The “Collapse Items” option just collapses the configuration tree.

Limitations:

There are a few limits to this command. You may not re-use a multi-body explode in an assembly exploded view, like you can re-use a sub-assembly exploded view. Also, you cannot animate explode or collapse or save it as an .avi file. Lastly, cannot hold down alt to move and align the drag arrows like assembly explodes.

With so many new features and enhancements, it is difficult to cover them all.  However, I wanted to quickly highlight several great enhancements that I feel could save users valuable time and effort when post-processing or viewing results in Simulation.

Post-processing is an integral part of the analysis procedure. Analyzing results and interpreting the assumptions and simplifications that were made are important for any engineer.  Understanding this, SolidWorks has implemented several enhancements to make viewing results easier and more intuitive. Improvements in viewing results include a new transient sensor, the option to display result and factor of safety plots for selected bodies/entities, more realistic representation of results on shell bodies, and options for selecting which results to store.

First, let’s start off with the new Transient Sensor.  Available in Simulation Professional and above, this new sensor tracks results from transient studies. After running a transient study, users can graph the stored sensor values versus the range of time or frequency solution steps.

For example, in a transient thermal analysis, you can determine the min or max temperature across all steps without having to identify the specific node where the min or max temperature occurs.  In previous versions we had to plot temperature for a single step, identify the node with the min or max temperature, and then use the probe tool on the node to plot the response graph.

The second enhancement provides users with a new option when creating result plots.  “Show plot only on selected entities” lets you display results on selected faces or bodies.  In the result plot PropertyManager, under Advanced Options, you can find “Show plot only on selected entities”. 

 This new plot option will save users valuable time and effort when reviewing and especially comparing results.  Instead of hiding or isolating parts and reloading existing result plots, users can define unique plots for individual bodies.  This allows users to quickly and easily change between result plots of the individual bodies or the entire assembly.  This enhancement is definitely one of my favorites this year for Simulation and has already proved to be a valuable time saver.

The third enhancement to post-processing involves shell results.  “Render Shell Thickness in 3D” lets users display the mesh and results of shells using a 3D representation of shell bodies. For stress/strain plots, results for the Top and Bottom shell faces are shown, and are linearly interpolated across the shell thickness. Users no longer have to switch between Top and Bottom plots to compare values. When probing stress plots, both the Top and Bottom shell values are displayed. Rendering shell thickness will help users better visualize their shell models and make post-processing faster and more intuitive.

The last enhancement that I wanted to highlight lets users control the amount of results data stored in the simulation results file, reducing the file size and improving the loading speed, especially for transient analysis.

For static studies, users have the option not to store the stress and strain results in the result file (*.CWR).  For users only concerned with deflection, this option will allow studies to complete at a fraction of the run time since the stresses/strains will not be calculated.

In transient analysis, the default option for the solver is to calculate and store all the results. Now users have the option to save results only for selected solution steps for transient studies.  Note that this option is very similar to the result options that were once only available to users in Simulation Premium.

The enhancements for SolidWorks Simulation Post-Processing are just one way Simulation 2013 helps you do your job a little bit faster.  There are a myriad of other new features and enhancements not covered in this article which we will detail in later posts.  Be sure to check out our What’s New 2013 webinars, and keep an eye on this page for new articles on our ever expanding capabilities.

There has been a lot of chatter in the SolidWorks community recently into what the future holds for Workgroup PDM. Since I don’t work for SolidWorks, I don’t know exactly what the answer to that question is but I thought I would share some pretty valuable insights to help users come to an educated conclusion.

I want to start this blog entry off by saying that SolidWorks has NOT announced an end of life date yet for Workgroup PDM, nor has it been confirmed to anyone here at Hawk Ridge that Workgroup PDM is being discontinued in the near future. SolidWorks is very good about treating their customer base with respect, and I know they would never pull a product from their portfolio without ample notification to the user community – so for the time being you can rest assured that Workgroup will live on.

