SWX Documentation-Matt Lombard Nails It

AFAIK you can still turn realview off in 08 (or now the aspects you
dont want) as you can in 07.
I imagine it will stay that way in the future
I admit for a whole lot of folks out there they just have no interest
in this stuff or cant envisage how it might help them. Indeed unless I
was in the R&D department trying some of these ideas I dont think I
could actually concretise the benefits until I finished experimenting.
Will pulling up a drawing and specs and any other notes/sketches in
full detail in seconds and in relation to any other part as you
traverse and rotate an assembly have benefits? dunno? will it be just
a useless reskin of explorer and design binder we dont need?
The challenge is to keep looking at the smart ideas out there and
bring them into CAD for its benefit.
You could argue that SW have failed in that crutial screening process
so far.
For instance although MS did a lot of research on their ribbon
toolbars etc is that a good soln for CAD?
or because we can make a real nice pretty icon is that appropriate for
CAD..is perhaps it symbols people work with and not images...
Same for realview - clearly if you can set up realview properly then
linking to PW means no set up of materials etc. That would save time.
You can alter your scene in real time and get a very good idea of how
it will look actually rendered. If you could record from the window it
might make very nice presentations without rendering animations - time
saver.
If you are in ID being able to pull on some point and immediately get
feedback as to how it looks in a real environment might be nice.Should
everyone use it then? no obviously a lot of folks dont need to.
Most likely there are users out there who never touch sheetmetal tools
and yet others do just about only that.
Computers are going parallel SW is mostly set up for single processor.
At the moment your graphics card is under utilised. There is a lot of
parallel processing power in there.
Its hard to say how it all might look in 10 years
There are possibilities of realtime physics solving as well using a
seperate card on the new PCI implementation after PCIe2... some work
already done in this area was seen at SWW I think...

anyway there are a few quick thoughts
people who only want to deal with electronic versions of a drawing
board are going to struggle in to the future IMO ( and yes you are
talking to someone who used ink pens and compasses..)

 

on reflection perhaps you should see Realview as a 'presentation and
visualisation' toolset just like there are tools for sheetmetal...and
that includes curvature display etc
no doubt it willl continue to evolve with hardware capability
again I think it is slightly unfortunate the way SW presented this in
this manner..

I think though now we have the basic arrival out of the way attention
can return to other concrete and mortar tools that many more people
will relate too.
I realise a lot of engineers are not interested in visuals and touchy
feely stuff and this doesnt touch base with them but it does help
others.
As far as the UI... well I think it needs some revisiting cos that
affects everyone.

 

ok here's another one

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=6gzchxx8xp

.... and MS seem to be working on this stuff as well...
is all? some? none of this useful in CAD?
will it be incorporated in the o/s anyway and just be used as a matter
of course in SW...?
does it just need CADifying to be ok or is there nothing actually good
about it other than it can be done...
dunno..
I guess the only way users can influence decisions is to get in early
with their views
You know it's a little ironic to be defending SW direction when I
spent a lot of time poking eyes.
In fact the most noticeable reaction from other users is to put me
down for being outspoken about bugs etc.
If you guys want a specific direction you actually have to be active
about getting change.
Sitting in silence as most do isn't going to deliver what you need/
want.
Really I'm the wrong person to be asking for justification or
explanation or to be forecasting the adoption of technology ...except
I do seem to pick em sometimes which is a little unnerving..
You need to discuss the future with SW themselves..first stop may be
your VARs earhole..


and now I really have other stuff to do so I'm disappearing for a few
months- bye all - happy 08ing ;o)

 

I don't know for sure but I suspect that one of the motivations why
the documentation is so poor is because this is a major source of
income for the VAR's to "sell" training classes.

I also believe that there is a fairly simple solution to solve the
documentation problem and this would be a complete set of training
classes on DVD. But, there must be a decient index system so that it
doesn't take half an hour to find some little procedure. I have
really found the wav. files from Mountain Wave to be very useful and a
complete library would be fantastic.

Some VAR's have already made fairly good video libraries but they
typically have a poor index/ search system and are expensive so these
efforts are almost useless. If SW made a complete video
documentation system of 100 hours and the cost was in the area of
$1000 per hour, (just an estimate) the total cost would be $100,000.
This sounds like a lot of money but when this is divided over the
600,000 plus SW seats this is only $6 for each of us. Who of us would
not be willing to pay $6 for an effective documentation/ training
system. Even if SW charged an extra $30 for one of the future
releases, WHO WOULD COMPLAIN? And given these estimates, even at the
reasonable price of $30, the profit for SW would only be in the area
of $14M. The user base would be much happier and while no other CAD
program has anything like this, what a fantastic sales feature.
Hmmmm.... what should SW be doing?

