Solidworks World 2010 an Event Report

Event Report: The SolidWorks annual user conference attracted 5,000 people around the world to see and hear what's happening in SolidWorks 3D Software.

SolidWorks World Conference and Exhibition 2010, the premier global event for 3D design, simulation, and product development it was four day long conference held in first week of February 2010 at Anaheim, California. USA. A team of four from BEACON (Mr. Varakumar, Director, Mr. Anil Kumar Product Manager, Mr. Saravanan, Technical Manager, and Mr. Shashank, Sr. Application Engineer) were present at this event to have the opportunity of discovering new SolidWorks techniques, evaluating complementary technologies, learning about future developments, and networking with SolidWorks users worldwide, which can help our customers boost design productivity and gain a competitive edge.

 

Conference started when Jeff Ray CEO of SolidWorks Corporation opened his company's annual user conference by thanking the 5,000 attendees who had registered by the morning of Day 1.whereas, SolidWorks World attendance was around 4,300 last year.

 

After welcoming the group to the Anaheim Convention Center near Disneyland, Ray introduced Bernard Charles, president and CEO of SolidWorks' parent company, Dassault Systemes. Charles's appearance at SolidWorks World was a first. For his part, Charles said, "We are investing in SolidWorks for the long term," including research and development of the technology. "We will continue to expand the scope of the technology to further serve the 3D professional," he added.

 

Ray gave a message that Consumers are demanding environmentally friendly products,. Ray then introduced designers Jeremy Luchini and Mike North and their amazing electric car built on bus batteries and a race car chassis from Factory Five Racing. Resembling a late '30s-era Ford coupe, the vehicle can go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.8 sec.

 

Ray came with the SolidWorks on the cloud, wherein software is hosted on powerful server farms and users access it using an Internet browser. "This is designed not for flash, but to solve problems and make your life easier,” adding that the technology has been in development for three years. Cloud computing overcomes the challenges of software installation and maintenance and, according to the company, keeps data secure. It is multiplatform by its very nature, meaning it is accessible to users regardless of operating system, and it can accommodate touch-based modeling and finger and pen interaction — that is, any wireless-connected device from anywhere could link the user to the full functionality of the 3D software.

 

Later, Joe Dunne, SolidWorks’ director of technical marketing, confirmed, “We’re working on several concepts. One of the concepts is definitely running SolidWorks as a native Mac app, in addition to the no-install (browser-based) version … So you can run it on a Mac or run on a Mac machine using a browser — take your pick.”

 

In Day 2 of SolidWorks World 2010 Ray announced a new level of SolidWorks user certification: the Certified SolidWorks Expert (CSWE), available immediately. CWSE falls between the existing associate (CSWA) and professional (CSWP) levels of certification. According to SolidWorks, a Certified SolidWorks Expert is someone who easily demonstrates the ability to utilize advanced functions and features to solve complex modeling challenges inside SolidWorks.

 

The real thrill for Day 2 was the introduction of James Cameron, director of major motion pictures including Avatar, Terminator, and Titanic. What was a Hollywood celebrity doing on the stage of an engineering software user conference? Cameron is a big believer in and developer of technologies. To call him an armchair engineer would be a major understatement. Cameron, who was a machinist early in his career, is a pioneer in many of the image-capture and facial-performance technologies that have made his movies successful financially and artistically. He told the SolidWorks crowd about the development of the stereoscopic 3D digital cameras used to film Avatar, and shared behind-the-scenes looks at the movie-making process and interviews with the actors. In creating that blockbuster, he said, actors performed scenes without makeup and without cinematic backdrops in place. Using the camera on set in real time, he could view the actors as they would appear on the movie screen.

 

The last day of SolidWorks World 2010 brought a preview of what's new in SolidWorks 2011, to be released later this year, as well as a rundown of the latest Top 10 list of enhancements requested by users.

 

Bruce Holway, manager of SolidWorks product definition, clarified that not all Top 10 list requests actually make it into a future edition of the software. But, in a video posted on the SolidWorks Blog, he says, "If you took all items on all Top 10 lists, we've implemented about 70% of them" over time. Many are not implemented right off the bat.

 

So what's new in SolidWorks 2011? What can users really expect? Here is a partial rundown of the many updates shared quickly on the main stage:

 

1. Improved reliability, as well as performance. More than 50% of research and development for this version was devoted to this effort, according to the company.
2. Revolve command will include Up to Surface option.
3. Defeature command, which converts parts to solids.
4. Better integration with PhotoView 360 to improve rendering.
5. Planar simplification for running simulations on model sections.
6. Improved dimensioning functionality, including the ability to dimension an entire drawing at once and dual dimensioning for hole tables.
7. Improved design checking. 8. Camera-like design walkthrough.
8. Feature tree locking to avoid unnecessary feature rebuilding.