3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List

Blog Post created by Marlon Banta

on Nov 11, 2020

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The 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List is now live!

Please see this help video on how to access the SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE World Top Ten 2021 - YouTube :

I can’t remember… What is SOLIDWORKS Top Ten?

Every year SOLIDWORKS users have the ability to participate in sharing their best enhancement ideas for SOLIDWORKS. At the end of the idea submission phase, everyone then votes for their favorite ideas. The timing of the SOLIDWORKS Top Ten list coincides with the 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 conference. This year the conference will be held online, from February 8, 2021 to February 12, 2021.

The 3DSwym Platform:

The SOLIDWORKS Top Ten 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 Community will again be hosted on the 3DSwym Platform! To participate, navigate to the SOLIDWORKS Top Ten 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 Community.

Login or Register:

If you already have a 3DEXPERIENCE ID you will need to login (note you can also use your customer portal login to access the SOLIDWORKS Top Ten 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 Community).

If you don’t have either of these, you will need to click “Create your 3DEXPERIENCE ID” and provide the necessary information to register. Please be on the lookout for an email sent after registering that will ask you to validate your new 3DEXPERIENCE account. *

Important Dates:

Idea Submission Open	November 10th, 2020 through January 4th, 2021
Voting Open	January 4th through February 1st, 2021
3DEXPERIENCE WORLD	February 8th through February 12th, 2021

How to Participate:

Please see the instructional help video pinned to the top of the community which details how to post SOLIDWORKS enhancement ideas, how to tag these ideas and how to search for existing ideas (to avoid creating a duplicate idea).

* Note if you experience issues accessing the SOLIDWORKS Top Ten 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021 Community or need help, please click the help icon in the upper right corner () and then click "Get Support" to access the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on cloud support page.

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96 Comments

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Alin Vargatu @ John Stoltzfus on Nov 19, 2020 10:35 AM
John Stoltzfus wrote:

Alex Lachance wrote:

Edit: let's cut it here, I don't want to flood this thread with my tantrum.
Your input is of value and just do one thing for all of us SW users...... Just one time....

Like this Idea

https://r1132100503382-eu1-3dswym.3dexperience.3ds.com/#community:Za42tS7RTiOwsKWGiBPRDw/idea:0RICFqVnQKaHxVgiMNVZFg
That and all ideas submitted by Scott Baugh!
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John Stoltzfus @ Alin Vargatu on Nov 19, 2020 10:37 AM
Don't push Alex Lachance to hard Alin Vargatu - I'm just asking for him to like One (1) Uno
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Frank Oostendorp @ Alin Vargatu on Nov 19, 2020 10:40 AM
One thing I take from your observation is that I did not do a good job in explaining the benefits the users will get from each idea. I will go over all of them again and improve the description.
I can understand this small specific benefit for this user, but it includes the risk of yet again another type of command menu in SolidWorks, another 80% functional add in, like Property Tab Builder, Thread, Lightweight etc. making existing data less reliable and useful.
So you state:
Would it help change your perspective if I state that most are not my ideas, but my customers'? They "do not have time" to submit them, and they appreciate me doing that on their behalf.
And these are your customers:
I am a big believer in training. Most of the people that come in my classes are power-users who have been using SW for 10-20 years and believe they know everything about the "basic" stuff. After the first hour of the first day of training, most of them have already 2 pages of notes, full of exclamation marks.
So this is the basis for these ideas?

All the VAR's I had to deal with over 20 years, never understood that it is killing to not be able to use SolidWorks for half a day, not able to print or export drawings etc. Or any other problem we have seen in the last 20 years. Something that worked yesterday, but not today. Or it works 5 times, the sixth it is impossible.
So I think there is an essential difference in expectation of reliability and consistency in the VAR's point of view and in the user's view. No offence to any VAR's employees, but this is how I see it. I boost up my profile by generating new designs, with all the needed data to start producing. Not by trying Display Driver number X to check if inconsistency improves by x.xx%.
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John Stoltzfus @ Alin Vargatu on Nov 19, 2020 10:45 AM
Alin Vargatu

Of all the Ideas presented, this one is due for the TTL

https://r1132100503382-eu1-3dswym.3dexperience.3ds.com/#community:Za42tS7RTiOwsKWGiBPRDw/idea:L_uCfIQeTDWa21D16LDDGQ/com…

To quote my comment there..

