*Previously\u00c2\u00a0written but\u00c2\u00a0accidentally left pending*<\/p>\n
My head is clearing.\u00c2\u00a0 Thursday after the SWW2008 close I came down with something awful.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00c2\u00a0found myself huddled\u00c2\u00a0in the fetal position all day and night.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of you may have seen me in that same position Saturday in the airport terminal.\u00c2\u00a0 Bless my wife for getting delta airlines to provide a coule of blankets while we waited for our 2 hour delayed flight.\u00c2\u00a0 Note to self – When running a 103 degree temp DO NOT GET ON A PLANE.\u00c2\u00a0 It took 3 days for my head to decompress.<\/p>\n
Enough of the self pity let’s talk about the conference-<\/p>\n
The week flew by much faster than I would like it to.\u00c2\u00a0 My time started Saturday moring with alpha testing.\u00c2\u00a0 Because of the NDA that uses my wife as collateral I can not comment too much about it but I do like the ideas that we worked on- Keep it up COSMOS group.<\/p>\n
Sunday was filled with Round Table discussions.\u00c2\u00a0 I usually enjoy these because i get a glimpse into the minds of other users and how they are using the software.\u00c2\u00a0 honestly after these session I have enough content for a 3 hour stand up routine as well as 2 months worth of ideas I want to try to implement in my companies.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 This year was a little different as I had much more to offer than most.\u00c2\u00a0 One of my concerns with the release of 2008 was the DimXpert.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of you may have already seen some of my concerns about this really cool functionality.\u00c2\u00a0 The SolidWorks Guy (forgive the mispelling) Avelon, was very attentive to my concerns and had some really good ideas for the continuation of this tool.\u00c2\u00a0 Here is a list of what I find problems with – 1. Many people have no idea what GD&T is and now they can make even more expensive and impossible parts with an easy button that is not really that easy.\u00c2\u00a0 2. Users have no idea what ANSI\/ASME 14 standard this tool is pulling from. 3. With the epidemic of poor modeling to get the job done, this enables even more of that by allowing users to apply appropriate dimensioning &\u00c2\u00a0 tolerancing after the model is complete without any regard to how these parts will react when edited later..\u00c2\u00a0 Later on in the week Avelon did a great demonstration of DimXpert which really calmed me down.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a method to using this tool and it is now my job to learn that method and apply it to the teaches here at NTI.<\/p>\n
Another topic I commented on is about Top Down Assembly.\u00c2\u00a0 Far too often I have found rascally users finding a part that was deisgned Top Down and Say “this part will work great for my new assembly” modify the part and completely hose up a released products documentation.\u00c2\u00a0 I asked for a Release To Production button that would take Top Down Assembly design and “completely” break references to the assembly changing up to surface to Blind and the current dimension so on and so forth.\u00c2\u00a0 I saw some SW employee eye brows raise to this idea.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially when another attendee discussed how his company remodeled every thing designed top down prior to product release. Productivity lost i say.<\/p>\n
Anyhow overall Sunday was very successful for me.\u00c2\u00a0 I was able to vent and be heard in the same breath.\u00c2\u00a0 I was able to compliment and be heard when appropriate and I met several new people who share some of my concerns.<\/p>\n
My next blog will discuss the actual conference proceedings.<\/p>\n
Until then – Work Hard, Play Harder<\/p>\n
Chris MacCormack<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"