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A Reader Responds to My SolidWorks Rant
From Jim Wilfong, here in Northern California-
I started working with SW, due to a job change,
about 6 years back after being a long time Acad/MDT
user (before IV!) and have wondered how the "other
half" has been doing with IV. I have talked with lots
of folks that are heavy IV users, but have not run
into anyone with what I would consider a balanced
perspective of having used both in the "real world".
Having only played with IV (I have a seat of IV on
maintenance from my consulting days when my MDT
seat was converted to the Inventor Series, but I
have never trained on IV) I have not formed a strong
option of how IV stacks up against SW, but it seems
both get the job done, each with it's own strengths,
weaknesses, and similarities (i.e. quirks).
With that long-winded introduction, I wanted to let
you know I have really enjoyed your recent
SW "rants" and "comments", in particular with
respect to your IV experiences!!! Keep them coming!
Some of the things you have pointed out are the
same gripes I have, while some have work arounds
(that I have learned on the job or from other users,
NOT from SW documentation or training). For
example, to flip the display normal, click the "Normal
To" icon twice (does not change the “as created”
sketch normal direction, but is a quick way to change
the display view to the "back" side). I came across
this by accident when I clicked the icon twice and
realized what happened!
I'm also curious about your comment on "common
space". In looking thought the IV documentation I
can't find a reference in the help file. In SW I can
hit the spacebar and bring up standard, as well as
save/recall custom views, but I'm not sure if this is
equivalent to common space. I'd be interested in
learning more about "common space".
Speaking from experience, I'm sure you will come
across many more SW issues that "bug" you,
especially based on your Acad/IV background!
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| The Common View in Inventor |
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SW users want to know...what is the Common View
(Space) I keep talking about in Inventor...simply a
really great tool to quickly orient your model exactly
the way you want to see it. Simply right click,
select Isometric, then hit the space bar and you are
in Common View mode. Next select the green arrow
of your choice and the view automatically resets to
the selected perspective. Neat!
SW does not have anything similar...The best you
can do is use your arrow keys to rotate your model in
degree increments (you can set the increments in
your Options dialog). If you set the increment to 45
degrees, you can approximate what Inventor's
Common View does, but it is tedious at best and
annoying when you know Inventor has this tool.
I had hoped to learn enough about SW API to simply
create a custom tool that did the same thing, but
now that I am back in Inventor, that probably won't
happen.
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| Batch Plotting from Inventor |
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So, my new office wanted to batch convert a couple
hundred idw files from Inventor to DWG, DXF, and
PDF so they could distribute the files to outside
contractors in a format the outsiders could use.
Easy, says I, I'll just write a little VB program that
will handle that and we'll be golden.
Thanks to Sanjay Ramaswamy of Autodesk who
provided me with much needed support to get my
code to work. There were a couple of hurdles that I
needed to surmount. First, my user had put all the
idw files in a separate directory from the ipt and iam
files...how to get the program to effectively "Skip All"
everytime a file was opened? Sanjay provided the
answer....Setting the Application.SilentOperation
property to True will use the “Skip” option when
opening documents. Remember to turn the property
off at the end of your batch process.
Sanjay also suggested I use the Class ID to specify
DWG or DXF Translators, but I was concerned that
the Class ID could be changed depending on the
release of Inventor used. Alternatively, I possibly
could have located the Class ID in the system
registry, and specified it that way, but that seemed
like more coding than I wanted to take on.
The next hurdle had to do with the PDF conversion.
Adobe would bring up the Save dialog box with the
file name for each process. That needed to be
suppressed as well as the launch of Adobe with each
file creation. This can only be done in Properties
dialog for Adobe...alternatively, you can modify it in
the System Registry, but I really don't like messing in
the Registry.
So, locate your Adobe printer on your Control Panel,
right click and go to Properties. Go to Advanced.
Then UNCHECK the Prompt for filename and the
Preview options. This allows the batch process to
move forward without requiring any input from the
user.
I have zipped the files here for your use. You have
the Visual Basic 6 files, and the compiled EXE
program. For those users who just want to use the
program, simply extract the exe file and use it to
your heart's content. For those of you who want to
create your own Batch Processing utility, refer to the
VB files as a starting point.
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Download the files here... |
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| New Icons in Revit Building 9 |
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If you use worksets in Revit, version 9 has all sorts
of gee-whiz tools to allow you to manage editable
vs. non-editable elements/worksets. There is a new
icon that will appear that allows to set an element of
a workset editable as long as the workset has not
been checked out by another user.
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| Lock Your View in SolidWorks |
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So, I'm adding dimensions in a SolidWorks 2D drawing
and my view keeps getting selected (and shifted)
instead of the dimension getting added. I am getting
peeved, but then the next time I select the view, I
right click and there on the short-cut menu...Lock
the View. I do, I am done...and I am a happy
camper...the view no longer shifts when I add
dimensions...it stays fixed right where it belongs.
Hurrah!
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