Getting ready for the new year

It’s that time of year again. You know, the end.  2012 had a lot of changes in my life which happen to coincide with changes in SolidWorks in various forms for various reasons, some of which I control, much of which has nothing to do with me whatsoever.

I moved from California and from industry to take a job as a Definition Product Manager for SolidWorks drawings In Massachusetts.  As I write this, I’m snowed into my home, or at least my car is.  I can get outside and leave a trail of 2 foot deep holes anytime I want.  I just won’t get to anywhere useful very quickly.  Contrary to popular conceptions, there is snow in California.  The difference is that the snow is limited to the hills and mountains.  Great for skiing and for going about your daily life without weather getting in the way very often at all.  I will say that I prefer to be walking about in light snow rather than light rain.  It’s the blizzards that are annoying.

Surprize, suprize, the world didn’t end 5 days ago.  The next prediction for the end of the world has already been floating around and was being promoted in the weeks leading up to December 21, 2012.  Sir Isaac Newton predicted the end of things to be 2060 based on his interpretation of Bible prophesy.  We cannot get more creditable than that!  Here’s some others: Yup, there’s others.

2012 was particularly busy for me, with all the changes and the fairly new job.  Can you believe that I’ve already been in Massachusetts about 1 and a half years?  Still seems like yesterday.  A very special Thank You goes to my wife for being a good sport and indulging me in this grand change.

I do have a prediction for 2013.  It will continue to be very busy for me.  There’s a lot of cool stuff going on right now.  I’m very proud of my role in SolidWorks 2013, eDrawings for iPad, and eDrawing Pro for iPad; not to mention all the new stuff planned for 2013.  Keep an eye out at SolidWorks World 2013.

Senseless Sunday: Rolling space wax

  • The inability to roll your tongue is a genetic trait that may involve more than one gene.1
  • American pronunciation of tt and dd in words like letter and bladder make the same tongue movement and similar sound as the rolled Spanish “r”.
  • A person in orbit around the earth gets taller while in orbit.
  • Sahara Desert is growing about 1/2 mile southward per year.
  • Before an official name was chosen in Mandarin Chinese, one of many transliterations of the name Coca Cola was “bite the wax tadpole.”   Another was “female horse fastened with wax”.  Current official transliterate trademark is made up of the characters of K’o K’ou K’o Lê which translate as “to all the mouth to be able to rejoice”.2

What’s News in SolidWorks 2013: Revision Clouds

This entry is part 4 of 12 in the series New in SolidWorks 2013

Revision clouds is a new annotation type in SolidWorks.  The main purpose for revision clouds is to allow you to call attention areas where a revision was made on a drawing.  Though revision clouds are not the same as comment clouds in eDrawings, you may also want to use it to highlight comments for redlines, if you wish.  Revision clouds are likely the most entertaining annotation, as you can also get artsy and make actual cloud shapes just for the fun of it.

Making a revision cloud is easy.  Open up a drawing in SolidWorks 2013, goto the annotations tab on the CommandManager.  Nearby Revision Symbol, you’ll find Revision Cloud.  The PropertyManager allows you choose cloud type, Rectangle, Ellipse, Irregular Polygon and Freehand.  You can also control the maximum size of the cloud puff radius, line type, line thickness and layer.  Color can also be controlled via the layer or by using the Line Color tool in the Line Format toolbar.  Here’s some examples.

Elliptical cloud around a dimension


You can group the dimension and cloud together


Once grouped, the cloud and dimension will move together


Example of a rectangular cloud

Example of an irregular polygon cloud

Example of a freehand cloud with a different line style

Sometimes it’s the little things or Freedom to zoom around (New in SolidWorks 2013)

This entry is part 5 of 12 in the series New in SolidWorks 2013

SolidWorks had an interesting and small limitation  for a long time.  If you were editing an annotation note in the graphics area of your drawing (by double-clicking on it), you couldn’t use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out around the document.  Sure, you had access to increase and decrease zoom level using other means, but that would be focused on the center of the screen in both directions.  As such, linking your note to other annotations on other areas of your drawing usually involved planning one step ahead.

Starting with SolidWorks 2013, the mouse wheel now zooms in and out while you are editing an annotation note in drawings.  For example, if you are creating your general drawing notes and wish to add a link to a dimension in a drawing view at the other end of the drawing sheet, you can now simply zoom out with the mouse wheel, move the mouse cursor to the dimension and click it, then use the mouse and wheel to zoom back to focus the screen around the general notes while you are still typing.

Another use may be if your annotation note is not yet set to wordwrap and text is extending off the screen.  You can now quickly zoom out to see all of the text and set the note’s bounding box so that it wordwraps, then zoom back in to continue your edits.

This is going to be one of those little things that you won’t even notice when you use it.  You’ll prolly won’t think twice about it, acting as though this was the way it has always worked.

What’s New in SolidWorks 2013: Orientation dialog and View Selector

This entry is part 3 of 12 in the series New in SolidWorks 2013

Orientation Dialog Box

Switching between views in the SolidWorks modelling environment has always been a fairly painless exercise.  Press the SPACEBAR and choose your view, or use the Normal to command.  The Orientation dialog window has now been improved in SolidWorks 2013.   In addition to icongraphic layout, you can now create custom views and save them for reuse in different documents.

To save views for use in other documents, create a new view same as before using the New View button.  The view will then appear in the Orientation dialog box between the standard views and the view port buttons.  When you highlight that view, a save icon appears.  When saved, a globe icon will appear next to new view indicating that it is now available for use in other documents.


 

View Selector

Another cool addition to the Orientation interface is the View Selector.  To turn on the View Selector, start the Orientation dialog box and click on the View Selector button in the upper right next to the pin.  While this button is depressed, the View Selector will automatically engage when you launch the Orientation dialog box.

The View Selector allows you to quickly and visually select your next view orientation of the model between standard views.  It provides quick access to the opposite views too (the other side of each standard orientation).  That means you can quickly jump to the backside upper isometric view as easily and you can jump to the front view!

 

A little fun today: Which do you prefer to be called as a person of Earth?

Which do you prefer to be called as a person of Earth?

A Twitter posting by other human this morning inspired me to have a little fun today.  The question is simple:

Which do you prefer to be called as a person of Earth?

View Results

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Feel free to leave comments to explain your choice! 🙂