Newsletter of the Canterbury SolidWorks User Group
Issue 3 - May 2002

Next Meeting: Tue 4 June 2002 - 1800 - byo food / drink PDL Conference Centre 14 Hazeldean Road, Christchurch, NZ

Presentation Agenda:

  1. Presentation and Q&A: Stratatec Rapid Prototyping Services. An overview on current and upcoming Rapid Prototyping services offered by Stratatec (Derek Bishop)
  2. Presentation and Q&A: SolidWorks Surfacing. Areas covered will include extents/limits of surfaces and solids, symmetry issues, constructing the same object with either surfaces of solids, using surfaces/solids interchangeably (Iain McMillan)
  3. Informal discussions

Last meeting:

1) SolidWorks Application Programming Interface

Mladen Meduric presented an introduction to the SolidWorks API and showed us some excellent examples of what is possible by demonstrating his curve generation macros and Whiter Mold Base program. I have included the curve macro along with some point data for you to experiment with.

2) Using Moldflow's Part Advisor with SolidWorks

Jim Huggins demonstrated the use of Part Advisor, an injection moulding simulation program that interfaces with SolidWorks. Along with the general functionality of the software, Jim showed us some of the specific aspects used by PDL to optimise the design of parts and tools before tool making begins. We also had a quick look at some of the PDL tool designs.

Thanks to Jim and Mladen for presenting last meeting. Your efforts are appreciated.

Tips of the month

Editor's tip:

This is a fairly brief one but listed below are some great sources for tips, tricks and help with SolidWorks and related programs:

SolidWorks:

Sign up for the email Notifications and Subscriptions sent out by SolidWorks.

Log in to Subscription Services on the SolidWorks web site, click the button at left, and update your account to include the Newsletters that are of interest.

SolidWorks Newsgroup:
Set up the news service provided by your ISP in your email program (e.g. Outlook Express), then subscribe to comp.cad.solidworks. Alternatively this can be accessed via the SolidWorks web page
 www.solidworks.com/html/contacts/getnewsgroup.cfm

Solid Solutions:
Sign up for their weekly newsletter.
 www.solidmag.com/SolidDigitalDigest/Sign-upForm.html

General Info

I'm filling in for Andrew on the newsletter front this month while Andrew is off sailing in Fiordland so apologies for the brief information this issue. Andrew will be back next month.

Regards,

Iain Wickens