{"id":4859,"date":"2016-11-11T11:29:31","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T11:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4859"},"modified":"2016-11-11T11:34:19","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T11:34:19","slug":"solidworks-support-monthly-news-november-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/2016\/11\/solidworks-support-monthly-news-november-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"SOLIDWORKS support Monthly News \u2013 November 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to this new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News, coauthored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide.<\/p>\n

Shape the future of SOLIDWORKS with the SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List<\/h1>\n

The SOLIDWORKS World Top Ten List <\/a>is now open for submitting ideas in preparation for SOLIDWORKS World 2017 <\/a>at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California from February 5-8, 2017. During the event, the Top Ten user voted ideas from this forum <\/a>will be showcased.
\nThe SOLIDWORKS World Top Ten List is YOUR wish list: More than 90% of the enhancements in SOLIDWORKS are directly requested by customers<\/a>. This is your chance to have your voice heard. You are likely to see your idea or one you voted for in a future release of SOLIDWORKS, as that was the case for the vast majority of ideas on the Top Ten List in past years<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let the ideas\u2026 Begin! Submit them HERE<\/a>.
\nSummary:<\/b><\/p>\n
    \n
  • December 15, 2016 is the end for new idea submissions.<\/li>\n
  • December 16, 2016 voting on all ideas begins.<\/li>\n
  • January 20, 2017 voting ends.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
\"Defining-New-Products\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The top three things you can do to improve overall performance in SOLIDWORKS Simulation<\/h1>\n

By Jay Seaglar<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Optimize your Mesh = the gold medal of time savers<\/strong>
    \nReduce the number of Degrees of Freedom (DOF) in your study by simplifying and being more selective about mesh refinement. An over-refined mesh in non-critical zones makes for poor ROI of your computer\u2019s computing time and resources. Upgrading hardware is not a cure-all. If your models and studies are large or complex, you will be dealing with massive amounts of data. No matter how powerful your system is, there will be a delay when your system tries to read a 1 GB file from disk and load it into memory. Investing in powerful hardware will certainly help, but if your current system takes 10 minutes to open an assembly, load a study, and display existing results, upgrading your hardware might only reduce that to seven minutes instead of ten minutes<\/li>\n
  2. Solid State Drive = more responsive UI<\/strong>
    \nEnsure you have a Solid State Drive (SSD) with a fast read and write speed as your primary OS drive. Furthermore, when working with any Simulation study, make sure both the model and results folder in study properties is set to a location on an SSD. Purchasing an SSD is the single most important (and often least expensive) investment you can make for an across-the-board performance improvement for pretty much everything (not only SOLIDWORKS)! For SOLIDWORKS Simulation in particular, there is a huge amount of data throughput when you activate studies, mesh, solve (in the form of temporary files, some of which are written and read to disk during solving), load result plots, and save study data changes. Even a modest 20% improvement in disk read and write speed will be noticeable. Of course, once you complete your project and you need to archive it, there is no need to leave the files on your SSD. It usually has limited capacity, so it is better to move the files to a regular drive. When you need to reopen the files and explore results, you can move everything back to your SSD for better performance.<\/li>\n
  3. When shopping for a new computer,\u00a0clock speed wins over number of cores<\/strong>
    \nThe notion that doubling the number of cores halves the solution time is plain wrong. It is pretty much like saying that doubling the number of participants in a meeting will make it twice as productive! Be sure to prioritize CPU clock speed over number of CPU cores when selecting a processor. In a lot of software, certain operations are inherently linear (sequential) and cannot be multi-threaded. This limits them to a single CPU core. In such cases, you might see better performance on a single CPU quad core system with a 4.0 GHz clock speed than you would on a system with 32 total cores and a 2.5 GHz clock speed. Many portions of the SOLIDWORKS Simulation solver are multi-threaded, so you may see significant performance improvement during certain phases of meshing or solving if you have additional cores. Do not expect to see 100% CPU usage all the time, though \u2013 it is completely normal to observe full usage of only a single core during certain tasks.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Does SOLIDWORKS\u00ae PDM Standard support custom API add-ins, standalone API applications or any of the SOLIDWORKS\u00ae PDM migration and upgrade tools?<\/h1>\n

    By Tor Iveroth
    \n<\/em><\/p>\n

    SOLIDWORKS\u00ae PDM Standard does not have any API customization support. This includes any form of API code, both when using an add-in and a standalone application.\u00a0 Any API application that tries to access a SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard file vault using API methods will fail to log in. The log in attempt may throw the following error \u2018E_EDM_STANDARD_APINOTSUPPORTED\u2019 to indicate that the API is not supported.<\/p>\n

    The official SOLIDWORKS PDM migration tools and upgrade tools are all compatible with SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard and Professional.\u00a0 However, you must use the 2016 or later version of these tools. The pre-2016 version of the migration and upgrade tools relies on API calls which are not available in SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard.<\/p>\n

    You can find out if the file vault is SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard by viewing the file vault properties in the administration tool. The \u2018Vault Type\u2019 will show which type the file vault is in. To programmatically find out the vault type, use the \u2018GetVaultType (IEdmVault16)\u2019 method available in the 2016 or later API.<\/p>\n

    The following migration options are available for SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • To upgrade a SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard or Professional file vault to a new version or service pack, run the database upgrade tool found on the installation media under \u2018SWPDMServer\\Upgrade\\Upgrade.exe\u2019.<\/li>\n
    • To upgrade SOLIDWORKS files to current SOLIDWORKS\u00ae 2016 or later format in a SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard or Professional vault, use the \u2018File Version Upgrade Tool\u2019. The tool can be installed from the installation media under \u2018SWPDMClient\\Support\\File Version Upgrade\\File Version Upgrade.exe\u2019.<\/li>\n
    • To migrate a SOLIDWORKS Workgroup PDM vault into a SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard or Professional file vault, use the 2016 version of the \u2018Workgroup PDM to SOLIDWORKS PDM migration tool\u2019. This tool is available to VARs on the VAR Resource Center (VRC) in the SOLIDWORKS PDM area. End customers should contact their VAR for more details.<\/li>\n
    • To migrate data from other systems into a SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard or Professional file vault, use the 2016 version of the \u2018XML Migration Tool\u2019. VARs can find more details on the VAR Resource Center (VRC) in the SOLIDWORKS PDM area. End customers should contact their VAR for more details. Simulation Step-Up Series Last month, Ramesh concluded on the topic of Bolt Connectors<\/strong>. He now moves on to discussing Pin Connectors<\/strong>, another widely use type of connector in SOLIDWORKS Simulation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Simulation Step-Up Series<\/h1>\n

      Last month, Ramesh talked about\u00a0 Pin Connectors<\/strong>. With Bolt and Pin connectors now behind us, Ramesh turns to the other types of Connectors (Spring, Bearing, Spot and Edge Welds, Link and Rigid connectors).in SOLIDWORKS Simulation.<\/p>\n