CAD Atomic Blog

So Solid Edge ST3 has been revealed today.  Between all the “professional” bloggers out there, it has been dissected quite a bit, so I’m not going to attempt it.  Instead, here is a list of links at which you can find out information: Official Siemen's site on ST3 - http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/velocity/solidedge/solidedge-st3/index.shtml Post one of Deelip's 11 part Post - http://www.deelip.com/?p=3618 Matt Lombard's post on ST3 - http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/?p=4035 Jon Sutcliffe's post on ST3 - http://www.synchronoustechnology.net/blog/679/solid-edge-st3-bares-all/ Al Dean's post on DEVELOP3D - http://develop3d.com/reviews/solid-edge-st3 Kathleen Maher on ST3 - http://gfxspeak.com/2010/10/14/solid-edge-st3-arrives/ I’ll add more as I find them.

Siemens PLM will formally announce Solid Edge ST3 on October 13th.  There are a number of events being held across North America starting on that day and through the month of December in a variety of cities.  2 of them are Siemens PLM hosted “National” events which the agenda shows will have a little more content in them, and the rest are Partner hosted events.  If interested in attending one of these events, you can sign up on the Register link at the following page: http://am.siemensplmevents.com/?elqPURLPage=4232 Now seeing that we have around 2-1/2 weeks before the formal announcement and there has been much speculation about what’s new with ST3 in regards to Synchronous Technology, I thought it would be interesting to invite your comments about what you think is new with Synchronous Technology in ST3.  Ground rules are that you must be polite and on topic.  This BLOG is mine and is not bound by your right to free speech, therefore comments are moderated an...

As promised, this is the last in a series of posts about what has been publicly released about Solid Edge ST3.  It’s been a while between posts, and if you scour the web you may have found this information already, but I thought I would post it anyways as ST3 media activity has slowed a bit and it has not yet been released (tentatively October from what I’ve seen posted). Drafting is one of those areas where there is still such a big dependence.  It’s the final piece of the product development assembly line and is highly utilized by downstream departments.  With ST3, there were a large number of  enhancements in this area but unfortunately I can only share a very select few of the user requested enhancements. Parts List’s have been enhanced and one of the enhancements (there’s others) is an option to create a fully exploded and indented list. Unicode character support has been added so you can now mix & match languages in a single draft file as well as use th...

As Promised, here is my 3 rd post on Solid Edge ST3’s customer driven enhancements. This time, the topic is Piping, Framing, and Weld enhancements. Let’s start with Frames. Frames are made up of 3 items for each frame member: The sketch defining the path, the cross section defining the shape, and the resulting member as a solid model. With ST3, some work was done with the cross sections to add additional attachment points which are used to attach the cross sections to the paths. In addition to the prior default of the geometry Range Box showing the 8 points defining the rectangular extents boundary around the shape and the center point, you can now define the cross section’s path attachment point by using key points (end/mid/center/etc.) on the cross section’s defining sketch (including reference elements) or the cross section’s area centroid. In addition to the new locating methods, cross sections are now associative to the members that they have defined (so changes to the cross ...

As promised, I'm back with some additional information about the upcoming release of Solid Edge ST3 (later this year).  This post will hit on some of the customer driven enhancements in the Part, Sheet Metal, and Assembly design environments.  As a reminder, this is in no way a complete list of enhancements in these areas. New to ST3 Sheet Metal is the Etch feature.  It allows text or other sketch elements to be created on sheet metal faces which will then be transformed with the model when flattened.  When the Flat Pattern is saved to DXF, text is translated to a "stick" font engraving ready! New Closed Corner types have been added to Sheet Metal such as U & V shaped, Square and Mitred. Tabs and PMI can now be added to the flattened Sheet Metal model and they will not display in the folded model.  This flattened model can then be saved to JT. Interpart relations are now shown in Part & Sheet Metal Pathfinder allow...

Well, things in the Solid Edge world are certainly active these days, and Siemens PLM is being very serious about increasing user oppurtunities.  The first big evidence of this is that the folks at Siemens PLM responsible for the Solid Edge product are hosting 17 regional events around North America for users to attend for FREE! The current agenda posted on Siemens site (http://img.en25.com/Web/Siemens/Solid%20Edge%20Productivity%20Summit%20agenda_6188a.pdf) looks like this:   Solid Edge Productivity Summit Preliminary Agenda – Times and sessions subject to change by location  8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Check in and registration Solid Edge Vision and Direction Solid Edge Customer Success Presentation Modeling in Solid Edge with synchronous technology Patterning in Solid Edge Networking Lunch Synchronous Sheet Metal Modeling Best Practices in Solid Edge Drafting Regional Tips and Tricks in Solid Edge Synchronous Assembly Modeling Using Both Trad...

