SolidWorks Legion

SolidWorks Legion April 2011 contest – SpacePilot PRO

What better way is there for me to show my appreciation to SolidWorks Legion readers than to give away free stuff! 3Dconnexion gives away new 3D mice from time to time to raise awareness of their products. This month, they have offered to give a SpacePilot PRO to the first place winner of the SolidWorks Legion April 2011 contest. In addition, they have offered to give a new SpaceNavigator to the second place winner. Of course, I’m running this contest to raise awareness of SolidWorks Legion.

To enter the contest, send a Twitter Direct Message to @fcsuper with the following phrase “I want my 3D mouse” and include your first and last name. If @fcsuper is not currently following your Twitter account, leave a comment on this article (below) prior to April 24, 2011 to ask me to follow you. Otherwise, use the alternative entry method by sending an email to buzyperson@gmail.com with the “I want my 3D mouse” phrase and your name in the email subject. Limit is one entry per person. Only the first entry by an entrant is eligible. The deadline to entry is April 30, 2011 5:00PM Pacific Time. No entries will be accepted after that time. It is each entrant’s responsibility to ensure their own ability to use Twitter or email in order to entry this contest. Unfortunately, due to restrictions established by 3DConnexion, only residents of the United States of America are eligible to win.

Additional rules and conditions are as follows. I will use the free services of RANDOM.ORG to randomly list the entrants of the contest. The first person on the random list wins the first place; and the second person wins the second place. Winning placement is for this contest only. There is no value associated with winning placement. The prizes are offered by 3DConnexion to the first and second place winners as a matter of their own choice to do so. 3DConnexion is wholly responsible for the issuance of the prizes and their value. The winners of this contest will be notified at some time following the contest deadline. Notification will be in the same manner of their entry . Winners are responsible for their ability to receive such notification. Logitech and any representatives of SolidWorks Legion are not responsible for service interruption by Twitter, any ISPs, or any other service that may cause an entry or winning notification to not be received. Winners must respond to the notification with their mailing address (no P.O. Boxes) within 2 weeks from the time that the notification is sent. If a winner does not respond with the required information within the allotted time, regardless to the reason, they forfeit their winning place and associated prize. The winning place will then move to the next person on the random list. No person may win more than one prize. For example, if the first place winner forfeits, then the second person of the random list becomes the first place winner, and the next person after that becomes the second place winner. After the mailing address information from both winners is received, that information will be forwarded to a representative of 3DConnexion. Again, the prizes are being given directly from 3DConnexion and they are responsible for the items given as prizes, and for the shipment of the items to the winners. At no time will any representative of SolidWorks Legion be in possession of prizes nor responsible for any value of the prizes. No person that is currently a member of the SolidWorks Legion (has directly posted articles on this blog) is eligible to win. Dassault Systemes and Logitech employees and their families are also not eligible to win. Any attempt by any individual to game contest rules for unfair advantage or to act in a way that is not in the spirit of this contest will forfeit their entry and any other stakes in this contest. By entering this contest, the entrant agrees to hold any representative of SolidWorks Legion and Logitech free of any liability in any manner related to this contest. Also, the entrant agrees to accept and follow all contest rules and accept my decisions regarding this contest as final. Each person that enters this contest is responsible for their own ability to use the prize if they win. Chances of winning will be determined by the total number of entrants.

Melissa Appel is at it again on the SolidWorks Forums

Some time ago, Melissa Appel of SolidWorks started a thread in the SolidWorks forum for “silly” drawing workarounds. This thread got a lot of attention. Well, she’s at it again. This time, she’s started a thread called “Show me what we can’t do in SolidWorks annotation formatting“.

There’s already a ton of suggestions that have been posted to this thread. There’s a mention or two of bugs. The notorious balloon quantity spacing issue is there. Several issues with GD&T callouts are on the list. Better control over breaks in extension lines, extension line termination and other dimensioning issues show up all over the thread. I even suggested the creation of a SelectionWizard so that users can set up the order precedence when they want to select from several overlapping objects in SolidWorks drawings (and where the selection filter is not desired or is ineffective).

There’s plenty of room for more input in the thread for others who have ideas for improvement with annotation formatting in SolidWorks. What’s been bugging you about SolidWorks annotation formatting limitations?

