Posts Tagged ‘#ST4Event’
Students + Solid Edge = Edgelings
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
At the Solid Edge ST4 Event (yes, I am still writing about it even though it happened two weeks ago!), Siemens PLM Software announced a (re)new(ed) focus on the Solid Edge academic program. Led by Mike Brown (@mjb258) an industry veteran, the academic program got off to a great start. Roopinder Tara from TenLinks caught up with Mike for an interview at the event as did I. Mike was kind enough to give me some of his thoughts.
Continue reading “Students + Solid Edge = Edgelings” »
Edison2 keynotes the Solid Edge ST4 Event
Monday, June 20th, 2011
It’s several days post the Solid Edge ST4 event but this story is one that needs to be told. Leading up to the Solid Edge ST4 event, I did a post on the keynote speakers Edison2. It’s one thing to read about this unique car, it’s another to be in attendance to hear and see both Chief of Design Ron Mathis and Brad Jaeger speak so passionately about Solid Edge and the Very Light Car.
Before you watch this video interview with Ron and Brad by my colleague Branco Liu, I must make this statement. It was asked and speculated during the event that some other CAD system or systems were used for things such as surfacing, etc. I made it a point to seek out and ask Ron. He stated
The entire car, from design to surfacing, was done in Solid Edge!
Continue reading “Edison2 keynotes the Solid Edge ST4 Event” »
Solid Edge API at the ST4 Event
Monday, June 20th, 2011
It’s Saturday morning and I’m feeling pretty good about the ST4 Event.
One of the things I was happy about was the turn out for Jason Newell’s Solid Edge API training. It was about 20% of the people at the conference. One of the goals of the new “Solid Edge App Ecosystem” is to better support those developing on top of Solid Edge.
Now I don’t want to say everything was perfect. We clearly didn’t allocate enough time for this (if any developers want to comment on how long it should be next time, I’d love to hear it). We also had a number of API users with specific issues. You might say this is bad but I’m glad about it. We had about 8 “hands on the code” Solid Edge developers there hearing exactly what you had to say, not a bunch of people trained to give demos.
After the ST4 Launch Event, Jason stayed around an extra day to talk with us on how we can do better in the future. We had meetings with some of our documentation, development, and GTAC (Support) team members all around developing on top of Solid Edge. If he writes a post about it, you will find it here.
On our new web page for the Solid Edge App Ecosystem, we did manage (with Susan Cinadr’s help) to put a few links to resources for developing on top of Solid Edge so you might check it out and bookmark it. It is just one page now but I’m hoping the Solid Edge developer community can help me grow this to something far more useful. It also links to posts like this for more information.
“Hugely Positive” about Synchronous Technology
Friday, June 17th, 2011
If you use Solid Edge, you probably know Rick Mason. If not, you need to. Rick, from MASCO Design Services has been using Solid Edge since V1 when it was announced in 1996. He is infamous among the Solid Edge user community and the only user that traveled from Australia.
Rick provides us with his insights on the product as it’s changed over the last 15 years. I love his idea of having an old NT4 machine set up at the next user event with version 3.5 running the initial release of Sheetmetal. Brillant! (Note to self, talk to John Fox about making this happen).
At the closing of the Solid Edge ST4 Event, Rick stood up and led the audience in a standing ovation. Rick, it’s us that should be thanking you for the years of dedication to Solid Edge.
Solid Edge Simulation, ST4 Edition
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Solid Edge Product Manager Ronnie Conerly
As you may know, Ronnie Connerly took over Solid Edge Simulation back in March. I left him with a nice pile of issues, problems and incomplete software. Thanks to his previous experience with both Solid Edge and FEA, the Simulation team didn’t miss a step.
The two big things added for SE Simulation is support for Frames using beam elements and assembly level sheet metal analysis. Lets start with that.
New in ST4 is the ability to create simulation geometry in the assembly document. One of the best ways this can be useful is if you are doing assemblies with sheet metal. A 2D Mesh is usually the fastest and most accurate way to do this but that means you also need mid surfaces on which to base it. You don’t want to go back to each part to do this and you may want to extend or trim the surfaces to each other for a better analysis.
- Copy surface or solid geometry from occurrences
- Create midsurfacesfrom sheet metal parts
- Modification commands to prepare geometry for analysis
- Can use simplified or designed parts
- Great when parts are read-only
The Second Big item is support for Frame analysis using beam elements. When geometry has a constant cross section, you can often use these 1D elments for fast and accurate analysis.
So what else was done?
- A new “united body” that lets you combine multiple surfaces for 2D meshes or 2D and 3D meshes.We’ve added support for NX Nastrans Edge Glue connector. You now have three ways to connect edges such as a T-junction in Sheet metal
- Many new meshing options to really fine tune the mesh.
