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Whenever a holiday comes around, I like to get creative in SOLIDWORKS as you can see from a previous article I created for Halloween a few years ago. For Independence Day, I wanted to raise the flag in SOLIDWORKS! This provided a great opportunity for me to create a rendering and show you the differences between PhotoView360, SOLIDWORKS Visualize Standard and Visualize Professional.

Raw 3D printing material symbolizes infinite possibilities unlocked by the user’s creativity; however, if the raw material is mistreated and improperly handled, that potential vanishes. Making sure to take proper care of raw materials and store them in their intended conditions is the best way to ensure high quality prints. In times of extended shutdowns, or simply long hiatuses between prints, it’s imperative to store material properly.

Dark or light? No, we’re not talking coffee here. We’re talking about the SOLIDWORKS UI. For years now, there’s been the option to change the color of the interface as well as the icons. This functionality was introduced to SOLIDWORKS 2016. Before we talk about a light or dark interface let’s first talk about the icons.

When upgrading SOLIDWORKS and PDM applications to a new version, your existing files remain at the version in which they were created. If they remain this way, it will create delays when opening and reading these files since they will be undergoing conversions when opening. This can be seen as slow system performance, but luckily this doesn't have to remain an issue. In this article, we look at three ways in which you can upgrade your files to their latest version in SOLIDWORKS.

The Stratasys V650 Flex brings outstanding upgrades to the capabilities of Stereolithography 3D printing. Imagine the versatility of choosing your own materials with the only open-material system from Stratasys. With 2x the print capacity of competitor's models, open-material system capabilities and faster prototyping, you will not have to choose between quantity and quality. This powerful addition has a small footprint and will continue to print even if the power goes out.

International Women in Engineering Day is June 23! As technology and additive manufacturing improve, women and young girls have become more interested in pursuing an engineering occupation to transform the future. This year, we are celebrating ten women who continue to revolutionize the 3D printing industry by educating and inspiring others. 

As we've been exploring how to build a better electrical parts library in SOLIDWORKS Electrical, we've looked at set up of libraries, classification and how to import external or custom data. Having all your project-specific or company-specific data in one place helps you speed up your design process and also makes it easier to have access to all your part details. But how do you stay in control of who views or edits your libraries? How can you keep them organized? In part three of this series, we walk through the steps to relocate data within libraries, delete certain data and manage access permissions.

SOLIDWORKS Electrical comes with a huge default library of common parts right out of the box, which is very helpful in getting started right away. However, there could come a time where you will need to expand this library with more parts that better fit your project needs. Fortunately, there are different import options that allow you to easily add data to your SOLIDWORKS Electrical libraries. In this article, we will go over how to download, import and manually enter new part data.

SOLIDWORKS Electrical uses libraries to keep data in a centralized area for access during the design process. It will assist with keeping data organized and aids designers when searching for a specific piece of data. One of the great things about this software is that SOLIDWORKS has a database of over half a million manufacturing parts for you to use when designing so you can shrink development time by reusing many common circuits and symbols without having to add them from scratch each time. In part one of this new series, we go over how to set up your libraries and classifications to hold all this data.

3D printing has been in use in the medical industry for years. Most people have seen prosthetics that have been 3D printed. Whether it is a prosthetic for cosmetic purposes or a functioning limb, 3D printing has made these easier and quicker to get and coupled with 3D scanning technology, these prosthetics can also be custom tailored to each individual. This is all great and exciting and ultimately 3D printing will continue to advance prosthetic development. In addition to prosthetics, there are other ways in which 3D printing is changing the healthcare industry. In this article, we look at some of those advancements and how medical professionals and patients are benefiting from them.

For some, working in AutoCAD feels like a comfortable, well-worn glove. The menu layout, the command line, the color scheme and all the customized buttons and LISP routines you’ve painstakingly created over the years combine to form a cozy, familiar environment you’re more than a little reluctant to leave behind. Let me tell you, I’ve been there. For more than twenty-seven years, I used AutoCAD but it was time to change, so I switched to DraftSight and have never looked back. In this article, I’m going to talk about the features I discovered that made me switch from AutoCAD to DraftSight and why I think you should too.

Stratasys’ PolyJet 3D printing technology can produce some amazingly detailed parts that can mimic a wide range of rigid and flexible materials – even full-color and transparent parts. With some simple post-printing steps it is easy to obtain a stunning high gloss finish on even the matte surfaces of PolyJet parts. In a previous overview, we showed you how to clear coat complex shaped parts to obtain a gloss surface without any sanding or polishing. In this tutorial, I will show you how to create high gloss, even optically clear finishes, on parts the old fashioned way, with some elbow grease.