SolidWorks 2007 FreeForm Feature

There is a new video for this feature on the SolidWorks website. You
can get to it by visiting our CPD page and clicking on the link
entitled "Freeform Feature":

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/successes/industry_solutions/Consumer-Design.html

or directly

http://files.solidworks.com/news/freeform_boathull/freeform_boathull.html

Regards
Mark Biasotti
SolidWorks

 

Don't know why, but running xp sp2 and ie6 ( latest sp ), memory useage
goes from a flat 300 MB to a peak of 1.4 Gb viewing that presentation.
Tried it a couple times with the same result. It was, however, informative
and useful.

 

If you are having problems viewing this video, it is a bandwidth issue,
so you can simple click the pause button on the flash player and wait
for more or all of the video to download.

Regards

Mark

 

Interesting how you can learn something even when what is demonstrated isn't
a feature that you even use. (Good video - glad I don't do that kind of
stuff...)

There was a comment in there about holding either the Alt key or the Ctrl
key to halve or double the value change due to rotating the thumb wheel.
The comment was made in the context of moving the triad, so I tried it on
something else. What I found was that rotating the thumbwheel (or clicking
the up/down arrows) on a dimension change in an inch units part would change
the dimension by .1" per click. Holding the Alt key would change the dims
by .01" per click. Holding the Ctrl key would change the dims by 1.0" per
click.

When I changed that part to metric units, the standard change was 10mm per
click, Alt 1mm per click, Ctrl 100mm per click.

So, the lesson here is to try those keys to see what they do in the context
of whatever. Explore & learn.

WT

 

Yup, Fielder (with my help) recently posted this feature to his blog:

http://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/

 

But what I found in trying it with a dimension box is that the changes are
not double or half, they are a factor of 10 each way. The digit that is
modified is changed, not the amount that the "normal" digit jumps with each
click.

WT

 

Wayne, you are correct and I stand corrected it is not 1/2 or 2x but
actually as you've stated.

Thanks

Mark

 

Thanks for the confirmation. Is this action the same across the board? Or
does it actually change in some other applications?

My main point of this post was that watching some procedure that may not be
in your normal realm, may, in fact, still turn up a useful nugget. I also
wanted to point out that the Alt & Ctrl key may carry
hidden/undocumented/unknown/unrealized functionality that is only discovered
by watching, listening, conversing with other users, etc.

WT

 

Wayne, the behavior should be "across the board" Unfortunately, there
is little documentation about this, but to our defense, the Thumbwheel
is not incorporated fully into every situation it could be. Our UI team
carefully picked functionality that we could introduce it into and
we'll be filling in the documentation when it becomes more prevalent.
Of course, new features were a slam dunk like FreeForm and Boundary.
But perhaps its best use is in the Camera where I really pushed for it.

Thanks for pointing it out.

 

Which is fine and good, but wouldn't it be totally awsome if the camera could be
controlled by the SpaceBall as well!? Would get rid of the need to export geometry
for virtual walkthroughs...

(Sorry for out-of-thread post

....

 

Chebeba, if you have a spaceball, please contact 3Dconnexion on this.
We can not write their driver.

 

Marc,

What would be nice is, when the thumbwheel is fully implimented, that there
be an Options setting to allow for some user controlled factor.

Alt = .5 or .8... and Ctrl = 2 or 1.6 or ...

Well you get the picture.

Thanks,
Muggs

 

Hmm interesting. If I am in a camera view and press the SpaceBall, it looks like
the display sort of "wants" to turn. For example, in a complex view a lot of small
detail becomes boxes (to improve display performance as usual), but nothing
happends to the view angle. Looks to me like the 3DConnexion driver tries to move
the display but SW wants it to be stuck in the preset camera position.
/C

skrev:

 

Have you right clicked on the Camera in the tree and unlocked it? This
might do the trick.

 

Eh... I have no "lock" on the camera context menu. (In SW2006SP5, is this a 2007
thing?)

There is a tick in front of the "Camera View" item, if I uncheck that the display
jumps back to a standrad custom view.

parel skrev: