CAD Forum

jcapriotti

I just stumbled on this response. Thought it worth linking. https://www.onshape.com/en/blog/design-easier-with-cloud-native-cad As much as I think Onshape is doing cloud right, I will defend 3dx in this case and just say that comparing Onshape's PDM/Data management to 3Dx (Enovia) PLM is no compari...

jcapriotti

Not being a partner doesn't mean their software/script will stop working. It more like Dassault doesn't support it, like video drivers () Lots of user use "non-partner" macro/addin anyway. There is a license I believe to access the "SOLIDWORKS Document Manager API" so it can acc...

jcapriotti

DDM are on there but there are a bunch of others that aren't (including Windchill, Pulse, XPLM). https://www.solidworks.com/partners/engineering-software-partners-products?wockw=DDM image.png Ahh I see now.....I was using the Product Data Management filter and most aren't under there....go figure. ...

jcapriotti

It would be nice though if anyone running SW 2023 on PDM or prior could see if they experience any delays on large assemblies when activating the Assembly Visualization tool. Define "large" assembly? Visualization opened and rendered the default colors in 4 seconds. This was opened from o...

jcapriotti

That doesn't mean it's a bad test, or that it shouldn't be used to evaluate the target level of SW user. Could it be improved or better worded? I don't think anyone is suggesting that the question was meant to intentionally be ambiguous, unless we want to go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole a...

jcapriotti

MattW wrote: ↑Thu Jan 09, 2025 1:09 pm Maybe someone can post up how to do it.

Ok...I "fixed" it. The point being that you need the relations show to truly know in SolidWorks.

jcapriotti

As mentioned already, if this were an ASME drawing, the centerline would indicate or imply that they are colinear. But for SolidWorks, you need the relations shown to know. Not sure which skill they are testing, the ability to interpret a drawing's intent, or ability to recognize what the SolidWorks...

jcapriotti

I don't even see DDM as a partner on the website currently, nor others I'm aware of. We are moving to Windchill and it supports SolidWorks files with its Workgroup Manager (WGM) application. I can't imagine that Dassault would just cutoff all competing PDM integrations out there. If that were to hap...

jcapriotti

I'm gonna guess it has something to do with the 2024 enhancement to Visualization to show PDM information such as state, checked out, etc. Look on page 4 of: https://files.solidworks.com/Supportfiles/PDMWorks_Ent_Whats_New/2024/English/WhatsNewSWPDM.pdf image.png This is certainly a VAR ticket you n...

jcapriotti

@TODDO Welcome to the forum. We welcome whatever comments you have, even with inexperience, you may think of ways to do things that us old codgers never thought of. I still learn new options that I didn't realize was added to the software.

jcapriotti

SPerman wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2025 12:10 pm I only see the one point, that defaults to the origin.
image.png

I meant that's how they should change it.....add boundary points/geometry that can be used to control the location.

jcapriotti

I'm sure back in 1996 there was a good reason to generate that point. 20 years later it just feels like another instance of sloppy programming that they've ignored for 20 years, so why put any energy into fixing it now. I remember when it was added (1999?), and it was so needed as we used to draw t...

jcapriotti

They not doubt have access to your data. The question is how they protect and limit access to it internally.

jcapriotti

Yeah....after researching them I figured that could be the case. Most all of their software development is done in India. I've worked with groups there and in other countries our company outsources software dev with, and the biggest problem is finding people who understand engineering and manufactur...

jcapriotti

Did you got with Bild or something else?

jcapriotti

In the last few years there was some Turkish VAR employees up voting a bunch of MBD stuff and other outlier stuff few use. IMO, MDB will not gain traction as long as they keep charging for it. MBD was meant to replace drawings however drawing functions are free and MBD is not.

jcapriotti

You can publish an eDrawings that includes all of you custom properties. Then you can show the properties pane inside edrawings and as you select parts, it will display them. For STEP, I don't see an option unless you have the MBD module that allows for exporting to STEP 242. That appears to allow c...

jcapriotti

Definitely some inconsistency in how its handled. Here's some values. Two different variables (256, 360), both are set to Yes/No data types. One uses a drop list with Yes/No, the other is a checkbox (0,1). Not sure how this affect PDM functionality. All variable values are stored several times depen...

jcapriotti

charlesculp The ghost of this issue has been around a long time. I only see a -1 value if using dispatch to set the variable. There is a hotfix I just noticed for this for 2023 sp5....and its labeled fixed in in 2024 sp1. My Dispatch script that checks this value is written to check both: image.png...

jcapriotti

@jcapriotti @SPerman , I have done a number of VBA macro's for Solidworks. For example, I have a macro that will with a click of the button, create a PDF file as well as a DXF file of a drawing. It will then save those files in the PDM, delete copies of old versions on the those files on the factor...

jcapriotti

@jcapriotti just wanted to say that VBA can be used with PDM, I have made a custom task in VBA that replace the bugged version up tool of PDM: I can login into our vault, get latest, checkin, checkout and the only issue is (for a non IT person like me) the lack of documentation (to use an euphemism...

jcapriotti

Well, you could modify all of the transitions to temporarily make them "Automatic". I've never tried that many but it should go through them all to end up in the final state.

jcapriotti

Which version of SolidWorks are you on? I just tried in 2024sp5 and it works as expected when I rotate the profiles 180°. However it appears that 2024 updated corner treatments so maybe they fixed it in the process. https://help.solidworks.com/2024/english/WhatsNew/r_two_membr_complex_PM.htm?rid=178...

jcapriotti

You don't need a macro (there is no VBA option for PDM). You need a transition from the current state (P2) to the other state (P5). Then you just create a search that finds the parts you want to transition, right click them all and change state on them using that new transition. That said, without k...

jcapriotti

Any radiused (rolled or bump-bent) part usually requires workarounds. We mostly just do press brake 90° bends, sometimes other angles. We have some simple roll form parts from coil stock, takes some trial and error to get the bend numbers right. I did one part that had an arc where they bump bent i...

jcapriotti

Mike Gera wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 10:07 am
Sheet metal is my biggest gripe with SolidWorks.