"......, this isn't changing anything to the Custom Properties, the current vehicle that we need to drive has (4) steering wheels, if you need to go north you gotta use the north wheel, etc... All we need is ONE that turns to any direction we want to go.. "
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Alin Vargatu @ Frank Oostendorp on Nov 19, 2020 10:49 AM
Frank Oostendorp wrote:

And these are your customers:
I am a big believer in training. Most of the people that come in my classes are power-users who have been using SW for 10-20 years and believe they know everything about the "basic" stuff. After the first hour of the first day of training, most of them have already 2 pages of notes, full of exclamation marks.
So this is the basis for these ideas?

This is so cool! In case you would find some time next year to spend with me in a training class or in a private one-on-one session, that would be fantastic. I would be very interested to see if, at the end of our meeting, you would acquire any new tool, technique or method, that is valuable and can significantly improve your efficiency in your specific job.
I am sure I would learn a lot from you, like I learn from all my students (it usually happens in all my training/consulting sessions).
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Alex Lachance @ John Stoltzfus on Nov 19, 2020 10:49 AM
You can already mate to sketch entities? I'm not sure I follow, I do it all the time lol
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Alin Vargatu @ Alex Lachance on Nov 19, 2020 10:53 AM
Alex Lachance wrote:

You can already mate to sketch entities? I'm not sure I follow, I do it all the time lol
If you mate a point to a line segment (coincident), the movement is not limited by the length of the segment. John suggests adding a check to limit the movement on the segment.

Even better. Mate a point to a planar face and have that as a geometric limit mate. Imagine the possibilities!!!

Same for arcs and other analytical entities.

A simple checkbox to the Coincident mate would do.
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John Stoltzfus @ Alex Lachance on Nov 19, 2020 11:02 AM
Appearantly it's still not clear enough.

Draw a line in a part, dimension it... In the assembly Pick a Point from another part and mate it Coincident to the line.

Now try this...

Draw a Spline Line in the same part and dimension it and in the assembly Pick a Point from another part and mate it Coincident to the spline line.

Tell me what happens.....

Same thing happens with a Partial Circle using regular Geometry, using a Spline Line for the Circle, gives you a different result.. If we would have the ability of using any style of Geometry to mate to in a controlled manor, it would be huge, why because you could have your lines and layout sketches control your Mates and not have them flip, Limit Mates, Angle Mates etc would be a thing of the past. Just take what ever controls the Spline Lines and make the Regular Geometry act the same..
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Alin Vargatu @ Alin Vargatu on Nov 19, 2020 11:05 AM
To add to John Stoltzfus idea:

Would be great to expand this functionality to confine a point to a one or more faces or edges.
Simply add two tools to the Coincident mate:
1. A checkbox to limit the movement of the point only to the selected entities (edge(s) or face(s)),
2. The Selection Manager to allow the selection of multiple edges or multiple faces.

How cool would that be?

To answer Frank Oostendorp concerns, when the checkbox is not selected, the Coincident Mate would work as it does now.

Alternative, add a new mate called: Geometric Limit, that would limit the movement of a point on selected entities as described above.
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Alex Lachance @ Alin Vargatu on Nov 19, 2020 11:04 AM
Oh, yeah that could bring forth some pretty good ideas. Might want to add the clarification that you're looking to use sketch entities as travel path limitation or some similar wording.
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John Stoltzfus @ Alin Vargatu on Nov 19, 2020 11:04 AM
Alin Vargatu 5% away
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Alex Lachance @ John Stoltzfus on Nov 19, 2020 11:08 AM
They both give me the same result which is what makes me wonder why you are having difficulties.

If you're speaking of the same thing as Alin, then you're speaking of travel limitations
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Alin Vargatu @ John Stoltzfus on Nov 19, 2020 11:09 AM
John Stoltzfus wrote:

Alin Vargatu 5% away
And similar brainstorming goes on in the TTL on most ideas.

