Welcome to this new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News, coauthored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide.

SOLIDWORKS World 2016

It was an amazing SOLIDWORKS World in Dallas with more than 8000 attendees, both on site and streaming the event!

Great speakers, fantastic announces (new functionalities, new products and more), and awesome technical sessions. Summarizing it would be a tough challenge for anyone, but not for the SOLIDWORKS Blog team. So here you go:

• SOLIDWORKS World 2016 Day One: General Session Recap
• SOLIDWORKS World 2016 Day Two: General Session Recap
• SOLIDWORKS World 2016 Day 3 General Session Recap

Your SOLIDWORKS Tech Support team was there – well not all of us, some stay in the office to help you out with your questions and problems.

It was a good time to meet face to face, give some advice and share some tips and tricks in a relaxed environment. Most of us also conducted technical training sessions. If you missed them, you will soon be able to catch up. The recordings will be available, as usual, on the SOLIDWORKS Works proceedings web page within a few weeks.

Oh, and by the way, SOLIDWORKS World 2017 will take place in sunny Los Angeles February 5th to 8th, 2017. Mark your calendars, and hope to see you there.

 

Time-Savers in PhotoView 360: Render Region and Include Dimensions

By Jennifer Tashiro

Two of the newest time-saving enhancements in PhotoView 360 are Render Region and Include Dimensions.

Render Region

Render Region allows you to preview or final render a small region of the graphics area rather than the entire graphics area. Typically, your model does not fill up the entire graphics area, even if you perform a zoom to fit. To avoid rendering the empty region of the graphics area, you can put the Render Region on only your model. Another idea is to initially put the Render Region on a small portion of your model, adjust the PhotoView 360 settings, environment, or appearances as necessary, then expand or remove the Render Region when you are ready for your final render.

To use Render Region:

1. In the SOLIDWORKS main menu, select PhotoView 360 > Render Region.
2. In the graphics area, drag the corners of the pink and blue rectangle to resize the Render Region.
3. Select PhotoView 360 > Preview Window or Final Render.

Render Region is new in PhotoView 360 2015 version.

Include Dimensions

Include Dimensions (and or Annotations) allows you to include model dimensions in your final rendering. If you want to show your design reviewer or your customers the dimensions of your model, there is no need to switch to an image-editing software to manually add dimensions to your final rendered image. You also avoid the risk of mistyping dimension values because you work with only one set of dimensions.

To include dimensions:

1. In the FeatureManager tree, expand the ‘Annotations’ folder > double-click an annotation view that you want to show. At the prompt, select Yes to show feature dimensions.
2. Optionally, right-click any additional annotation views > select Show.
3. In the SOLIDWORKS main menu, select PhotoView 360 > Final Render.
4. At the prompt, select ‘Include Dimensions and or Annotations in the final rendering.’
   

The dimensions will appear in the rendering exactly as they appear in the graphics area.

Include Dimensions is new in PhotoView 360 2016 version.

 

Using SOLIDWORKS Visualize to Create Emotional Content

By Jonathan Walp

If you missed the announcement on the first day of SOLIDWORKS World last week, this gives me the unique pleasure to introduce to you one of the newest additions to the SOLIDWORKS family, SOLIDWORKS Visualize. SOLIDWORKS Visualize is a standalone rendering tool that can take your models and transform them into beautiful and realistic visual content.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize is geared towards designers, engineers, marketing, and other content creators who need to:

• Improve internal design, engineering, and sales reviews to help make more educated final decisions
• Drastically reduce the cost and number of physical prototypes, helping to arrive at final design decisions much more efficiently
• Deliver photorealistic imagery and content to marketing much earlier to help promote the newest products via web/print
• Add time savings allow for more design time, which results in an overall better final product

I had the pleasure of working with customers during the SOLIDWORKS Visualize Beta program, and had the chance to see content that was created using the software. I’m excited to see what the community will create with this new tool!

There are two levels of the software: SOLIDWORKS Visualize Professional and Standard. The best news is that if you or your company have any seat of SOLIDWORKS Premium or Professional, you will receive an equal number of seats of SOLIDWORKS Visualize Standard. To get started, go to the Customer Portal > Downloads to find your download of SOLIDWORKS Visualize.

 

Noteworthy Solutions from the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base

Why does the SOLIDWORKS® Workgroup PDM Server 2016 installation process not install the required 64-bit version of the SOLIDWORKS 2016 Document Manager software?
The SOLIDWORKS Workgroup PDM Server 2016 software is a 64-bit application. It requires a 64-bit installation of the SOLIDWORKS 2016 Document Manager. With SOLIDWORKS Workgroup PDM Server 2016 SP0.0, SP0.1, and SP1.0, the installation manager does not automatically install the SOLIDWORKS 2016 Document Manager software, as it should. A fix is targetted for SP2.0.
Procedure to fix this issue in Solution Id: S-070484.

When using the Windows® Installer InstallShield wizard to install the SOLIDWORKS® PDM 2016 software, what causes the client installation to fail with the ‘Error 1722…Action Register_DocMgrDll”?
It can happen if the the x64 and x86 versions of the ‘Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable’ runtimes are installed not on the client computer. Troubleshooting and resolution procedures are given in Solution Id: S-070774.

Why do I see an error ‘CoCreateInstance’ or ‘OpenDoc’ when attempting to preview a SOLIDWORKS® file from SOLIDWORKS® Workgroup PDM WebPortal using eDrawings ActiveX control?
This could be caused by incorrect user permissions. A user with administrative priviledges shouldn’t face this problem.
Troubleshooting and resolution procedures are given in Solution Id: S-070674.

Why might I see a ‘Database not found’ message when I access SOLIDWORKS® Simulation study results for a file that I checked out using SOLIDWORKS® PDM?
If SOLIDWORKS Simulation lacks write access to the .CWR file which contains SOLIDWORKS® Simulation results, the ‘Database not found’ message can appear. If you use PDM to manage the CWR file and you disable the EPDM option to include all referenced files on check out, the CWR file remains checked in. In such cases, SOLIDWORKS Simulation has no write access to the .CWR file and triggers the error.
See the full solution in Solution Id: S-070552.

How are loads taken into account in Frequency analysis?
In SOLIDWORKS Simulation, structural and thermal loads are automatically taken into account when defined.
A detailed explanation of the procedure and its limitations can be found in Solution Id: S-070677.

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That’s it for this month. Thanks for reading this edition of SOLIDWORKS Support News.

Originally posted in the SOLIDWORKS Tech Blog.