Anna's SolidMuse

3D Scanner Project, Part 2

Today the cameras and lenses arrived for my 3D Scanner project.  The digital projector has been here for about a week.  The cameras and lenses are really small.  It seemed like they would be a bit bigger when I looked at them online.  The wonders of today's micro-electronics.

For details on what I have purchased for this project, see Part 1 of my 3D Scanner Series.

Machine Vision Cameras and Lenses
Digital Projector

Next step for the project is to get the mounting hardware designed.  I will most likely use a tripod with a custom mounting bar.  I will have the mounting bar fabricated at Auer.

With SolidWorks World 2010 coming up next week, I will need to put the project on hold until I return.

Cheers,

Anna

3D Scanner Project, Part 1

For a while now I have wanted to get a 3D scanner.  We always seem to have a project around the shop where we are reverse engineering a part.  Being able to scan the part, then model would be handy.  Len has recently done several cowling modifications and manufactured a new carbon fiber cowling for the aerobatic race planes that are in our shop over the winter months.  He uses good old fashion model maker techniques when building his molds.  This is pretty typical of the types of projects we are working on.  It would be very nice to be able to add scanned data to our toolbox.

Cowling Mold

Lower Cowling

Zivko Edge 540, New Cowling

Zivko Edge 540, New Cowling Test Flight

A handheld scanner like those made by Creaform and Breuckmann are out of my price range.  The NextEngine scanner is in my price range but does not have the accuracy or the scanning envelope I would like to have.

I have looked at the David Scanner and while very cost effective it just wasn't quite what I was looking for.

Over the holidays I spent some time surfing the internet to see if there where any new 3D scanning solutions that would do what I would like for a reasonable price.  My price target is in the $5K range.

What I found are 3D scanners using structured light scanning techniques.  The interesting thing about these scanners is they are pretty accurate and that you can build your own version of the scanner for a reasonable price.

The software to run the scanner and control the data acquisition is pretty reasonable to purchase and appears to be easy to use.  A laptop computer, a presentation projector and a couple USB machine vision cameras are what you need for hardware.

This was it, I had finally found a system that I could afford.

Over the last few days I have purchased the software and hardware for my system.  It will take a bit for the hardware to arrive.  In a couple weeks I hope to have the scanner up and running, working on some test parts as I learn to use the scanner.

What did I purchase.

For software, what I will be using is purchased from 3D3 Solutions and consists of the data acquisition software called FlexScan3D along with Leios 2009 for processing the mesh data.

I will be hooking it up a BenQ MP522ST 1024 x 768 presentation projector purchased from Newegg.  For cameras I will be using uEye UI-1485LE-M, 5 mega pixel, USB machine vision cameras.  The lenses will be Fujinon HF12.5HA-1B Fixed Focal Length Lenses.  The cameras and lenses are purchased from 1st Vision Inc.

The FlexScan3D software will be install on my Lenovo T61p laptop.  For working with the mesh data I will install the Leios 2009 package on my Core i7 workstation.

I am really looking forward to getting the scanner running and learning new techniques for handling scanned mesh datasets.

Stayed tuned in the coming weeks with more posts on my 3D scanner project.

Cheers,

Anna

Hard Drive Crash, Data Gone Forever..... Maybe Not

Over the holidays we had a hard drive crash on our workstation.  Went out to dinner and when we came back the workstation had blue screened.  I tried to restart the system and it would try to boot Windows but it would get about 15-30 seconds into the process and just stop with the hard drive head clicking away.

Not a pleasant sound.  This was Len's computer and even though we had an external backup drive the system had not been backed up regularly.  Yeah, yeah, I should know better.  But I grew complacent over the years in that this was the first time I ever had a hard drive fail.

So now what do we do?  I was pretty confident that we could get to our data, since Windows would try to launch.  It was like the data was there but the system was running across some corrupt sectors on the drive and could not complete the boot into the operating system.

It was time to call in professional help.  I did some research on the internet and consulted with a few IT professionals that I know and decided to send my hard drive to Drive Savers in Novato, CA.

