SOLIDWORKS WORLD 2016 (SWW16) - Day 1: The call for General Session doors to open at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Center in Dallas came just after 8:00am. Seconds later, spurred on by the thunderous sounds of AC/DC, the world’s best engineers quite literally sprinted (see circa the 28 second mark in the top video) through Hall D to claim their seats at one of the biggest shows in design technology.
A quick recap of SOLIDWORKS announcements
SOLIDWORKS CEO Gian Paolo Bassi took to the stage at SOLIDWORKS World 2016 and introduced the day’s themes: flexibility and innovation. It’s not just about providing tools to solve problems faster. The key to creating better products comes through a combination of creativity and execution.
Gian Paolo then introduced President and CEO of Dassault Systèmes Bernard Charlès to the main stage. In addition to continuing Dassault Systèmes commitment to investing in SOLIDWORKS today and tomorrow, Charlès shared several examples of how designers around the world are bringing amazing projects to life with 3DEXPERIENCE platform. These projects included examples like mapping Singapore to improve city life to sustainable construction in Japan and bringing the power of innovation to individuals and small and medium-sized businesses. Each example included a common thread: experience.
People are driving how the platform is built. The SOLIDWORKS community is 5 million users strong, taught in nearly 30K schools and includes 175K certified users. The users are passionate, demanding and brilliant; the applications they need to make products happen must meet the same criteria. It’s this group that dictates how SOLIDWORKS improves.
Applications
Applications are the tools that people need to innovate and, therefore, SOLIDWORKS places an enormous amount of investment. For example, SOLIDWORKS 2016 included hundreds of user-requested enhancements. These types of updates that occur in every annual release extend the depth of SOLIDWORKS capabilities.
Newly announced applications include:
SOLIDWORKS Visualize, a suite of rendering tools, helps organizations, including nontechnical users, leverage 3D CAD data to create photorealistic marketing content that is print and web-ready in minutes. Find more information on SOLIDWORKS Visualize here.
SOLIDWORKS PCB is a partnership with Altium allowing users to design printed circuit boards used in many IoT designs. This is immensely important as consumer demand for experiences and connected devices becomes the norm. Find more on SOLIDWORKS PCB here.
3D printing integration with Sindoh means one-click printing directly from SOLIDWORKS with the capability to check progress from your desktop or mobile device. Read this blog post for more information on this exciting new integration.
Infrastructure
The infrastructure piece is how your applications are delivered. For SOLIDWORKS users, this means three flexible options: Desktop, Connected, and Online.
Before introducing new payment options, Gian Paolo stated that our users’ best understand the needs of their businesses. Traditional perpetual licenses are here to stay. There’s an immense value in owning software and investing in subscription is of critical importance. Gian Paolo compared SOLIDWORKS subscription to buying a car from a dealer, then going back a year later to receive the latest upgrades. The new term license option is what’s new. Now users can decide to rent SOLIDWORKS for one quarter or longer, providing flexible and scalable options that better suit another set of users. SOLIDWORKS Online Trials are also now available and will be extended to 14 languages.
SOLIDWORKS WORLD 2016 (SWW16) – Day 2:
Groundhog Day, but it’s not the same old thing at SOLIDWORKS World. Day two is all about the community, and with a group of dedicated users as large and creative as this one, you never hear the same story twice.
On day two, SOLIDWORKS revealed updates to MySolidWorks, SOLIDWORKS EDU, and the SOLIDWORKS Entrepreneur program, along with new releases, which included SOLIDWORKS Make and SOLIDWORKS Apps for Kids. In addition, several amazing customers spoke about how they are creating breakthrough products in the very different worlds of brewing, aerospace and lingerie—all with SOLIDWORKS.
Suchit Jain, SOLIDWORKS Vice President of Strategy and Community, began the day by introducing MySolidWorks as a must-use tool for SOLIDWORKS users. With more than 700 training sessions, integration with the SOLIDWORKS forums, and online product trials, MySolidWorks is the place to go for all things SOLIDWORKS. Learn more about today’s updates in this blog post. http://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/2016/02/mysolidworks-its-all-about-you-and-solidworks.html
Director of the SOLIDWORKS User Group Network, Richard Doyle, introduced two significant milestones for the network: the 20th anniversaries of the San Diego and Seattle user group chapters. Richard then announced the winners of the annual SWUGN awards:
- User group of the year: New Mexico, William Radigan
- User group leader of the year: Nicole Walden, Chattanooga
- Michelle Pillers community award: Jeff Holliday, Mid-Atlantic
SOLIDWORKS WORLD 2016 (SWW16) – Day 3:
The SOLIDWORKS Manufacturing Ecosystem
Featuring 60 Gold Partners, the SOLIDWORKS manufacturing ecosystem enables engineering and manufacturing teams to work concurrently. There’s no data importing – you can take your products from art to part inside SOLIDWORKS. Model-Based Definition (MBD) is at the center of the ecosystem. Since introducing MBD last year, the ecosystem has now expanded to include Model -Based Manufacturing, Model-Based CMM, Model-Based Costing and Model-Based Inspection.
Kishore shared the story of .decimal, a custom manufacturer of devices for proton, electron, and photon therapies used in cancer treatment. In a nutshell, .decimal receives patient information from a medical provider and WITHIN 24 HOURS manufactures a custom device. During its existence, .decimal has served more than 51K patients with 200K custom devices. This is an amazing achievement made possible with the SOLIDWORKS manufacturing ecosystem and its partnership with CAMWorks. Click here to read more about the SOLIDWORKS Manufacturing Ecosystem.
The SOLIDWORKS Connected Device Ecosystem
From ovens and watches to pet products, connected devices are everywhere. To demonstrate the breadth of connected technology, Kishore discussed SureFlap and its line of pet doors. When installed, SureFlap uses microchips to give your pet access to your house, while keeping unwanted visitors out.
As was demonstrated on day two, some of the most innovative ideas come from taking a new approach to an established product. Connected devices are one way engineers are taking designs to the next level. For SureFlap to improve the dog and cat door, it used a combination of SOLIDWORKS, Xively and NETVIBES. This ecosystem included product design via SOLIDWORKS, connecting the device to the cloud with Xively, and finally partnering with NETVIBES to process and analyze the information flowing into the smart device.
