CAD Atomic Blog

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...

Trying to figure out how the title ties into CAD :) Well, it doesn't unless you know my background. Today, I was treated to lunch by my boss. Quite a nice gesture, and we had a good lunch at a chinese buffet (rough afternoon now!). One of the required items at any chinese buffet is the fortune cookie. Mine read "Your curiousity will lead you to great achievements.". Got to thinking about it and it is so right! My curiousity about everything has given me a broad knowledge about a large variety of topics, including CAD. In fact, my success in the CAD world is in large part due to my curiousity. I like to know how things work. I used to tear apart mechanical items just to see what made them tick (my father was really upset about the rototiller and dirt bike). I treated CAD much the same. I had to know what was there and how it worked and I had to quiz the developers how things interacted under the hood. To me, it was fun. I craved it. I still do. Here's to ho...