After a call to Drive Savers and having them explain their pricing policy, I decided to send my drive in to see if they could recover the data.  It wasn't going to be cheap.  However, the data we had on the drive was important enough to attempt to recover.

Since our data wasn't super mission critical, that needed to be recovered overnight, we went with the economy plan that would take about a week after they received the drive.  The quote was between $700 - $2400.  The variables in cost were what they needed to do to the drive to be able to read data and how much time they spent to recover as much data as they possibly could from the drive.  OUCH!!!  But we wanted the data from the drive.

There were several possibilities on what could be wrong with the drive, it could be corruption in the firmware, failure of the mechanical components or possibly a failure of the board circuitry.  Drive Savers would take the drive, and in their clean room, diagnose the problem and do a repair at their facility.

They sent me an empty box, with foam for the drive, instructions on how to securely pack the drive and a pre-addressed Fedex shipper label.  I packaged up the drive and sent it off.   Along the way I received regular e-mail notifications on where the drive was and when it arrived at their facility.  After they had it for a day I received a phone call with their assessment of the drive failure mode and what their level of confidence was in being able to recover data from the drive.

It was looking pretty good.  The hard drive read/write head had been slowly failing and scattering bad bits of data onto the drive.  They would be able to rebuild the drive head and then do an assessment of how much data they could recover.  At this point I gave them the go ahead to repair the drive and OK'ed the not to exceed quote they had previously given me.  The more data they recovered the more it was going to cost.

After another day or two I received a call to let me know they were very confident they could recover most of the data on the drive, in the range of 90-95%, possibly more.  The Master File Table was intact and they had software tools to be able to pull data from the drive.  It would take a few days, but I would soon be getting notification that the repair work was done and my hard drive, along with my recovered data on a backup USB drive, would be on its way back to me.

This little reminder of why you need to backup your data regularly lightened my wallet by $2400.  It appears that Drive Savers was able to recover all of the data files we had that were really important.  I was very lucky.

If you are still with me now in this tale what are the take aways.   Number One.... Backup, Backup, Backup.  You never know when a drive will decide to fail possibly taking your valuable data with it.  Number Two.... Don't assume that your hard drive is now a brick, there are companies that can recover your data.  If the data is valuable and mission critical to your business, get professional help.  There is a good chance that data can be recovered from the drive.

Backup early and backup often....

Anna

2009... In The Rear View Mirror

Are we all glad 2009 and the decade of the 00's are in our rear view mirror?  For many folks 2009 was quite a tumultuous year.

At Auer, 2009 started with a bit of trepidation as we knew there was some pain we would endure with the economic meltdown in 2008.  2009 started out with some belt tightening, with the knowledge that the first half of 2009 would see a decrease in sales.  We were positioned well to weather the storm clouds, the sleepless nights came from not knowing how long the storm clouds would linger.

Fortunately, as hoped, the second half of 2009 picked up nicely with sales and profits.  Not a banner year, but very respectable considering the pain still being felt by many businesses.  We were able to purchase some new equipment and hire a few more people in the second half of 2009.

I spent a lot of my time in 2009 training.  We hired a new tool designer into our engineering department mid-year.  I will be working with him for the next couple of years to teach him all things Auer to be able to take over my responsibilities with our semi-conductor media transport line of products that we market.  We have so many types of products we have designed over the last 25 years that it will take that long for our new designer to get a feel for the many types of ways we are able to help our customers with their manufacturing processes.

Personally 2009 was a year of big anniversaries.  It was my 10th year working for Auer Precision.  It is the longest I have ever worked for the same company.  I plan to be at Auer for many more years to come.  It is truly a great company to work for.

2009 also marked my 30th year in the drafting and design field.  It is hard to imagine I have been gainfully employed in this field that long.  I have been fortunate to work for great companies through the years.  I still love the work I do everyday.

I also turned 50 this year.  I am fortunate to have my health and a great relationship with a very special guy.  I have much to be thankful for in my personal life.