By missing people like Alex Lachance on the TTL, everyone is losing, SW and Alex included.
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Alex Lachance @ Alin Vargatu on Nov 19, 2020 11:13 AM
Sometimes you gotta lose some to win some.
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John Stoltzfus @ Alex Lachance on Nov 19, 2020 11:17 AM
Alex Lachance

Coincident mates Stop at the end point of a Spline line and not with a regular line Geometry... It is different.

Here if we need to control drawers or hinged lids, I'd never use the Limit or Angle Mates, I create my own Spline Line geometry and mate to that, that type of mate never flips..etc and all I need to do is double click a sketch and change the dimensions...
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Alex Lachance @ John Stoltzfus on Nov 19, 2020 11:30 AM
That's the ambiguity you were leaving out John, the movement.

You could do the same thing by double clicking your mate and editing the dimension

Edit: nevermind the edit mate part, I just understood what you meant. The spline becomes your ''limit mate'' and you can change the dimension just like you would by double clicking a mate, but the spline doesn't cause the issue you have when using mates.
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John Stoltzfus @ Alex Lachance on Nov 19, 2020 11:38 AM
No doubt Alex Lachance - Did you try it with Limit mates?

This isn't a real deal breaker that would make people drop in their tracks and gravitate towards SW, not at all, it's more like, You're with in 5% of having it and it would be pretty awesome getting rid of Flipping Toilet Seats and pinching us at the knobby
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Alin Vargatu @ Alex Lachance on Nov 19, 2020 11:45 AM
Alex Lachance wrote:

That's the ambiguity you were leaving out John, the movement.

You could do the same thing by double clicking your mate and editing the dimension

Edit: nevermind the edit mate part, I just understood what you meant. The spline becomes your ''limit mate'' and you can change the dimension just like you would by double clicking a mate, but the spline doesn't cause the issue you have when using mates.
Good point in the importance of clarifying the description.

In a nutshell, analytic entities (line, arc and planar, cylindrical, conical faces) are not limiting the mate movement by the length of the segment or the area of the surface. Only algorithmic entities (splines, or faces created with lofts, boundary or sweep features) that cannot be further untrimmed are limiting movement.

More about this challenge and possible workarounds in this article.
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Alex Lachance @ Alin Vargatu on Nov 19, 2020 11:50 AM
See, this definition is not one many people would understand
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Alin Vargatu @ Alex Lachance on Nov 19, 2020 11:53 AM
Alex Lachance wrote:

See, this definition is not one many people would understand
That is why having a place to discuss and clarify ideas is a must.
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Alin Vargatu @ Alex Lachance on Nov 19, 2020 12:13 PM
Alex Lachance wrote:

Sometimes you gotta lose some to win some.
And sometimes you gotta lose some to lose some. Like this time.
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Alin Vargatu @ Alex Lachance on Nov 19, 2020 12:22 PM
Alex Lachance wrote:

See, this definition is not one many people would understand
Alex, look at this beauty of an idea from Matt Juric. A perfect 5% example.

Nothing new and major that would scare Frank, but something small and delicate and... incredibly powerful.

Implementing only this idea will save all SW users hours or even days, every year. Imagine how much more relaxed they will feel after work...

Don't tell me your fingers are not itching to vote for it. I would not believe you.
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John Stoltzfus @ Alin Vargatu on Nov 19, 2020 12:22 PM
Alin Vargatu wrote:

More about this challenge and possible workarounds in this article.
I think this The 11th Weekly Power-User Challenge (October 20th, 2017): Flipping Mates - Robot Case Study might be a better explanation and example
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Alin Vargatu @ John Stoltzfus on Nov 19, 2020 12:24 PM
John Stoltzfus wrote:

Alin Vargatu wrote:

More about this challenge and possible workarounds in this article.
I think this The 11th Weekly Power-User Challenge (October 20th, 2017): Flipping Mates - Robot Case Study might be a better explanation and example

And if you want to go in 3D, you can escalate it to this one. Apply a Volume Limit mate!!!
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Alin Vargatu Nov 19, 2020 12:25 PM
Isn't this nuts, that we are brainstorming in the comments of a blog post that very few people would ever see?

I cannot see this blog on the main page of the forum.

We should move this discussion on the TTL.
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