In this blog Jeroen van der Burg, Applications Engineer at Design Solutions, discusses his experiences at DriveWorks World 2018 and what he learnt during the event.
“During DriveWorks World 2018, Glen Smith, the proud founder and CEO, presented the 16th version of DriveWorks, the design automation tool specially developed around SOLIDWORKS. With his typical
Certifications
“Geert Hendrikx and I have been going to DriveWorks World for a number of years to catch up on the latest applications and possibilities.
This year our Belgian colleague, Kurt Ponjaert, also joined us at the event. Kurt can now also call himself a ‘Certified DriveWorks Professional’, the third at Design Solutions!”
Manchester accent, Glen told us about the new possibilities of the latest version. Further on you will find the highlights of the ‘What’s New’.”
Broad and User-Friendly Applications
“During the many user presentations, it became clear how diverse the DriveWorks applications are. You can let customers configure your product via user-friendly web forms, including 3D previews of the chosen configuration.
The products during the customer presentations ranged from the configuration of support soles and scientific glassware via a web browser, to architects who in a few days made a new bridge design that used to take months or years.”
Passion with a Touch of English Humour
“During the three-day event, it became clear to me again how passionate the DriveWorks team are to get in touch with their customers. The team sincerely wants to find out how they can make their product even better.
Of course, there was room for a comical note in this time. The DriveWorks team told in a presentation how one of their developers brewed his own beer (‘automation IPA’) and how they set up an online 3D battleships game using the latest technology.”
What’s New: My Top 5
1 – The DriveWorks CPQ Template
“DriveWorks is primarily a tool with which you can design everything from nothing, but DriveWorks now also has a template that allows you to set up a web shop quickly so that you are up and running fast.
Via this CPQ template (Configure Price and Quote) you can easily add more functions to the web interface in DriveWorks 16. The template offers the flexibility you’re used to from DriveWorks and is fully customizable to your needs.
At driveworkslive.com you can test the possibilities of CPQ yourself. On the online help pages you will find an overview of the possibilities of the CPQ template.”
2 – Specification Timers
“An interval option has been added to Specification Macros with so-called Specification Timers. This means you no longer have to press a button to do an update.
For example, you can set an interval to update your battleship screen and see if your opponent has already made a move or you can use it to play an animation in your 3D preview on your website.”
3 – Generation Tasks
“Generation tasks are small configurable macros that you can run during the generation. This can vary from adding BOM balloons to a drawing view, to assembling a chain of parts. It goes too far to discuss all the new Generation Tasks in DriveWorks 16 in this blog, so click on a specific task in the list below if you want to know more:
- Drive Skech Text Properties
- Activate Sheet
- Change Unit System
- Insert Library Feature
- Clear Selection
- Create Concentric Mate
- Create Coordinate System Mate
- Create Profile Center Mate
- Create General Table
- Drive General Table
- Drive Dimension Tolerance Limits“
4 – Improved Specification Macro ‘Flow’
“It has now become a lot easier to apply logic to the execution of Specification Macros. A completely new system makes it clear how information is passed on and actions follow each other (which was a nice puzzle with traditional programming).”
5 – Improved 3D Preview
“When DriveWorks forms are displayed in a web browser, you can use the DriveWorks 3D Preview. This function has also been improved and expanded. One of the most striking is an extra viewport on the 3D model, so that you can always keep an eye on the top view of furniture, or have three orthogonal views of a part on the screen.”
“DriveWorks World is highly recommended! In addition to getting to know the people behind DriveWorks better, you will always discover something new about DriveWorks’ wonderful world. We are already looking forward to the next event!”