In 2009, I made a number of investments in software.  Adding SolidWorks Professional, AutoCAD LT 2010, HyperShot, Modo 401 and HDR Light Studio to my personal software portfolio.

Looking forward to 2010, I plan to build a 3D scanner for some reverse engineering projects.

Another one of my goals for 2010 is to learn how to use Modo 401's rendering tools to their full extent.

With SolidWorks World 2010 coming up in a few weeks I am going to get a chance to work on both my 3D scanner and Modo 401 projects.

I am thinking 2010 is looking to be a pretty good year.

See you at SWW2010,

Anna 

Installing SolidWorks 2009 SP5 on a Windows 7 Computer

We now have two work arounds to be able to install SolidWorks 2009 SP5 on your Windows 7 computer.

We have been able to install all previous SP's of SolidWorks 2009 on our Windows 7 machines and for many of us it has been working very well.  For some reason SolidWorks has chosen to block the install with the SolidWorks 2009 SP5 Installation Manager.  I have written about my experience installing SW2009 SP5 here.

I was able to work around the issue by manually downloading and installing the individual components from the SolidWorks Customer Portal.

Jason Raak, of RockSolidPerspective.com, spent some time this morning upgrading his install of SolidWorks 2009 to SP5.  His solution was to run the Installation Manager in Windows Vista Compatibility Mode.

Read about Jason's solution at his blog

Cheers,

Anna

SolidWorks 2009 SP5 Not Allowed To Install On Windows 7 Computers w/SWIM

Why has SolidWorks decided to not allow the installation of SolidWorks 2009 SP5 on Windows 7 computers when using the SolidWorks Installation Manager?

I have been happily running Solidworks 2009 on Windows 7 for most of the year.  But now the last service pack of SolidWorks 2009 will not be allowed to install.  SolidWorks 2009 SP4.1 runs great on my Windows 7 computer.

You mean, all of a sudden, SolidWorks 2009 is not capable of running on a Windows 7 machine and has to be blocked by the SolidWorks Installation Manager.

This is extremely disappointing and the kind of decision by SolidWorks that infuriates users.

EDIT: You can get SolidWorks 2009 SP5 to install on your Windows 7 machine.

To do this you have to go to the SolidWorks download site on the Customer Portal and bypass the preferred method for installing Solidworks, the Installation Manager, by selecting the downloads failed link at the bottom of the Downloads and Install web page.  This will allow you to download and install the individual SolidWorks components.

Another work around is to launch the Installation Manager using Windows Vista Compatibility Mode.  Thanks to Jason Raak, of RockSolidPerspective.com, for offering that solution.  Click here to see his blog post on the subject.

Why there is difference between the SolidWorks Installation Manager and individual component downloads in anyone's guess. Very confusing for the average SolidWorks user.

Matt Lombard's "SolidWorks Administration Bible"

Matt Lombard has just released his fourth book in his SolidWorks Bible series from Wiley Publishing.

Matt's new book, the SolidWorks Administration Bible, covers the essentials anyone charged with administering SolidWorks in a production engineering environment needs to know to be successful.

I ordered my copy of the book last weekend and it arrived just in time for me to spend the weekend giving it a read.  The book comes in at 550 plus pages and covers an extensive list of topics that a CAD administrator needs to know to keep their engineering department up and running with their SolidWorks software implementation.

Wiley Publishing has the table of contents posted here: http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/64/04705372/0470537264-1.pdf

In Matt's usual style this is not a book for beginners.  It is not a step by step, push this button tutorial.  Matt assumes the reader of the book will be an experienced SolidWorks user or IT professional who has been tasked with getting their company's SolidWorks implementation up and running smoothly for their users.

The book offers plenty of practical advice and recommendations, with the pro and con reasoning behind the recommendations.  Much of this advice is based on Matt's actual experience in the industry in helping companies get SolidWorks up and running.

From my perspective as a design engineer using SolidWorks the better part of everyday, who also wears the CAD admin hat for my company, Matt covers all the key topics in a well organized, easy to read style.  This book should be essential reading for anyone who has the duties of SolidWorks CAD administrator.

