Almost everybody loves chocolate, right? That’s exactly what I was thinking when I was working on some models for our previous Halloween and Christmas candy articles. As I was working on those projects, I came across a surprisingly quick and easy way to apply full-color patterned textures to CAD models for 3D printing on the Stratasys J750 and J850, using SOLIDWORKS Visualize, and had the idea to use this method to make chocolate bars for Valentine’s Day!

We hear a lot about going from concept to design, and with SOLIDWORKS CAD that’s the easy part. But what’s next? What tools do you need to pitch your design and get that first prototype made? In other words, what tools do you need to go from concept to reality?

Once you have your CAD complete in SOLIDWORKS, the three tools that help you make a concept a reality are: SOLIDWORKS Composer, SOLIDWORKS Visualize and SOLIDWORKS Visualize Pro. With these tools you can showcase how your design will look and how it will work, capturing the essence of your idea before it’s even made. The best part is these are all linked to the SOLIDWORKS CAD model, meaning any changes to the model are automatically updated; saving you substantial time and frustrating effort.

All three tools put your model on a stage so you can easily share your designs, but what exactly are the differences? In this article, we break down each of the features of the tools, so you can know exactly why and when to use them.

It’s the holiday season and many of us are getting into the spirit by decorating our homes and escaping the cold. In this blog, I’ll be using a clever method of combining projects in SOLIDWORKS Visualize to quickly transform an empty living room into a warm and cozy winter escape that we’ll bring to life with a rendering.

It's probably needless for me to say that technology is ever evolving. It’s amazing to see where we’ve come in the last 20 years when looking at the computers we work with and how we communicate, play and work. In the past five years, we've seen two areas that have been gaining a lot of traction: virtual and augmented reality technology (VR/AR). It’s fair to say that we’ve seen huge leaps in VR/AR when comparing even the last five years to the last twenty. Certainly, the underlying technologies like high-speed graphics, high-definition mobile displays and high capacity batteries have contributed to this boom, but also the diversity of applications the technology has brought to users. CAD seemed like a natural fit for VR/AR applications. Let’s take a look at what SOLIDWORKS has done with VR/AR over the years and where it looks to take it into the future.

The third leg of the SOLIDWORKS Visualize Contest asked its contestants to create a 360° high-resolution rendering of an interior space. I had already seen a number of Visualize renderings highlighting furniture and architectural spaces, but I wanted to try something a little different– art! 

Chances are you watched the Olympics from the comfort of your own home. Well, what if you could experience the thrill alongside these athletes? Picture looking down the barrel of the half pipe during the snowboard finals or sitting in the middle of the pack of the fastest speed skaters in the world. Wouldn’t that be awesome?! With a virtual reality headset like Oculus Rift, HTC Vibe or Google Cardboard, you can feel the action. 

The 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang have come to an end. I'm not an Olympic Athlete, but I wanted to participate by more than just watching the games from my couch. With the many SOLIDWORKS products I have installed on my machine, I figured there was bound to be something I could create. With SOLIDWORKS 2018, each seat of Professional and Premium comes with a free seat of SOLIDWORKS Visualize Standard, so I decided it was time to explore!

SOLIDWORKS Visualize is famous for its ability to give designers a photo-realistic view at their design animation before ever being finalized and manufactured. And while it is already hugely beneficial to the design community, SOLIDWORKS 2018 out-did itself with the latest update to Stereoscopic Virtual Reality (VR) Rendering.

To honor those who have served our United States Armed Forces this Veteran’s Day, I’ve modeled the Anthem Veterans Memorial, located in Arizona, which has a unique feature that is perfect to demonstrate the scene lighting and animation capabilities of SOLIDWORKS Visualize Professional. To do this yourself, read our tutorial and watch the full demonstration in our video! 

One of my favorite design features inside SOLIDWORKS is configurations. I love the ability to edit and revise properties without affecting the original model. What some people may not know is that you can utilize configurations with SOLIDWORKS Visualize Professional as well. 

SOLIDWORKS Visualize has taken renders of SOLIDWORKS designs above and beyond what PhotoView 360 was ever capable of. By tweaking the appearance settings like Tile Value, Roughness and Index of Refraction, it’s much easier to control exactly how materials will appear in the final render. Let’s take a look at an example.

In this blog, we show you how to create beautifully smooth animations in SOLIDWORKS Visualize, giving your designs the precise representation and attention to detail that they deserve. They can rotate as desired in a smooth animation that will showcase all angles of the design.