Such a thing would be a win, win, win but the goofy SW marketing
department is either sitting on their duffs or they just arn't bright
enough to see the advantages.

Furthermore, the SW programmers work very hard to improve every
release but a lot of the time, us users don't get the benefits because
most of us don't find out about some of these features for quite a
while. I'm about 2 releases behind in reviewing all of the new
features myself but a couple hour video covering these upgrades would
be quite helpful.

EdT

 

"I don't know for sure but I suspect that one of the motivations why
the documentation is so poor is because this is a major source of
income for the VAR's to "sell" training classes."

No more calls. We have a winner.

"If SW made a complete video documentation system"

Despite opening with the correct conclusion this poster got lost and
is now back to thinking that SolidWorks Corp. will start to care about
users before VAR profits. As a result our contestant is now
disqualified and the phone lines are back open.

Who will be the first in this newsgroup to realize that it's only
independents and not SolidWorks Corp. who can solve the documentation
problem?

Anyone remember way back when Mark Biasotti had some balls and spoke
up about the real problems with SolidWorks before he sold out?

My respect for Mark Biasotti at this point... zero.

Can Mat Lombard be silenced in the same way?

Is there some reason UpFronteZine isn't discussing this massive
problem?

Is there some reason SolidWorks users aren't pressing Ralph Grabowski
to discuss this problem in UpFronteZine?

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA

 

"The best tutorials by far are by igetit atwww.myigetit.com."

"I got a subscription and its well worth it, way cheaper than VAR
training and much more convenient."

They say a free trial is available but it's not working for me. I sent
tech support an e-mail.

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA

 

"I got a subscription and its well worth it, way cheaper than VAR
training and much more convenient."

Finally got it working. I'm watching using the Fully Define Sketch
Tool tutorial now and it's very well done!

Thanks for the heads up!

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA

 

CLUE: SW can do the documentation in parallel with the development
of new releases & features.

Buzzword & free demo jockeys must wait on someone to use
a new release or feature in released software and post about it.

Have you tried "Etch-A-Sketch for Dummies" yet? Few want to
steal the demo video ....

 

Xposted to alt.machines.cnc just for amusement.

 

Just keeps getting better, Phil. :>) Time to give them the money I
feel they deserve. Should complement the SolidProfessor videos I spent
$600 for nicely. They many turn out to be an even better value but
something tells me I'll appreciate both.

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA

 

Not that this is a solution but this is mainly why I started
www.SolidMentor.com

If we all get in there and add to the Wiki there potentially be a good
user manual made by the users and will include the stuff that SW will
never include in their manuals such as flaws and workarounds. Now I
understand that there is not much there right now but if you have
something to add ADD IT! If we all just add a tidbit it could be a great
resource. Currently we are approaching 500 registered users if each of
use added one thing to the wiki would already be a powerful resource.

Ben

 

Dear Group,

Actually, instead of accusing SW for not giving us a manual just
remember this:
SW2004 had a downloadable pdf reference manual written by SW corp.
Almost 1000 pages. I find it very useful still today.
A while back SW said that there were a really "underwhelming response"
to their manual, so it is not worth doing. Apparently too few people
downloaded it.
They forget to mention that it actually wasn't advertised anywhere
properly, however it was possible to find it in some hidden place on
the SW website. I guess it really pissed of the VARs, but of course
this cannot be said openly. Maybe they were just testing their VAR
network response.
So they gave us something already, anyway.
We should ask for the update of this manual. They don't have to write
one from scratch.
But saying that it never existed obviously helps people to sell 3rd
party stuff.

Regards
Attila

 

When you know the software well the first thing to look at
are the release notes for new releases.
Some firms use manuals with new or changed items
clearly marked as well. Very handy indeed.

Incremental change history ....

 

"SW2004 had a downloadable pdf reference manual written by SW corp.
Almost 1000 pages. I find it very useful still today."

Why don't you make this old manual available for downloading?

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA

 

The mere term "Copyright Violation" never did ring any
of your bells .... probably scared a few of your bats though.

In any case, it's probably intended for actual legal users
with a clue.