You can purchase the book from Amazon, or better yet, head over to Matt's blog and purchase the book directly from him.  The links for purchasing the book are at the bottom of the right sidebar at Matt's blog.  http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/?p=2754

Cheers,

Anna

Phoenix SolidWorks User Group Meeting, August 12th, 2009

Phoenix Metro Area SolidWorks User Group
Next Meeting

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 (note weekday change)
4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Auer Precision Company
1050 West Birchwood
Mesa, Arizona 85210
www.auerprecision.com

Click For PDF with Map and Directions

Agenda:

Certified SolidWorks Professional Exam & a Tips and Trick Session

Guest Speaker:

Mike Puckett, Certification Specialist, SolidWorks Corp

Mike will be joining us to talk about the Certified SolidWorks Professional exams.  SolidWorks has been re-vamping their certification process over the past couple of years with online testing and new updated exams.  Mike will give us an update on all the new aspects of the exam.

Mike will also offer a session on Tips and Tricks in SolidWorks.  For those of you into mold design be sure to bring your mold design questions for Mike.  Before Mike joined SolidWorks last year, he worked for a mold shop in California and has vast experience in mold design using SolidWorks.

Please RSVP with the meeting sign-up form at www.phxswug.com so we can plan refreshments and pizza for everyone.

Looking forward to seeing you August 12th.

Cheers,

Anna

Creating A Tube With Normal To Surface End Cutoffs: Option 3

I recieved another solution for the modeling task of creating end cut-offs in a tube that are normal to the surface.  This particular solution was submitted by Charles Culp.  Charles solution also uses surfaces, breaking down the process creating each surface separately.  The key aspect to this solution is Charles use of a Ruled Surface to create the normal surface.

Ruled Surface Technique

Here is the SolidWorks 2009 file of the tube.

Cheers,

Anna

Creating A Tube With Normal To Surface End Cutoffs: Option 2

Check out Rob Jensen's Blog...

Rob has posted another solution, using Sheet Metal tools, for creating a normal to surface end cutoff on a tube.

http://www.robjensenblog.com/2009/06/02/creating-a-tube-with-normal-to-surface-end-cutoffs-option-2

Cheers,

Anna

Creating A Tube With Normal To Surface End Cutoffs

This was a question posed a few weeks ago on the SolidWorks Forums.  How do you model a tube with an end cutoff normal to the surface of the tube?  This is the type of cut that would be created with a laser.  The tube is held in a chuck that rotates the tube around it centerline.  The laser head will move along the tube centerline to make the cut.  A google search on 'laser tube cutting' will get you several links to companies that do this type of work and have some neat videos of the lasers in action.

Tube With Trims Normal to Tube Surface

Using typical SolidWorks modeling techniques, Extrudes and Cuts with solid bodies, this looks like an impossible task.  This is where we, as SolidWorks users, need to think beyond our normal tools we use everyday and take a look at some of the other tools SolidWorks offers us.

This type of tube is very easy to make using Surfaces.  One of the cool aspects of surfaces is when you offset a surface it is offset normal to the seed surface.  We can take advantage of this behavior to model our tube.

Surface Offset

What we will do is sweep a surface, then trim the surface and finally thicken the surface to create the solid body tube.

Tube Created Using Surfaces

Here is a video of the process and the SolidWorks 2009 file of the tube.

A very easy task when you break out of the thought process to create the tube with solids.  There are all kinds of ways surfaces can be used to make your modeling projects much easier.  In the future, I will explore a few other techniques for modeling with surfaces instead of solids.

Cheers,

Anna

SolidWorks Forming Tool Wizard... Why I Don't Use It

Ever since SolidWorks developed a new way of creating Sheet Metal Forming Tools in SolidWorks 2006 with their Form Tools Wizard I have not used it. I use the old school techniques for creating the forming tool. The number one reason I do not use the wizard is the Orientation Sketch in the form tool sldprt file can't be edited and for my needs the Orientation Sketch created by the Wizard is inadequate for orienting the form tool.

