The CAD Insider

SolidWorks User Awards Go to Woods, Tiffany, Fisher, NYCSWUG

picture thanks to @SolidSmack

ORLANDO, FL (SolidWorks World), Jan 23, 2013 - Anna Woods received the Michelle Pillars Community Award. The award, along with all user group awards, was presented on the big stage at 2013 SolidWorks annual user meeting by SolidWorks user community manager Richard Doyle. Anna is a member of the Kansas City SolidWorks User Group and writes the Solid Muse blog.

picture thanks to @kennethwongSF

The late Wayne Tiffany (1955-2012) was honored with a new award in his name, user group leader of the year. Wayne, a veteran SolidWorks user, lost his battle with cancer last year. The award was received by his sons, Michael and Josh. SolidWorks has honored Wayne with an "Easter egg." Apparently, you can hold down Shift and click on the red SolidWorks logo in SolidWorks 2013 to see it.*

The inaugural User Group Leader of the Year Award ws given to Peter Fisher, head of the Central Indiana SolidWorks User Group, by Peter by Michael and Josh Tiffany. 

picture courtesy of LinkedIn

• User Group of the Year: New York City SolidWorks User Group (NYCSWUG)
  
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*According to CATI Tech Notes. 

Beloved SolidWorks Is Intact - So Far

ORLANDO, FL, Jan 20, 2013 - If you had been freaking out about what Dassault might be doing to your beloved SolidWorks, you would probably be reassured here at SolidWorks World 2013.

SolidWorks CEO Bertrand Sicot opens the annual user conference (entire 90 minute keynote on You Tube)

At last year's event, SolidWorks newly appointed VP or R&D, Gian Paulo Bassi stated that SolidWorks future lay in two versions, each relying on different kernels (see SolidWorks: The Kernel Change). One would be the tried and true Parasolid, which SolidWorks has used since its inception. The other would be CATIA's CGM kernel.

Though meant to be reassuring at the time and an answer to FUD* campaigns from competitors, all indications pointed to the upstart CGM being the kernel of choice for the future. After all, CGM was owned by the Dassault "family," whereas Parasolid was owned by a competitor. But with the new engine would come data incompatibility...and who knows what else? Can you rip out the engine from a Mustang and put in one from a Camaro? This led to uncertainty among users and may have even shaken their faith.

Though the show has only wrapped up its first day, there has been little mention of SolidWorks V6, as the CGM version of SolidWorks was known. In fact, there has been little mention of anything by Gian Paulo. After being very much the highly visible champion of SolidWorks V6, he has not even taken the stage, not the main stage or gone up front with the other executives during the media Q&A. Could it be that plans for SolidWorks V6 have been shelved?

At the risk of reading too much into the tea leaves, consider that V6 technology has been rolled out only into Mechanical Conceptual** shown this morning on the main stage. Though underwhelming in its ability (a front-end to SolidWorks rather than a robust modeler) that is far from finished (not released til Fall), it seems to be -- at least so far -- SolidWorks' big announcement.

But sometimes, what is not said is just as important as what is not said. No shakeup. None of the "it's good for you, now open wide." A gentle rollout. Mechanical Conceptual is a tool. Use it alongside your beloved SolidWorks, not instead of it.

Maybe what we are seeing now, is a kinder, gentler Dassault. Or maybe one that just listens.

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**Fear, uncertainty and doubt

**Hopefully just a working name. What's wrong with SolidConcepts?

Scenes from SolidWorks World 2013, Pt 1

SolidWorks World 2013 in Orlando, FL is based in the Swan and Dolphin Hotel inside Disney World. Nearby is a man-made lake with a boardwalk around it. Florida's natural lakes are not as pretty.

Matt West, SolidWorks social media guru, lists some of the metrics of online success. Did you know YouTube is the 2nd most popular search function, 2nd to Google? SolidWorks corporate blogs got 1.1 million page views in 2012.

I don't like to brag, but..." SolidWorks goes over 2 million users, announces CEO Bertrand Sicot. Of this number, about 800,000 are industry users, the rest have educational seats.

Dassault CEO Bernard Charles again tries to explain the 3DEXPERINCE. Halo around his head is purely unintentional.

Bernard gives an overview of Dassault, of which SolidWorks is a part.

Bernard proud of Dassault being among Forbes top "innovative companies." Zoom in and you can see they are ahead of PTC, Autodesk and SAP.

Bernard determined to raise the global awareness of Dassault. Here he shows a few of Dassault's ads. If you have gone through a major airport recently, you have probably done a double take. Trade press is conspiciously absent.

Feel worn out after a flight? Try breaking sound barrier - without an airplane. Hearing about Felix Baumgartner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner) Keynote speakers detail how they sent Felix to a height of 128,000 feet and had him jump, going over Mach 1 on the way down -- and surviving! As the video showed him stepped off the gondola, all 4,500 people in the audience seemed to hold their breath.

Mcor prints anything --including an all too lifelike head--using ordinary copy paper and some glue, and claims the lowest cost per model. Color models being done with their new Iris machine. http://www.mcortechnologies.com/

The press room lists over 125 media members invited to SolidWorks World 2013

SolidWorks CEO Bertrand Sicot makes the rounds on the exhibit floor, stopping at the My.SolidWorks.com booth. My.SolidWorks.com, a customer information portal, was announced at the show. In the foreground (in black) is Greg Jankowski, author, and contributor for the portal.

SolidWorks Announces My.SolidWorks.com Customer Portal

SolidWorks World 2013 ORLANDO, FL, Jan 20, 2013 - SolidWorks will announce its customer portal, my.SolidWorks.com, tomorrow when it kicks off its annual user meeting.

Currently in beta, and open to all (go to my.solidworks.com), it is mostly an aggregation of content previously found on SolidWorks websites, or published by select SolidWorks VARs, like FISHER/UNITECH, which is often supplies good tutorials for SolidWorks users. In addition, it has case histories, even a tweet or two. Some items are several months old so you may have seem them already. I see the most prolific SolidWorks employees (Marie Planchard, Greg Jankowski, Matt West) are well represented.

According to SolidWorks, content is just a start, as the plan is to provide a common interface to a host of offerings: articles, customer service, support... and probably targeted sales messages.

Clearly, a site like this would be most useful if could be customized per the interest of the individual user, such as what Amazon does by rearranging its "storefront" each time I enter, suggesting things I might like to buy. Knowing a user is in the automotive industry should place automotive content front and center, and not bother the user with case histories from electronic companies, or medical products, for example. 

My.SolidWorks is also meant to be be customized, as are most "My" sites, though I'll have to take their word for it. I tried to login, but could not, as it recognized me as previous user. An account long forgotten, I'm sure, but trying to regenerate a new password was also unsuccessful. Oh, that's beta sites for you! I'll try again, soon.

Anyway, could you not find all this content already on the www.solidworks.com site, I ask? SolidWorks says the search is much better. My.SolidWorks.com is built on Exalead, the French search engine purchased years ago by Dassault. Virtually unknown in the US, the acquisition had most CAD insiders scratching their heads as to what the CAD company was up to. Apparently, it has found some use among at least one of its divisions. My.SolidWorks.com also used the NetVibes technology, another head scratcher.