Bertrand Sicot makes progress to CSWP

During an event at SolidWorks World 2011, Bertrand Sicot, new CEO of SolidWorks Corp, made a declaration that he would earn his CSWP status by SolidWorks World 2012 (February 13, 2012) . He recently posted on update on his progress on the SolidWorks Blog. I cannot do justice to Sicot’s own great words by restating them here, so I invite you to read his article without any further introduction.

New contest coming soon! (SpacePilot PRO prize)

SolidWorks Legion is known for its occasional contests. Past winners have received vouchers for CSWP tests and other items, such as SolidWorks swag. Coming up in a few days, there will be another contest! Prizes in this upcoming contest will include a new SpacePilot PRO and a new SpaceNavigator, both from 3Dconnexion. This is not an early April Fools’ joke.

Strong response to DraftSight for Linux

Dassault Systemes dives head first into uncharted waters with its beta release of a no-cost Linux based 2D CAD application called DraftSight for Linux, announced earlier this month. Though DraftSight for Linux is not open source, it is free to download and use, and the community of users will direct its development via 3D SwYm. There are two Linux versions available for download, Ubuntu and Fedora/Suse/Mandriva.

File compatibility

DraftSight reads and saves .dwg and .dxf file formats. It can read those formats from any version 2.5 and after. It can save to any versions from R12 to R2007-2010. It can also export to PDF, PNG, TIF, SAT and STL.

Free!

What makes this stand out in the Linux community is that DraftSight for Linux is the first non-GPL release of a 2D CAD application from a major corporation that is free for both commercial and personal use. Even ARES does not offer that! DraftSight for Linux will have a paid subscription service for educational and commercial customers who want phone support, network licensing, and access to API. Other than that, free activation of DraftSight for Linux is required to access certain functions.

Linux community response

The response from the community has surprised Dassault Systemes’ Aaron Kelly, Senior Director of DraftSight, who states,

Over 11,000 [downloads] since yesterday (3/16/2011). A little over 1,000 a day on average. 80% choose the Ubuntu download. I am surprised by this number as it is about what the MAC uptake was. These are not users we typically reach.

An article about DraftSight for Linux appeared on Slashdot, and threads are appearing on Linux related forums. (These have generated a substantial amount of traffic to SolidWorks Legion.)

System requirements

Ubuntu 9.10 Gnome, Fedora 14 Gnome, Suse 11.2 Gnome, Mandriva 2010 Gnome and KDE, or higher versions, 32-bit

1GHz x86 processor
1GB RAM (2GB recommended)
1GB hard drive space
1024×768 display (1680x 1050 or higher recommended) with True Color graphics card
Mouse (wheel mouse recommended)
DVD-ROM, only needed if installing from a DVD (who’s doing that?)

64-bit installation

Now, there’s been some comment from the Linux community that DraftSight for Linux is not 64-bit. Leave it to the Linux community to address its own complaints! Check out this solution at Courira.ca for Ubuntu 64-bit users.

Other versions

DraftSight for Windows and DraftSight for Mac OS (beta) are also available.

Intel announces new processor with built-in graphics capabilities

For far too long, the CAD industry has played second fiddle to the gaming industry in terms of graphics and computers. Though there are many overlapping needs between the two industries, there are significant differences as well. With their announcement of the Xeon processor E3-1200 product family, Intel seems to now put more focus on the CAD industry.

They are attempting to create a workstation category with optimized performance for CAD by combining the CPU and GPU into one chip. Intel states that this new processor (combined with the Intel C206 chipset) will be optimized for professional and practical performance on workstations designed for CAD, digital animation and 3D imaging. The graphics technology employed on this new chip is called Intel HD Graphics P3000. The “P” in “P3000” simultaneously means “performance”, “practical”, and “professional”.

The first product release in this new family of processors should have graphic abilities that are equivalent with entry-level graphic cards currently on the market. There are several advantages to this new product over traditional graphics cards. Though pricing is not available yet, there is a suggestion that customers will save because they are no longer required to buy and maintain separate graphics cards. There will also be power savings that will lower the cost of the workstation by allowing for a smaller power supply (or at least, more efficient use of the power supply).

Monitors will connect to this new type of workstation directly to the motherboard (or presumably offset connections at the back of the workstation that lead directly to the motherboard).

Pricing, availability and other information about this new product will be released by Intel within the next month or so.