Forming Tool Wizard Orientation Sketch Can't Be Edited

Old School Forming Tool Orientation Sketch Can Be Edited

I add quite a bit of construction geometry to my Orientation Sketch to help me with the placement of the lance tabs that I use for our carrier designs. There are 9 points that I can select to orient a lance tab in our carriers.  I also add sketch geometry that outlines the size of the punch I am placing and the P0 (punch zero point/punch centerline).

It is important when placing our lance tabs to not have the punch bodies running into each other.  If they do run into each other I have to stamp the lance tabs in two operations as opposed to one operation. Extra operations means more time and money is required to create the carrier.  We try to avoid that whenever possible. Not being able to add this type of info into the Wizard Orientation Sketch is a huge detriment to the Form Tool Wizard.

Old School Forming Tool Orientation Sketch

Later when I design the tooling for this part, I also use the forming tool orientation sketch for locating the standard pockets we Wire EDM in the die, stripper and punch holder at the P0 (punch zero point) in the stamping tooling we create.  I have the wire pockets created and saved as Design Library parts that I can drag into the tool models and anchor on the zero point of the form tool orientation sketch.

At the end of this post I will have a link to a zip file with the form tools and a coupon showing how I place the forming tools.  The zip file will also contain a pdf of a typical lance punch we use, with the standard Wire EDM pockets that are in our tooling. From the pdf you should be able to discern my logic for creating the form tool.

Lance Tab Placement In A Typical Carrier

Lance Tab Placement In A Typical Carrier

In my carrier designs I create a Lance Tab Layout Sketch that I use to define the placement of the lance tab. After dropping in the forming tool, I use the orientation sketches in each form tool to locate (coincident, parallel, collinear, etc) to the lance tab layout sketch.

One key tip to keep in mind when using the old school method for creating form tools and orientation sketches is to not have any horizontal or vertical constraints within your orientation sketch.  Be sure to delete any that are created and add the appropriate constraint to fully define the sketch.  Horizontal and vertical constraints will restrict how you can orient the form tool in your model.

Here is a zip file which has SolidWorks 2009 files with a coupon demonstrating the techniques I use to place form tools.  There is an old school form tool and a form tool created using the Form Tool Wizard.  I also have a pdf of a typical lance punch we use.

Forming_Tools.zip

Forming tools are a great feature in SolidWorks.  Using the old school methods for form tool creation will offer you much more control when placing your form tools.

Cheers,

Anna

ATI FirePro Video Cards, A Second Look

It has been ages since I seriously considered ATI video cards for the workstations that we purchase at Auer or that I purchase myself for my own personal computer systems.  Nvidia Quadro cards have worked well and have not given us any grief in our systems.  That has been the case up until the last year or so with SolidWorks.

Unfortunately, with SolidWorks 2008 and SolidWorks 2009 something has changed.  The Nvidia graphics cards do not seem to be as rock solid as in the past.  Is it the Nvidia drivers, the Windows operating systems; both XP and Vista, or SolidWorks?  I do not know, but something is not right and we have been hearing plenty of issues with Nvidia video cards on the SolidWorks forums that I read daily.

My own personal experience has not been horribly bad, but I have had numerous annoying glitches with the Nvidia card in my Lenovo Thinkpad T61p and on my new Core i7 workstation.  Screens locking up and not refreshing, not repainting the graphics window under dismissed dialog boxes and tearing of the graphics window when dragging sheet metal forming tools out of the design library.

All of these issues have lead me to want to take a look at the new ATI FirePro graphics cards that where introduced in the 2nd half of 2008.

The rub was I wanted to try out the new cards but was not willing to spend the dollars to purchase a FirePro without hearing of some good experiences by real SolidWorks users.  The reviews in the various trade publications just were not good enough for me.  Even with the FirePro getting some very good reviews.

Well as luck would have it ATI was looking to get some of their new graphics cards into the hands of some SolidWorks users and bloggers to try out and write about.  Perfect, I would be able to take a good look at their cards and not have to fork out my own dollars to do a test. 

