I was delighted to find that I could download the SolidWorks format of every fastener I required with the full history tree intact, and also with the full modelled thread. A big kudos to McMaster-Carr. See below a nice screenshot of a bolt, nut and a square flange mounted bearing with the full history tree.

Some Parts downloaded from McMaster-Carr with the complete History Tree and full modelled thread.

How to turn on Ambient Occlusion in SolidWorks 2012

Even though it appears that if the RealView Graphics icon is not available, the Ambient Occlusion does appear, however both “RealView Graphics” and “Ambient Occlusion” need to be turned on.

Before and After Ambient Occlusion

SolidWorks 2012 with Ambient Occlusion (Note the extra shadows in the wheels and seat)

SolidWorks 2012 with RealView Graphics only (Note: no depth shadows visible)

Further details

You may find that as you rotate the model, the Ambient Occlusion shading disappears, and as soon as you stop rotating, the shading and shadows re-appear. There is a “Draft Quality Ambient Occlusion” option which can be turned on.
Tools -> Options -> System Options -> Display/Selection -> “Display draft quality ambient occlusion”.
When this is turned on, you can rotate in 3d and have the Ambient Occlusion shadows remain in real-time, however it is a more draft quality shading.

Either way, it makes models really stand out. It’s great for doing Animations without having to render in PhotoView360 which would take quite a long time.

RealView (top) and No RealView (bottom)

RealView Graphics in SolidWorks (View drop-down -> Display -> RealView Graphics) makes your models look visually impressive on the screen. You get to see the materials and floor reflections in real-time, without having to render the model in PhotoView.

There are certified graphics cards recommended by SolidWorks (ATI FireGL and nVidia Quadro ranges) which have this RealView functionality, however they can be expensive (as they are specifically for CAD Applications, as opposed to Gaming). In saying that, you can get a cheap RealView certified graphics card for ~€125.

Gaming Graphics Card used

A while back, I got a Medion MD8855 computer in Aldi, which had an ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card with 1024 MB memory. As expected after installing and opening SolidWorks, the RealView graphics icon (View -> Display -> RealView) was greyed out. Also, under Tools -> System Options -> Performance, “Use Software OpenGL” was unticked, as it should be, unless you have an onboard or very poor graphics card.

RealView Icon

Software OpenGL Option

Enable RealView Graphics

If you google, there are two main methods. One is using RivaTuner to adjust your graphics card/drivers, saying your graphics card is actually a ATI FireGL or nVidia Quadro. Another is to modify SolidWorks with a RealHack exe program (which edits the registry settings for SolidWorks). The RealHack program worked perfectly for me with SolidWorks 2011 SP5 x64 on x64 Windows.

1. Download the RealHack program
   (google realhack rar download) (local copy)
2. Make sure SolidWorks is closed
3. Run the exe and click ATI or NVIDIA.
4. Open SolidWorks. Check for the RealView icon.
   (I didn’t have to reboot the PC)

Note: This didn’t work for me previously on SolidWorks 2010. If it doesn’t work, then there is not much you can do, but to research the references and find out more information. Links to reference websites for RealHack are Ref1, Ref2, Ref3

Background

Using process monitor, you can see what realhack does. It appears to (only) add entries to the registry. There is also a RealHack 2.0 available which supposedly works for SolidWorks 2012 (which has Ambient Occlusion). Again, you can find this with google (local copy). Presumably this app enters different registry entries depending on what your current graphics card is. Of course SW may change things in the future and this app may not work. It is surprising however as to why SolidWorks doesn’t allow RealView to work on more graphics (gaming or other) cards.

(Reference)

Many models have inside or re-entrant corners which can cause high stress concentrations

High Stress Concentrations are also caused by incorrect boundary conditions (aka loads and restraints).

Example 1 – Tensile Test

The video on the following page compares Hand Calculations to SimulationXpress and SolidWorks Simulation with Reference Geometry restraints, for a tensile test of a steel cylinder.
Simply putting a “Fixed” restraint on a face (which a lot of people just do) is a blind and often an incorrect approach and can cause high stress concentrations. A better method involving using a “Sliding” restraint combined with a Reference Geometry condition can be used to overcome these high stress concentrations.

Putting a "Fixed" restraint on a face may cause high stress concentrations.

 Example 2 – Use a Soft Material

The following article proposes to use a “springy foundation pad” with a low youngs modulus and low poisson’s ratio, attached to the part you want to secure. The springy material will absorb high stress concentrations when a force is applied. Link -> http://www.capinc.com/2011/04/06/imaginary-materials

Use a springy foundation pad part or body attached to the part being loaded

Note: Archived originals

It does work, and very nicely.
If you want to quickly copy a SolidWorks Drawing View into Draftsight/AutoCAD/DWG without having to go Saving As a DWG etc. this tip will save time.

