E-drawings & Solidworks Seminar.

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keithsloan52
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E-drawings & Solidworks Seminar.

Post by keithsloan52 »

Got invited to and went to a local Solidworks seminar. Boy does it look a sleek product and was very snappy. Apparently, they advise customers to invest in NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards which make a big difference. But at over £5,000 for the standard edition plus over £1,000 per year subscription it would need to be good and outside a lot of peoples range certainly hobbyists like me.

Any FreeCAD users with a NVIDA Quadro graphics card?

Anyway, they also demode e-drawing which is a free app you can get on a mobile that does augmented reality. see http://www.edrawingsviewer.com it apparently supports STEP files so one should be able to export one's FreeCAD models to STEP format and use it. I believe e-drawings was originally developed by Bunkspeed and Solidworks bought it,
chrisb
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Re: E-drawings & Solidworks Seminar.

Post by chrisb »

Could you elaborate about the learning curve? How long was the seminar, preconditioned knowledge of the attendees, knowledge after the seminar, ...
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rstech
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Re: E-drawings & Solidworks Seminar.

Post by rstech »

Bear in mind that e-drawings is now a commercial application. I believe its only free to use for 1 year. To create an e-drawing you need an 3d application who supports the format. Its actually a 3D viewer, with nice features to make cross-sections and switch parts on and off for people who do not have a 3D application. Great for exchanging your information.
Its now owned by Dassault the owner of Solidworks and Catia.
keithsloan52
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Re: E-drawings & Solidworks Seminar.

Post by keithsloan52 »

rstech wrote: Thu Jan 24, 2019 12:36 pm Bear in mind that e-drawings is now a commercial application. I believe its only free to use for 1 year. To create an e-drawing you need an 3d application who supports the format. Its actually a 3D viewer, with nice features to make cross-sections and switch parts on and off for people who do not have a 3D application. Great for exchanging your information.
Its now owned by Dassault the owner of Solidworks and Catia.
The latest versions i.e. 2.2 onwards support Viewing STEP files

"I believe its only free to use for 1 year" Not my understanding the viewer is free no time limits. The publishers cost.

Just checked App store on Mac and it says supports STEP. Same story for Android.
Last edited by keithsloan52 on Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
keithsloan52
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Re: E-drawings & Solidworks Seminar.

Post by keithsloan52 »

chrisb wrote: Thu Jan 24, 2019 8:38 am Could you elaborate about the learning curve? How long was the seminar, preconditioned knowledge of the attendees, knowledge after the seminar, ...
No prior knowledge required, just some knowledge of what CAD is.
Was from 9:30am to 12:00noon and given by SolidSolutions the UK distributor/supporter https://www.solidsolutions.co.uk
First short video presentation of the company.
Demo of creating the part shown on the web page.
Demo of simulation of moving, analysing etc.
A brief overview of other products like Geomagic.

Two of the guys attending were about to evaluate it for Sheet metal work so some extra stuff was demo'ed for them. Basically, they were happy to answer any questions and demo things.
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NormandC
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Re: E-drawings & Solidworks Seminar.

Post by NormandC »

What's with the Solidworks advert? :|

I've witnessed such demos, of course they always paint the software in the best light.

keithsloan52 wrote: Thu Jan 24, 2019 8:07 am I believe e-drawings was originally developed by Bunkspeed and Solidworks bought it
No, it wasn't. eDrawings has always been developed by SolidWorks.

Bunkspeed makes the Shot add-on rendering software. Bunkspeed split off from Hypershot after a dispute between the founders. They parted ways, one starting Bunkspeed, the other Luxion, with competing KeyShot (notice the name "shot" being used in all cases).

keithsloan52 wrote: Thu Jan 24, 2019 8:07 am Apparently, they advise customers to invest in NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards which make a big difference.
In my own experience having used both Quadro and GeForce (gaming) cards, it does not make a difference with medium-size assemblies (unless maybe if you enable all the graphics gizmos that SW has). At work we just use GeForce cards without any more graphics issues than we used to get with Quadro cards. Quadro cards sell with a hefty premium.

Of course, if you need to create a lot of renders, a Quadro may be useful (assuming Bunkspeed Shot works like Luxion KeyShot, using the GPU for real-time image processing), but only if you start with a medium range card (at least $1000USD), an entry model isn't worth it.
keithsloan52
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Re: E-drawings & Solidworks Seminar.

Post by keithsloan52 »

Just looked a e-drawing in the App store on the Mac and it said the latest version 2.2 supported STEP. Tried it and it does.

Android version of e-drawings info says updated Dec 2017 also supports STEP file.

So looks like you can export a FreeCAD design as STEP and use e-drawing on Android to view.

No time to check further this week but will try next
Last edited by keithsloan52 on Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
chrisb
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Re: E-drawings & Solidworks Seminar.

Post by chrisb »

keithsloan52 wrote: Thu Jan 24, 2019 5:36 pm No prior knowledge required, just some knowledge of what CAD is.
Was from 9:30am to 12:00noon and given by SolidSolutions the UK distributor/supporter https://www.solidsolutions.co.uk
First short video presentation of the company.
Demo of creating the part shown on the web page.
Demo of simulation of moving, analysing etc.
A brief overview of other products like Geomagic.
Thanks for reporting. I had hoped it was a seminar about learning to work with SolidWorks.
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keithsloan52
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Re: E-drawings & Solidworks Seminar.

Post by keithsloan52 »

chrisb wrote: Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:47 pm
keithsloan52 wrote: Thu Jan 24, 2019 5:36 pm No prior knowledge required, just some knowledge of what CAD is.
Was from 9:30am to 12:00noon and given by SolidSolutions the UK distributor/supporter https://www.solidsolutions.co.uk
First short video presentation of the company.
Demo of creating the part shown on the web page.
Demo of simulation of moving, analysing etc.
A brief overview of other products like Geomagic.
Thanks for reporting. I had hoped it was a seminar about learning to work with SolidWorks.
I think they charge for training
herbk
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Re: E-drawings & Solidworks Seminar.

Post by herbk »

Hi Chris,
chrisb wrote: Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:47 pm Thanks for reporting. I had hoped it was a seminar about learning to work with SolidWorks.
i have had a two days seminar at fall 2016, as our school was in mind they must buy it... :roll: :roll:

For me the GUI layout workflow is very much designd to windows user, because the GUI looks like MS Office and all Ops are only to use with Pop ups.
Also some names of OPs are very strange for me, at least the german translation.

As a long (and only) Linux user i have had big probs to find the things. Also i miss the Data Box, where i can change parameters directly, it works only by doubleclich (or icon selection) and waiting till the tools GUI is popt up.
For me the use of it feels combersome and i made a contest with the guy who teacht us: lets try who is faster to build a part (that easy one which he had as sample part to build for the course participators), he using SW against me and FC (0.16 at this tme), - I won with abaut 20% less needed time...

And: As i asked for things for creating milling pathes and CFD: It's posible by aditional moules, each at a 4 digit price range.

What's fine on SW is the Assembly tool, wich has same very usefull features... May be i should talk with Klaus about it... ;)
Gruß Herbert
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