I was able to get the FirePro V3750 and V5700 video cards to try out in my Core i7 workstation.  The deal was I could have the cards for two weeks and then I would have to send them back to ATI.  ATI paid for the shipping both ways. 

My first impressions of the FirePro's when I pulled them out of their boxes was how heavy the cards were compared to my Nvidia FX570.  Both of the FirePro's have huge copper heat sinks.  They are about 2.5 times the size of the aluminum heat sink that comes on the FX570.  Copper is not cheap and there is a lot of it in the FirePro's.  It sure looks like overheating should never be an issue with the FirePro's, as long as the gpu fan is running.

From top to bottom, FirePro V3750, Nvidia FX570 and FirePro V5700

I got to work and set about installing the FirePro V5700 into my Core i7 machine.  Specs for the workstation can be found in the posts I wrote a while back documenting the Core i7 workstation build. I am currently using a ViewSonic G810 CRT monitor set at 1600 x 1200 and a 70 Hz refresh rate.

After the card was installed I headed over to the SolidWorks website to get the latest approved graphics card driver for the ATI FirePro.  Since I do not have an OEM system I looked for approved drivers under the ATI Technologies vendor drop down list.  The 8.543 version driver was approved on 1/9/2009 for both graphics cards, SolidWorks 2008 & 2009 and the Windows Vista x64 OS that I run on my workstation.  Cool that would make swapping the two video cards easy as I would not have to install new drivers for the two different cards.

Installing the drivers was easy. I installed the ATI drivers with all the options and keep the standard default settings for the cards.  One nice thing about the ATI Catalyst Control Center is that you do not need to go in and set the graphics card driver software for the CAD program you want to use the gpu with like on the Nvidia cards.  The driver software handles that for you and will adjust settings as required based on the software package you are working in.  For those that are tweakers there is a whole range of settings you can play with to get your gpu to work to your liking.  For me, and I am sure most users, the standard settings should work out of the box.

The first test I did was to see if both of the FirePro's would have any affect on any of my benchmarks tests.  As expected, the new cards had no affect on the test results.  The benchmarks I have are a real test of cpu performance as it relates to SolidWorks.  See the right side bar for the benchmark file links.

From there I set about to using both cards just like I do for work with typical models I create everyday.  I made sure to do some detail drawings and also work with PhotoView 360.  I did not spend anytime trying out any of the numerous video tests that are out on the internet.  Those test results are covered very well by the various hardware review sites.  Tom's Hardware has several reviews of the various professional graphics cards on their website.

A problem I did discover was that I had the same annoying graphics glitches with the FirePro's as I had with the Nvidia cards.  Screens locking up and not refreshing, not repainting the graphics window under dismissed dialog boxes and tearing of the graphics window when dragging sheet metal forming tools out of the design library.

What this did help to confirm for those of us with these graphics issues is that the gpu's are not the problem for this particular set of glitches.  There is some interaction between SolidWorks and Windows Vista.  This was confirmed a couple weeks ago by Ron Bates over on the SolidWorks forum, when he let the users know that one common thread with this set of problems was running Windows Vista with the Windows Aero interface disabled.  http://forum.solidworks.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=134&threadid=20983&highlight_key=y

I am not a fan of Windows Aero but certainly have a system capable of running with it enabled so I immediately turned the Aero interface back on.  What do you know the graphics glitches went away.  This is a great tip that Ron shared with the user community and something that the programmers at SolidWorks can work on in future updates of the software.

So what is the bottom line after spending a few weeks with the ATI FirePro's?  I liked the cards, they worked well with my system and are definitely on par with the offerings from Nvidia.  This is very good for consumers in the workstation market.  Healthy competition between Nvidia and ATI in the professional graphic card space should yield better performing graphics cards with some competition on pricing for the cards.

I will have no problem recommending SolidWorks users take a look at the ATI FirePro's and to consider them in their purchase decisions.

After returning the FirePro's to ATI, I went out and purchased my own FirePro V8700 from www.newegg.com.  It has been installed in my Core i7 system for a week or so.  In the near future I will be installing Windows 7 RC1 on my Core i7 with an OCZ Vertex SSD drive.  I plan to do a review in the future of my setup with Windows 7 RC1 and SolidWorks.  From the little bit I have worked with this set-up it looks very promising for Windows 7.

