Information AboutSolidworks |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT SOLIDWORKS | |
| computer-aided design software | |
SolidWorks is a 3D mechanical CAD ( Computer-aided Design ) program that runs on Microsoft Windows and was developed by SolidWorks Corporation - now a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes, S. A. ( Suresnes , France ). SolidWorks is a Parametric Feature-based Solid Modeler , using the Parasolid Geometric Modeling Kernel . SolidWorks was introduced in 1995 as a competitor to CAD programs such as Pro/ENGINEER , I-DEAS , Unigraphics , CATIA , and Autodesk Mechanical Desktop, and is currently one of the leading products in the "midrange" or "mainstream" mechanical CAD market.FY2006 revenue for SolidWorks was 218 million Euros (see 1). SolidWorks reports 1/2 million commercial users, at 80,000 companies worldwide, and well over 600,000 seats, including those used in education. (See 2). HISTORY Solidworks was founded in 1993 by Jon Hirschtick, with its headquarters at Concord , Massachusetts , and released its first product, SolidWorks 95, in 1995. In 1997 Dassault Systèmes, best known for its CATIA CAD software, acquired the company and currently owns 100% of its shares. The company was headed by John McEleney from 2001 to July, 2007, and is now headed by Jeff Ray, CEO. MARKET Solidworks is used primarily by mechanical engineers and designers. Its user base ranges from individuals to large companies, and covers a wide cross-section of manufacturing market segments, with its only significant weaknesses among large aerospace and automotive companies (which have historically been users of CATIA and Unigraphics CAD software.) US Commercial pricing for SolidWorks ranges between $5,000 to $8,000, depending on configuration. Commercial sales are made through an indirect channel, which includes dealers and partners throughout the world. Directly competitive products to SolidWorks include Autodesk Inventor , Solid Edge , and Pro/ENGINEER . THE SOLIDWORKS APPROACH SolidWorks employs a parametric, feature-based approach to creating models and assemblies. Parameters refer to constraints or conditions whose values determine the size, shape, characteristics, and behavior of the model or assembly. Parameters can be either numeric, for example dimension values such as the diameter of a circle or the length of a line; or geometric, such as conditions like tangent, concentric, coincident, parallel, horizontal, and the like. Numeric parameters such as dimensions can easily be related to each other through equations to capture even the most complicated design intent. Features refer to the building blocks of the part. They are the shapes and operations that construct the part. Shape-based features would include slots, holes, bosses and the like that either add or remove material from the part. Shape-based features typically begin with either a 2D or 3D sketch. Operation-based features generally don’t have sketches. These types of features include operations like filleting, chamfering, shelling, or applying draft to a part. Building a model in SolidWorks usually starts with either a 2D or 3D sketch. The sketch consists of geometry such as lines, arcs, conics, and splines. Dimensions are added to the sketch to define the size and location of the geometry. Relations are used to define attributes such as tangency, parallelism, perpendicularity, concentricity, and such. The parametric nature of SolidWorks means the dimensions and relations drive the geometry, not the other way around. The dimensions in the sketch can be controlled independently, or by relationships to other parameters outside the sketch. For example, you can sketch a rectangle and dimension its height and width. Then you can extrude the rectangle to create a rectangular prism. You can then relate the length of the extrusion to the height of the rectangle so that if extrusion gets longer, the height changes accordingly. Furthermore, you can subsequently add a hole in the face of the prism and create another relationship so that the diameter of the hole, which was created after the prism, drives the width of the prism. This way, if the hole has to grow larger, the prism’s dimensions would also increase to accommodate it. Another aspect of the feature-based nature of SolidWorks is you can roll back into the history of the part in order to make changes, add additional features, or change to sequence in which operations are performed. In an assembly, the analog to sketch relations are mates. Just as sketch relations define conditions such as tangency, parallelism, and concentricity with respect to sketch geometry, assembly mates define the same relations with respect to the individual parts or components. This means you can assemble parts with the same easily edited intelligence that you have in part modeling. Beyond the simple mates are advanced mates that include gear and cam and follower mates. In addition, SolidWorks has a hierarchy of putting all the things together, which can be traced as follows: | ||||||||||||||||
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