That being said, there are a few things you should keep in mind when thinking about the future of Workgroup PDM:

1. Workgroup PDM was originally written many years ago (circa 96), and it was written on a very old and limited architecture compared with today’s standards. The limited architecture really dampens the potential for enhancement with the tool, which is why you see very little mentioned about Workgroup PDM from release to release. When the largest enhancement in the last few years is a minimize button on the Admin tool, you can get a feeling for just how much development effort goes into it. This is also why the Workgroup PDM server application does not run as a 64-bit program.
2. A large number of Workgroup PDM users experience performance issue with the tool based on the outdated architecture. The way the server program accesses file information is not meant to handle large loads of data, especially because it can’t run as a 64-bit program. Changing this fundamental process and updating the architecture to support it would be a monstrous job and relatively inefficient given that SolidWorks has a tool with the proper architecture already (Enterprise PDM). Don’t expect to see any performance improvements in Workgroup PDM anytime soon.
3. The most interesting observation is that SolidWorks has started a Registration/Validation process for Workgroup PDM server installs. It used to be you could just install the Workgroup PDM server and be on your way and SolidWorks had no idea who was using the tool. With the new validation code requirement during installation (if you have tried to install Workgroup PDM server 2012 or 2013, you’ve seen this requirement), SolidWorks is tracking just how many people are actually using the software. I’ll leave it up to your imagination as to why they would want to know that.

Again, I want to reinforce the SolidWorks has not officially announced an end of life date for Workgroup PDM yet so Workgroup PDM users can rest easy for now however the information above should speak volumes as to what the future will hold.

If you’re interested in seeing side by side performance differences between Workgroup PDM and Enterprise PDM, you won’t want to miss this webinar on April 26, 2013 – register now.

You might also want to check out the Learning Paths for Enterprise PDM.

Large electrical projects will typically have a lot of documents and a very large number of electrical components, but the organization tools in SolidWorks Electrical discussed in this article will help us keep organized and efficient.

COMPONENT ORGANIZATION

Whether it’s a motor, sensor, light, button, relay, circuit breaker or any other type of electrical component, it will be part of some functional subassembly of the overall project such as a conveyor system, a ‘sorting’ system, etc.  It will also have a physical location in the project.

SolidWorks Electrical gives us properties for both Location and Functionality to assign to each component in our project.

Locations and Functions are created and edited using the Location and Function managers accessed from the Project tab.

Clicking on the Locations icon launches the Locations Manager.

As you can see from the left hand side, Locations can be indented to other locations, creating ‘sub’ locations.

They use a ‘Mark’ system similar to that used for identifying the components, in this case ‘L1’ or ‘F1’.

When you click to display the ‘Components’ tab on the left pane, it will display the components organized by either Location or by Function. To change how it is viewed, right-click on the project name at the top of the list and select the view desired, either ‘Locations view’ or ‘Functions view’ – located about half way down the list of commands.

DOCUMENT ORGANIZATION

Documents also need an organizational tool since there can be many documents of various different types.

The tool provided for organizing documents should feel familiar to everyone since it is analogous to folders in the Windows operating system. To access it, you click on the Documents tab in the left pane. At the top level, documents are organized in ‘Books’. You can create a new Book by right-clicking on the project name at the top of the Documents tab and selecting ‘New Book…’ to invoke the ‘Book editor’ dialog box.

Books will have both a Location and a Function assigned to them, set in the Book Editor dialog box.  Other than that, a Description is all that is necessary, which will be used in the tree list in the left pane.

Once a book is created, documents can be created in the book with the ‘New…’ command from a right-click. You can also create folders inside the book this way for more organization.

Those are the basic tools for organizing your projects in SolidWorks Electrical.

There are a myriad of other new features and enhancements not covered in this article which we will detail in later posts.  Be sure to check out Webinar Wednesdays™, and keep an eye on this page for new articles on our ever expanding capabilities: SolidWorks, SolidWorks Electrical, Enterprise PDM, SolidWorks Composer, SolidWorks Plastics, SolidWorks Simulation, CAMWorks, and 3D Printing Solutions.