Cheers,

Anna

I Won A Space Navigator!!!

Last week I had a nice surprise when I found out I had won a 3Dconnexion Space Navigator.  A few weeks earlier I had participated in www.spaceclaiming.com's CAD Test 2009.  The contest sponsored by NovEdge and SpaceClaiming.com had each contestant answer a list of about 10 multiple choice questions of CAD trivia.

Not sure how many people participated in the CAD quiz, but about 30% of the participants answered all the questions correctly.  Lot's of real CAD geeks out there.  The NovEdge folks put all the 100%'ers in a hat and pulled a name at random.

What do you know, they managed to pull my name out of the hat.  I think that is the first time I have won anything, ever.  Pretty cool!!!

Late in the week the Space Navigator arrived at the house.  Great service from the folks at NovEdge.

Since I already have a Space Explorer I will be saving the Space Navigator for a future Phoenix SolidWorks User Group meeting raffle. I am sure one of our members will put the Space Navigator to great use.

Thanks NovEdge and SpaceClaiming.com!

Phoenix SolidWorks User Group Meeting, May 7th, 2009

Phoenix Metro Area SolidWorks User Group
Next Meeting

Thursday, May 7, 2009
4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Auer Precision Company
1050 West Birchwood
Mesa, Arizona 85210
www.auerprecision.com

Click For PDF with Map and Directions

Agenda:

SolidWorks Sheet Metal Designed for Manufacturing

Guest Speaker:

Gerald Davis

Gerald Davis will be making a presentation on Sheet Metal Designed for Manufacturing.  The objective is to discuss general best practices and to address any specific questions that the members of the user group may have.  He will arrive with the PowerPoint presentation that was prepared for SolidWorks World 2009 but sincerely hopes that the meeting will be more of a dialog than a lecture!

Gerald owned and operated a precision sheet metal job shop in Denver for about 20 years.  During that time he developed his skills as a CAD jockey and, since 2004, has been working as an independent design contractor.  His experience with SolidWorks started in 1998.  He passed the CSWP in 2005.  He is the past group leader for the Colorado SolidWorks user group.

Please RSVP with the meeting sign-up form located at www.phxswug.com so we can plan refreshments and pizza for everyone.

Looking forward to seeing you May 7th.

Regards,

Anna Wood

Phoenix SolidWorks User Group Meeting, Feb 5th, 2009

Phoenix Metro Area SolidWorks User Group
Next Meeting

Thursday, February 5, 2009
4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Auer Precision Company
1050 West Birchwood
Mesa, Arizona 85210
www.auerprecision.com

Click For PDF with Map and Directions

Agenda:

SolidWorks Ten Essentials for Assemblies 2009
This is what every effective SolidWorks user needs to know about assemblies. Topics are based on using SolidWorks every day for fun and profit, with an enthusiastic intention of separating what’s useful from what is not. We will discuss Virtual Components, Multiple Mate Mode, Master Modeling Technique, SpeedPak, and much, much more.

Guest Speaker:

Phil Sluder,  Mechanical Engineer, while just a dumb engineer, has found his calling by presenting various SolidWorks topics at user groups and world conferences. His firm, TriAxial Design and Analysis, is an engineering service provider near San Diego. Phil has conducted SolidWorks training courses since 1997, and also finds time to lead the San Diego SolidWorks User Group. Additionally, he is the Western U.S. Representative on the SolidWorks User Group Network (SWUGN) Committee.

Please RSVP with the meeting sign-up form located at www.phxswug.com so we can plan refreshments and pizza for everyone.

Looking forward to seeing you Feb 5th.

Regards,

Anna Wood

Phoenix SolidWorks User Group Updates

User Group Meeting Schedule For 2009

For 2009, user group meetings for the Phoenix Metro Area SolidWorks User Group will be held on a quarterly basis.  Meetings will be held on the first Thursday of February, May, August and November.

