DISQUS

Matt · 1 year ago

Josh,

One of us must be ill. We agree on several things.

Matt

Josh M · 1 year ago

ha! Maggie and I both laughed out loud when we read your comment Matt. : ) C'mon man, I bet we actually agree on a lot of things. We know what's fun to model in SolidWorks and what's not fun (you better than I in most cases) - I just have a weakness for new interfaces : )

Rod_Uding · 1 year ago

I like the rectangle goodies, the numeric input will save time. I will have to lean on the IT group to get us upgraded ASAP when SP 0.0 comes out. Awseome post on the new stuff

Josh M · 1 year ago

Thanks Rod. The numeric input makes sketching REALLY fast. It's aslo one of those things you notice when going back to a previous version that frustrate the heck out of you and makes you realize how good a simple piece of functionality something like that can be.

Kyle Mason · 1 year ago

"Tommy likey, Tommy want Wingy"

Nice new features. What is the hinge mate?

Josh M · 1 year ago

The hinge mate allows you to add a concentric/coincident mate and set a min and max value for angle. Workaround for this previously was setting up multiple mates for min/max travel.

John · 1 year ago

Thanks for the goodies. I have been messing with 2009 on and off - I love it thus far. One think they should have done is to take your numeric input in sketches and give you the option to convert them to actual dimensions. That way you can dimension your part as you draw it - at least have it be an option. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that's an option.

John

Josh M · 1 year ago

yeah John, you're dimensioning as you're sketching. It's quick. After trying it in 2009, go back to 07 or 08 and try sketching... feels weird without having the inputs come up.

Jim · 1 year ago

It's about time SolidWorks does something about their "paper-space" capabilities.
I gripped, bit&^*ed and complained about the crappy performance to anyone that ad an ear LOL.
The numeric input is up there on the list too.
I came from the board and AutoCad. I have used Pro-e and Inventor, SolidWorks is by FAR the best one going so far. If they can get their "paper-space" and 2D sketching on par with ACAD (ease of use/manipulation,etc) I'd Love it even more. Looks like they are heading that way.
Thanks for info !!

Jerry_Steiger · 1 year ago

Negative dimensions! And you didn't count that as number one? If this works everywhere, or at least nearly everywhere, it is a huge improvement.

It certainly sounds like SW picked up on a lot of our complaints. If it works as well as it sounds it will be the best new release in quite some time.

Jerry Steiger

Josh M · 1 year ago

yeah Jerry, I know that is huge huh. It works good too. I'll need to go into detail on some of those others.

Sasikumar · 1 year ago

Hi, thanks for this article. Do you know how multi-threaded Solidworks 2009 is? Does going for multi-core CPU's help it greatly?
Thanks..

Josh M · 1 year ago

Hi Sasikumar. right now, dual core is going to be sufficient, unless you're doing rendering or simulation (FEA) that will use all the cores available.

Sasikumar · 1 year ago

Cool..Thanks..

Gareth · 1 year ago

I don't want 2009. I want 2006, 07 or 08 to work properly. Solidworks is another company driven by the greed for more money through yearly release cycles which force the design and engineering world to subscribe to yet another set of largely useless usability features which won't improve performance because the application will keep crashing. And they make it even more unfair by not allowing for backwards compatability.... yet when I want to open a Photoshop 6.0 file in CS3... i am able to do that.

I would rather pay Solidworks to get 2008 right with updates rather than for a new 2009 with a whole list of other problems.

Does anyone ever complain about Adobe Photoshop? Granted it’s a whole different application, but could the fact that they don’t bring out new version every single year have something to do with it?

Josh M · 1 year ago

Hey there Gareth! I'd come pretty close to saying that solidworks 09 is 06,07 and 08 that works, at least from all that I've put it through. I've had very few problems - about as much as I would have with a new version of Photoshop.

Photoshop (by the way, i think you meant open a Photoshop CS3 file in 6, right?) has it's share of issues. If you go to the adobe forums you'll see issues that people have. Adobe doesn't release updates like SolidWorks though, They're a little more inconspicuous.

But yeah, I'd like that backwards compatibility too. The adobe business model in general is just one of the most successful I've seen, but still a lot of their growth came from illegal use. kinda crazy. Thanks for the comments!

Gareth · 1 year ago

Thanks for the reply Josh... and yes I did mean CS3 in 6. I realise there are new part/assembly features in SW that will create issues opening in an older version, but it would not be difficult to suppress these and require the user to create the feature in an alternative way.

"Recognise Features" in SW does a fine job of bringing in 3rd party models.... I just wonder, why the heck SW dosn't allow the same thing with their own part files?! Answer: Subscription Money perhaps?

philip o reilly · 9 months ago

DCG "09"

Zoran · 2 months ago

Talking about Photoshop and SolidWorks compatibility.
It would have been great if I could design something in SolidWorks, and transfer it to layers in Photoshop. I have once designed something in SolidWorks , saved it as a .jpg and tried it on the web and it did not open, because the SolidWorks does not save just the designed drawing as a .jpg but everything on the screen, it lacks a lot in web designing capabilities. It is no use for the web at all. I know there are other programs specifically designed for the use on web design but SolidWorks has jet nothing to offer.
As you maybe could have guessed, I am an Mechanical Engineer turned Web Designer.

Josh M · 2 months ago

I hear ya Zoran. the SolidWorks to PS is not where it could be. I haven't had a chance to test the 3D functionality in CS4 between SolidWorks and PS. I'm hoping there is some good compatibility there.