What specifically?

jcapriotti

SPerman wrote: ↑Thu Dec 05, 2024 8:17 am If they cared, would they have the TTL open for a month before posting about it? If they cared, would the TTL be such a disaster that most people can't even access it?

The TTL should be a perpetual list......oh wait......perpetual is a dirty word now when it comes to software.

jcapriotti

Maybe it's just us and our accounts have been blacklisted.

jcapriotti

XHawkeye wrote: ↑Wed Dec 04, 2024 12:12 pm User since SW2003. Last (2) jobs have used standard with aftermarket PDM (DDM & DBWorks).

How is DDM? I looked at it like 20 years ago....looks like its come a long way and passed up PDM on functionality.

jcapriotti

I asked why it was posted on the platform a month later after being launched and was answered that it was posted on their blog a month ago. They forced everyone on the Platform to kill the Forum, but they didn't force their stupid blog on the Platform? Dassault at it's finest. Probably because the ...

jcapriotti

DLZ_SWX_User wrote: ↑Wed Dec 04, 2024 12:40 pm The second link here seems to work for me.

For me it goes to the "Whats New" section with a well hidden error message:

jcapriotti

Welp, here we are. image.png Broken links happen so I'm not too concerned with that if they can get it fixed in a timely manner. I think their bigger concern should be that this link was posted 3 weeks ago with little to no feedback from the community. Not sure if they know or care that the communi...

jcapriotti

I'll echo what AlexB said. We pay the annual maintenance for SolidWorks and PDM licenses, nothing more. We occasionally contact the VAR for support for issues, which mostly ends up with an SPR issued and sometimes they help with a workaround. For PDM these support calls can get a bit in depth in the...

jcapriotti

thank you for the batch, I was usually killing edmserver and explorer after checking if sldworks was in execution to avoid a registry overwrite when it closes. I will lookup the othet exes to better understand what they do. Search.exe is the standalone search tool AddInSrv.exe Is for add-ins that m...

jcapriotti

I think the software vendors are trying to change the "perpetual is always cheaper" perception if you are one who pays the yearly maintenance... maintenance renewal prices used to be roughly about 20% of purchase price, but over the last couple years or so they have been raising the maint...

jcapriotti

Nobody wants to sell you perpetual licenses anymore. They quote only subscription and tell you the accounting departments at all these companies want yearly expenses instead of large up front capital expenditures that they have to depreciate. They have never advertised purchase or annual maintenanc...

jcapriotti

If the vault name is the same, you can just update the server names in the client registry. Kill the PDM processes in a script then change the keys for "DbServer" and "ServerLoc" in these two locations: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SolidWorks\Applications\PDMWorks Enterpr...

jcapriotti

The 2d to 3d tools might work here:

This video can walk you through it.

jcapriotti

I have been with 2 companies that made the decision to go to a "Cloud" solution for files without consulting or even involving engineering in the decision. After the switch was made we reverted back to on site file management due to the lag issues at both companies within months. Remote f...

jcapriotti

I learned that for where I work changing CAD system will never show a return on investment, no system is that good. Those days are over I think. We went from CATIA v4 to SolidWorks 98. For what we do, it was a huge improvement for a 1/4 of the cost, ran on Windows, and was way easier to use. Now th...

jcapriotti

I don't think this is a perpetual license with annual maintenance. It looks like an annual charge, the same every year. If you stop paying, it stops working. Yeah, that is the annual subscription cost. I never could find exact costs for the perpetual license for NX. SolidWorks annual subscription i...

jcapriotti

Laminate Tools has SolidWorks support. No idea on cost or functionality.....can't imagine its cheap.

https://www.anaglyph.co.uk/

jcapriotti

@csh I can't think of a way in the UI or dispatch to do this. If I had to do this in house, we'd write a T-SQL script to modify the folder variable in the "VariableValue" in the DB directly. This table is fairly safe to edit....just back it up first.

jcapriotti

I've had this need for many years now, we just manually set the sheet number in those cases. Just curious, does any other CAD system do this? I think it helps when filling our the enhancement to mention the other CAD tool, maybe help steer it down the process of a competitor has this feature.

jcapriotti

Yeah, Draftsight was free and used across the company here. When they made it P2P, the decision was that we weren't investing in licences for "viewers", which means everyone outside of the technical department. The price was way too steep for us to even concider it. At that price, we were...

jcapriotti

I agree that what you call up or what you names you give the planes doesn't necessarily matter, but consistency leads to efficiency. If I can build all of my main sub assemblies in the same orientation as the main assembly, it saves time when bringing it all together. The less time I have to spend ...

jcapriotti

Stopped using it as soon as it became P2P Yeah...well it was either subscribe to AutoCAD LT ($500/year) or DraftSight ($400/year). DraftSight you can still get a network license so we can share the 20 licenses we have amongst 100 users. SolidWorks is our primary CAD system so it's only used a small...

jcapriotti

If that were the case no one would have named the axis XYZ to differentiate them. Also, when translating between other systems and softare, it seroiusly does matter. Wasted time is a huge "matter" and translating CORRECTLY creates lots of wasted time, which again, matters. It's maybe not ...

jcapriotti

SPerman wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2024 11:40 am Did you purchase a printer?

Not yet.....close I think....was kind of waiting to see what black fridays sales might be on.

jcapriotti

Any users here?

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