2009 Meeting Schedule:
February 5th
May 7th
August 6th
Nov 5th

Meetings will start at 4:30 p.m. and be held at Auer Precision Company in Mesa.

We are working on an agenda for each meeting and hope to have that info posted soon at www.phxswug.com.

Zach Wilsterman Is Retiring...

Zach Wilsterman, long time leader of our Phoenix Metro Area User Group is stepping down from his duties as user group leader.  Zach has been leading the group for as long as we can remember and will be taking a well deserved break from those chores.

Thank-you to Zach from the entire user group for your years of service to the group.

Anna Wood has volunteered to take on the leadership duties for the group.

More PhotoView 360 Renders

My latest project at Auer is an order for three new die designs. These tools are being built to work with three new ballistic press systems we are also doing the design and build on.

I am almost done with the designs and have quite a few of the common components already released to the shop for build. Been going through all the designs, tying up loose ends and getting the rest of the detail drawings completed and ready for final release.

We have a four day weekend for the Christmas holidays so I have brought my files home to work on over the weekend. I get pretty bored after about a day at home with not much to do. So I figured I would get some busy work done on these designs here at home.

Today I spent some time setting up one of my tool models for rendering in SolidWorks new PhotoView 360 rendering program.

On my list of things to do, is to send a request into the Luxology/SolidWorks PhotoView 360 Resources Forum for some new materials. Being in tool design there are a few materials we use all the time that are not represented. Black Oxide for fasteners is high on my list, along with some more refined appearances for machined and ground tool steels. More colors for anodized aluminums would be great to see also.

Here are the results of my rendering session this afternoon.

Cheers,

Anna

Core i7 and SolidWorks, To Hyper-Thread or Not?

In days past, with the old Intel Pentium 4 cpu architecture, the conventional wisdom for the best core SolidWorks performance was to disable hyper-threading in the system BIOS.

When the Core/Core 2 architecture was launched by Intel, in 2006, hyper-threading was not a part of the cpu architecture.  The debate on hyper-threading disappeared from our discussions on getting the most performance out of a SolidWorks workstation.

The new Core i7 cpu architecture released by Intel, in November 2008, sees the return of hyper-threading. Wikipedia gives a good explanation of what hyper-threading (SMT) is.  SMT is the acronym for Simultaneous MultiThreading.  Each of the 4 cores in the Core i7 cpu is capable of processing two threads simultaneously.  With hyper-threading enabled in the system BIOS you will see 8 cpu graphs in the Windows Task Manager

Task Manager

So the question is, does hyper-threading, as implemented with the Core i7 architecture, hinder or help SolidWorks performance?

Over the last few weekends I have been running my benchmark tests, in SolidWorks 2009, with hyper-threading disabled and enabled to see what the answer to that question might be.

              Hyper-Threading ON    Hyper-Threading OFF
Scooby-Doo     15.80s                15.88s
Punch Holder   59.06s                58.70s
Carrier        33.34s                33.56s

PhotoView 360
Max            18m 01s               21m 40s
Best           03m 46s               04m 12s
Better         01m 40s               01m 52s
Good           00m 26.6s             00m 31.4s

PhotoWorks     05m 40s               07m 11s

Based on the results I see above it would appear that hyper-threading does not hinder core SolidWorks performance.  For those areas of SolidWorks that take advantage of all the threads available for processing, hyper-threading looks to offer a very nice performance advantage.  It looks like Intel has done a very nice job in this new implementation of hyper-threading in the Core i7's.

I plan to keep hyper-threading enabled on my system.

Cheers,

Anna

New SolidWorks Benchmark, Scooby-Doo Surface Model

Scooby-Doo Surface Model Benchmark File

I have put together a new benchmark file for SolidWorks 2008 and 2009.  This is a model from 3D Content Central that many SolidWorks users are familiar with.

Scooby-Doo was modeled by Mike Wilson.   The model is created using the SolidWorks surfacing tools.

See the Scooby-Doo page in the right side bar for the benchmark info and files.

Cheers,

Anna