Copy from SolidWorks to DWG / Draftsight

1. Select the Drawing View in SolidWorks
2. Edit (drop-down menu) -> Copy to DWG Format
3. Go to Draftsight
4. Edit (drop-down menu) -> Paste
5. Left Click to Paste the View into Draftsight

Select Drawing View in SW -> Edit Menu -> Copy to DWG Format -> Go to CAD -> Edit -> Paste

Of course the reverse is equally true. You can copy and paste directly from Draftsight DWG into a new Sketch in SolidWorks. CTRL+C and CTRL+V make things nice and easy.

Copy from DWG / Draftsight to SolidWorks

1. Window select what you want to copy in Draftsight/CAD
2. Press CTRL+C
3. Go to SolidWorks
4. Create a New Part
5. Create a New Sketch
6. Left Click into the Graphics Area
7. Press CTRL+V
8. Zoom out

About Draftsight

Just a quick word on draftsight. It is a free 2D CAD Program which will let you open and save all version of AutoCAD. Its interface is very similar to AutoCAD with layers, grid, layouts and object tracking (called etrack). I remember using AutoSketch in 1999 which I got from a Computer Magazine, to draw up go-kart plans. If I had Draftsight back then, things would have been a lot easier. Draftsight is available for Windows, Apple MACs and also Ubuntu Linux. Head to www.draftsight.com to download your copy now.

"D1@Pattern1" = int("D1@Sketch1"/1200)+1

int() rounds down to the nearest whole number.

Kudos to forums.solidworks.com

Error: The database file ‘C:\SolidWorks Data\lang\english\swbrowser.mdb’ is not the expected version.

Typically you would see this error if you have recently upgraded your SolidWorks install to SW2010 or SW2011. SolidWork should have updated your HoleWizard/Toolbox database, or maybe it installed a new one, and the wrong path is listed in Tools -> Options -> Hole Wizard / Toolbox.

Checklist

1. Using My Computer, look for C:\SolidWorks Data, C:\SolidWorks Data (2)
2. Open SolidWorks, Tools -> Options -> Hole Wizard / Toolbox. Check that the path is correct and if different paths were found above, try browsing to them.
3. If you have another computer running the same latest version of SolidWorks, copy their C:\SolidWorks Data to your computer.
   OR
   Browse to: “C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidWorks\Toolbox\data utilities” and run UpdateBrowserData.exe Browse to the swbrowser.mdb file inside C:\SolidWorks Data\lang\english and click “Update”. That should do the trick.

Diagnosis

The SolidWorks Installation Manager provided a link to the Installation Logs ( C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\SolidWorks\Installation Logs\2011 SP0 ). Looking at the latest txt file ( SummaryIMLog_20110.txt ) I saw “Installation Error 1719″ and “Installation Error 1603″.

I also looked at the Windows Event Viewer, and saw the failed installation and the Error 1719. See image below.

First Attempted Solution

• As Windows Installer v5 is part of Windows 7, it would not show up in Add/Remove Programs to do a repair (as I would have done for XP).
• Make sure that the Windows Installer service is running  (Control Panel -> System and Security -> Administrative Tools -> Services)
• As on the SW KB, I had tried registering and reregistering Windows Installer.
  Command Prompt:
  msiexec.exe /unregister
  msiexec /regserver
  C:\Windows\Syswow64\Msiexec /regserver
• I even browsed directly to the SolidWorks setup (bypassing the Installation Manager), but it immediately threw up the 1719 error and stopped.

Final Solution to 1719 Installation Error

1. Start, then Run, then type regedit 
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENT CONTROL SET\SERVICES\MSIserver\WOW64            
3. Right click on WOW64, then select Modify      
4. Set Value Data to 0 (mine was set at 1) and Base should be Hexadecimal
   (see below image for screenshot)
5. Close the Registry Editor
6. Reboot the PC
   OR
   Command Prompt: net stop msiserver    and net start msiserver
7. Install SolidWorks 

Reference

Here is a little nuisance I came across recently:

When changing the templates that the novice interface uses, it was a little tricky. It turns out that the Novice Interface selects the first alphabetical template.

I had thought it would have used the Default Templates under Tools -> Options -> Default Templates, but I was mistaken.

