Tablet Overlay for Solidworks?

My company will soon be moving to Soliworks from Autocad and I am
currently practising on the PE version.

I have always used, with Autocad, a digitizer tablet with an overlay
since this gives me the most screen area and also I find it the fastest
way to work, in conjuction with a command line.

Is it feasible to set up a similar arrangement with Solidworks?

Thanks

Bruce Murray
Winchester, MA

 

You can certainly set up SolidWorks to work very similar to AutoCAD with a
command line and keyboard shortcuts. SolidWorks has something called the 2D
Emulator to achieve this. I don't know of any digitizing tablet overlays
that work in conjunction with SolidWorks.

If you want advice from a former AutoCAD user.....forget the way you work in
AutoCAD. SolidWorks & AutoCAD are two different animals and should really
be approached differently when using them as design tools. It took me a
while to break my AutoCAD habits when I first started using SolidWorks but
once the monkey is off your back you'll love the SolidWorks interface and
ease of use. Every so often I have to use AutoCAD for something and I can't
help but wonder how in the hell I ever used the software. Seems so
primitive now.

Good Luck

 

Actually, you might want to trade in your 2D tablet for a 3D Spaceball.
The tablet becomes less usefull with things like customizable toolbars
and the command manager. On the other hand since you will be working in
3D, being able to quickly move your viewpoint around a part will become
far more important.

 

Bruce,

SW doesn't have a command line, nor does any other modern system.

When we moved our ACAD people over to SW, they continued to use their
tablets until we moved to Win2000, no drivers. Even so, they were only able
to use them as a mouse, no overlay.

SW isn't really designed for a tablet. Frankly, I could never see the
advantage of constantly looking back and forth, although ACAD's GUI was a
logistical mess so it probably helped. It took them awhile, but the finally
got used to the SW way of doing things. The trick to this is using what SW
provided, RMB, and hot keys. The "Command Manager" is also very usefull for
some people.

AS far as screen area, you don't really need as much with 3D modeling as you
do with 2D drafting. Even so, SW keeps adding stuff that makes the graphics
window smaller. It almost seems like our monitors are shrinking.

That being said, maybe an overlay driven tablet would be a good idea for
some folks. All of SW's commands are available through the API, so someone
"could" do it. I guess it's probably just a matter of demand. Graphic tablet
manufacturers have been on the skids (saleswise) for years, so it'd take a
very compelling reason for them to do it.


Regards


Mark

 

SW does have a 2D command line in the sketcher. I don't know of anyone
that has ever used it in production. Look in your addins for 2D.

 

P,

In ACAD 2D, or boolean solids, tha command line was actually used to do real
work.

As it is implemented in the emulator, it's nearly usless for doing anything
meaningfull in Solidworks.

Mark

 

When I was using AutoCAD I never could get used to the darn tablet. It
seemed extremely cumbersom and never moved as smothly as a mouse. Besides
what do you do without a middle mouse button how do you scroll pan rotate.
Your neck must get all screwed up too whipping back and forth. Anyway I
never found much use for it. Maybe this is because I didn't start using
AutoCad until R14. A generational thing anyway. Toolbars are the way to go.
The nice thing about SW toolbars is that it trys to remember the tools that
you have up when you are modeling and the tools you had up when you were
assembling and the tools you had up when you are drawing. And it
automatically brings back the tools when you switch between the interfaces.
Tablets had their time in the dark ages, but learn the new way of doing
things you may loose a little bit of screen to the tool bars but you won't
regret it. If it is too much for you get a bigger monitor. Maybe you could
set up a projector and have a 90" screen. =^)

Anyway I don't think the tablet is usefull anymore it had it's time in the
era of 13" monitors but isn't as relevent anymore.

And as far as the command prompt is concerned it was a quick and reliable
way of doing things 2 handed in AutoCAD but if you set up and get to know
the shortcut keys in SW you will find they can bring you back to a similar
place, Though it is best to get to know the location of the tools you want.

Corey

 

Thank you all for your thoughtful guidance. I plan to use the toolbars
and forget about the tablet approach
As a side point I am getting up to speed using the PE edition at home
and it doesn't seem to have the command line add in - so I'll just have
to do without it.

Kind regards

Bruce Murray

 

Solidworks 2D Emulator is what you want. It is still in SW, even 2005.

I think you will find the SW sketch tools work out better for making SW
sketches. Although if you are really fast with ACAD commands you might
be able to use autodimension to get fully defined sketches after laying
things out.

SW modeling does better with this 3 step process:

1. Establish toplogy (regardless of dimensions)
2. Establish remaining relations (perp., parallel, tangent, etc.)
3. Dimension starting with smallest features first and work up to large
features.

Keep fillets and the small stuff out of the sketches. They have their
own feature.

 

I think it was a sop to help convince borderline ACAD installations to have
a go at SW. Like many things that have gotten into SW over the years, this
was half baked. I would be surprised if anyone on the NG actually made
productive use of it.

At one point I think SW toyed with incorporating Visio (which is now
Intellicad). I always rooted for Anvil to make a SW drafting addin. Why
they put the 2D stuff in the sketcher is beyond me. The shift in thinking
required to go from ACAD to 3D is far more than a user interface issue.

And I do wish there was a command line in SW with a reasonably easy to use
command language.

 

Has anybody tried out one of the new Laser Mouse's that is available? The
precision is supposed to be 20X better than an optical mouse. I haven't used
one myself But I've read, from people that have used them for just for
windows applications, that they're much better than an optical mouse.

Richard