The Siemens PLM Connection event is over.  Given the change of date and venue due to the flooding of the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, it was a great success.  There were many excellent presentations and "hands-on" training sessions for Solid Edge (including mine) , and even though a formal announcement of the upcoming ST3 is some time away, we got a sneak peak of several new customer driven enhancements as well as some hint of: A "bridge" to help existing users better adopt Synchronous Technology Simulation enhancements PDM enhancements 1000's of customer enhancements from modeling to the user interface Over the next few weeks, I'd like to cover some of the items presented around the customer driven enhancements, but please keep in mind there are still a whole lot of items that will not be presented until the official Solid Edge ST3 launch later in the year. For this post, I would like to cover the User Interface enhancements. You now have...

So, it's a busy time of year for me, and I'm guessing many others too.  Spring has sprung.  April has been warm and coupled with an excellent supply of water, my grass needs seriously mowed.  Taxes are coming due (April 15th). We are also marching towards Tulip Time (May 4-8) in my town where we have a 3 day (5 this year due to 75th anniversary) festival all about Dutch heritage and Tulips ( http://www.pella.org/aspx/traveltourism/plan/extra.aspx?cid=0&sid=5&n1id=10&n2id=70#Tulip_Time ).  Not sure if the tulips will make it till then, as some of them are just starting to bloom. In addition to all this, my CAD plate is also quite full between PLM World board meetings, projects at work, the upcoming Siemens PLM Connections event May 23-28 ( http://event.plmworld.org/ ), and the inevitable Solid Edge ST3 BETA.  No rest for the weary.  Check back soon as I will post updates. Ken

So you have all these PDM/PLM suppliers out there who have systems that vault data, manage workflows, manage revisions and control access to product data.  Some of these systems have existed in one form or another for decades.  All of it home grown because nothing existed that could be used as a framework to build upon. Now decades later, we have Sharepoint.  It is everywhere. It vaults data, manages workflows, manages revisions and controls access.  What is missing?  Not much.  With Sharepoint 2010 soon to be released, the framework is there.  All that needs to be done is create some webparts and templates, and a pretty finctional PDM system could be had.  Some have already headed down this path.  Solid Edge released Insight on Sharepoint 2001 and continues down this path supporting Sharepoint 2003 and 2007.  PTC recently released Product Point based on Sharepoint. I predict others will be following fast.  How can the...

I just got back from Las Vegas. Aside from the terrible air travel problems which resulted from freezing rain in Iowa when I left, to dense fog in Chicago on my return, it was a good trip. It was one of those "kill 2 birds with one stone" trips where I was able to accomplish a couple goals. The main reason for traveling to Las Vegas was to attend a PLM World board meeting. It was held at the Rio where our 2011 and 2012 Connection events will be held. It also coincided with the International Builders Show held at the convention center of which Pella is an exhibitor. I spent one day walking the builders show, seeing an amazing variety of products. One thing that really sparked my interest was an architectural CAD software product that could interface with a engineered structural wood software product resulting in plumbing and HVAC penetrations being pre-cut in the engineered wood products at the factory. Now the cool thing about this is, the cuts are made efficiently and...

Siemens PLM just released MP2 for Solid Edge ST2 on Friday January 8th. This patch includes many updates as well as fixes for user reported issues. It can be found here (webkey acct needed): http://ftp.ugs.com/solid_edge/ST2/ For those unfamiliar with what Maintenance Patches (MP) are, they are software updates that vendors of most applications deliver on a regular basis or "as needed" to resolve issues with the application or enhance the application. They are typically installed on top of a major version of an application, and are generally version specific. In the case of Solid Edge ST2, you would need to run the MP for that particular version once ST2 has already been installed. MPs are typically "all inclusive" meaning that installing the latest MP includes the content of all earlier MPs (MP2 included MP1 updates as well as MP2 updates). If running Solid Edge along with Insight Server or Embedded Client, you will need to also install the same version of MP for t...