So if your templates are stored in: C:\ProgramData\SolidWorks\SolidWorks 2011\templates, and you want a new Drawing, it will select the first alphabetical drawing template (*.drwdot) in that folder.
To verify and check where your templates are stored: Tools -> Options -> File Locations -> Document Templates

Personally I always use the Advanced interface, but to each his/her own.

The Macro

This macro saves/exports the PDF of all Drawings in a Project in the PDM Vault onto a local computer.

' Title of Macro: Save/Export PDFs from all Drawings in a Workgroup PDM Project
' Further info: http://solidworks.burkesys.com/category/macro/
' Author: Stephen Burke | www.sburke.eu
' Version: SolidWorks 2010
' Add in "SolidWorks Workgroup PDM 1.0 Type Library" under: Tools - References
' Date: 23/09/2010

Option Explicit
Dim swApp As Object
Sub main()
    Dim connection As PDMWConnection
    Set connection = CreateObject("PDMWorks.PDMWConnection")
    connection.Login "pdmwadmin", "pdmwadmin", "localhost"
    'Enter your PDM Login details above, "username", "password", "pdmserver"

    Dim alldocs As PDMWDocuments
    Dim doc As PDMWDocument
    Dim project
    Dim item
    Dim msg
    Dim filename
    Set alldocs = connection.Documents
 
    Dim options As PDMWorks.PDMWSearchOptions
    Dim criteria As PDMWorks.PDMWSearchCriteria
    Dim results As PDMWorks.PDMWSearchResults
    Dim result As PDMWorks.PDMWSearchResult
    Dim i
    Dim cnt
 
    Set options = connection.GetSearchOptionsObject
    options.SearchOnlyChildrenOf = "Project1"
    ' ^ Type in the name of the Project you wish to save the files out of.

    options.SearchCriteria.AddCriteria pdmwOr, pdmwDocumentName, "All", pdmwContains, "slddrw"
    ' ^ set the search query: look for "All" (everything/*) in slddrw.

    Set results = connection.Search(options)
    cnt = results.Count
 
    For i = 0 To cnt - 1
        Set result = results(i)
        'msg = MsgBox(result.Name, vbCritical)
        Set doc = alldocs(result.Name)
        doc.SaveAsPDF "C:\Temp\"
 
        'filename = "C:\Temp\" & Replace(result.Name, ".SLDDRW", " ") & result.Revision & ".pdf"
        'If Dir(filename) <> "" Then Kill filename
        'Name "C:\Temp\" & result.Name & ".pdf" As filename
        ''Uncomment the above 3 lines. This will output the file "drawing 01.pdf", where 01 is the current revision of the drawing.
    Next i
 
    connection.Logout
End Sub

Make sure to scroll to the right in the code area above ^. Link to Macro Download

Note: The default filename which will be created is “filename.SLDDRW.pdf”. I read on the SolidWorks Forums of a person requesting an output file name: “filename 01.pdf” where 01 is the current revision. This functionality is in the above code. Uncomment the 3 lines underneath “doc.SaveAsPDF” (do so by removing the single quotation mark ‘ ). This is quite nice, because if this macro was being run by the Task Scheduler every night, it would be evident from looking at C:\Temp (or outbox folder specified) that  a new revision is available.

Readme

New in SolidWorks 2008 was the option to automatically have PDM create a PDF for every drawing upon check-in. This macro saves/exports this PDF, and is much quicker than if we were to re-print a PDF. If however, the option to create PDFs on check-in is not set in the Vault Admin Tool, this Macro will not work. See image below for where this option is within the VaultAdmin Tool.

The setting to create PDFs must be set in the Vault Admin Tool.

If this setting was not turned on, and you just enabled it, this macro still won’t work. The PDF only gets created upon check-in of drawings after this above setting is enabled. To check to see if a PDF is available for drawings in the Vault, right-click on a Drawing and see if the option “View Document as PDF” is available (see image below). If this method works, then the macro should too. If a drawing does not have a PDF, you may get the error “An unknown filesystem error occurred. (50)”. In this case, set the above option, checkout and checkin the drawing to have the PDF created automatically.

Right-click on a drawing and go "View Document as PDF" to check if the PDF shows.

Cautionary Warning

While macros are very powerful and can perform a lot of tasks in a short space of time, you need to be very careful. Manually, the PDFs exported, need to be checked by hand, individually, to make sure the contents are correct and accurate. A disaster can occur if someone runs the above macro and sends them off to manufacture, but never checks to see if the exported PDFs are correct and accurate. Check and check again. Unfortunately issues for whatever reason can occur, and its not enough just to say “it should have worked, its not my fault, I just ran the macro and emailed the pdfs”. Manual checking of the actions carried out by the macro must be done.