- Usability enhancements like double click to edit objects in the pathfinder, connector symbols that only show up where the connection is, better numerical formating for post processing, and more.
If video is more your thing, heres a couple short videos to help you out too:
Dan Staples’ favorite user story of the Solid Edge ST4 Event
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
During a coffee break today, I was chatting with Dan Staples and asked him out of all the users at the Solid Edge ST4 Event, what’s the best story he heard. He mentioned tractor and attachment manufacturer Ventrac. (Disclaimer – I am sure that Dan Staples loves all the user’s stories we’ve heard over the last couple days, this happened to be the one he told me 
)
I know these guys well after I met them last year at our Productivity Summit in Cleveland (my home town) so Dan caught my interest right away. That and I had been working with them on getting the tractor as one of the images in the Solid Edge ST4 splash screen.
Ventrac uses sheetmetal in their mowers and up till a couple months ago, everything they did was using the traditional approach and not taking advantage of synchronous technology. When Solid Edge ST3 came out with synchronous technology in our Sheetmetal environment, we gave Ventrac their Christmas present early.
I was able to catch up with Dan Swartz and ask him about their use of Solid Edge since implementing ST3 and what he’s seen in ST4 in the last couple days. The way he tells the story, giving them synchronous in sheetmetal was like flipping a switch for their productivity.
The second part of Ventrac’s story that Dan Staples liked was their use of PMI for design reviews. Dan Swartz told me that everyone from their service manager to their sales manager can see what’s in the product without creating a drawing. As Dan Staples puts it, they are using PMI in the way we intended when we put it in Solid Edge way back in V19.
Manipulating & Reusing 3rd party CAD data within Solid Edge
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
I sat in on Dr. Andrew Thomas’ (@asteng88) presentation yesterday afternoon. We asked Andrew to present his story because, well, It Rocks! I don’t think I can tell his story in a blog post quite as eloquently as he did nor will it replace you seeing it for yourself. Adrew was kind enough to give me his presentation. Live at the event, Andrew showed a video of how quickly you can edit foreign data inside Solid Edge with synchronous technology. It took him and his team longer to import the data (9 minutes) than it did to edit the data (1 minute).
On the right is an image in his presentation. I think it’s a wonderful illustration of what his company is doing – manipulating and reusing 3rd party CAD data (specifically SolidWorks and Inventor) within Solid Edge.
One more note before you scroll through the Slideshare presentation…Andrew had a quote at the end of his presentation that addressed students. Given our announcement about the Solid Edge Academic Program and my recent interview with Ben Sampson, this was timely and appropriate:
New graduates that have trained on Solid Edge will be using Synchronous Technology. “In a moving world, readaption is the price of longevity”
Solid Edge ST4: Energist and synchronous technology
I caught up with Andrew after his presentation to get a few thoughts from him.
You may remember Andrew from the interviews Chad Jackson of Lifecycle Insights did last November on customers who presented at the Siemens PLM Analyst event:
The Voice of Engineering: Energist’s Transition to Synchronous Technology
From Student to Synchronous Advocate
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
Meet Ben Sampson. (@BenCAx)
Ben attended Utah State University, worked at the Space Dynamic Labs (SDL) and is now working out of the Dallas area for our partner Saratech. And he loves synchronous technology. A graduate of professor John Devitry’s well known and popular mechanical engineering program, Ben is now showing the power of synchronous to customers. I caught up with him after one of the sessions today.
Cadenas for Solid Edge
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
Click for full size
Right after starting my new job working with Solid Edge Technology partners I became familiar with Cadenas. There was some discussion going on between Siemens PLM and Cadenas about doing some things together and there was an opportunity to work with Solid Edge as well. Continue reading “Cadenas for Solid Edge” »
Solid Edge ST4 has arrived!
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
Solid Edge ST4 is here!
It’s been a short eight months since the last release….and I’ve heard a lot of people question “why the short release cycle?” There is always a reason for what we do (because we have some pretty smart folks) and the team decided it was best to move to an annual release schedule. That resulted in a short couple months between ST3 and ST4 but it doesn’t mean Solid Edge is short on functionality. In fact, I was speaking to our Drafting planning manager, Ricky Black, earlier this week who told me we completed over 1,000 customer requests in Draft alone (Great job team!). That’s a whole lot of work in a short time to give our customers a great product.
I will let the head of Solid Edge Development, Dan Staples, show you the highlights of what’s new in Solid Edge ST4.
Continue reading “Solid Edge ST4 has arrived!” »
