3DEXPERIENCE 2023x Enhancements

The first question you’ll be asking me is “What’s New?” The most important thing to know is that this is the first release of 2023. With that, there aren’t a significant number of functional enhancements. Instead, the focus is mostly on updating the data model and preparing the Platform for future functional deliveries that Dassault will release throughout the year. That said, there are a few points I want to highlight. First, let me introduce you to the Connector for SOLIDWORKS Composer.

Connector for SOLIDWORKS Composer

My technical communication nerds are going to love this one. Now, the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform has a new role, creating an integration directly between SOLIDWORKS Composer and the Platform. The role, Technical Illustrator for Composer creates a 3DEXPERIENCE tab in your composer window. Now, you can open, save, and revise files while working in your native SOLIDWORKS Composer tool.

Routing Library Manager

Up to this point, the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform hasn’t really given you a great way to work with your routing library. Now, the SOLIDWORKS Routing Library Manager includes an option to Batch Save to 3DEXPERIENCE with your SOLIDWORKS connector. Now you can work in SOLIDWORKS Routing while ensuring your entire library is saved to the Platform.

SOLIDWORKS Design Library on 3DEXPERIENCE 2023x

Another enhancement that makes it easier to manage your data is the SOLIDWORKS Design Library in the Platform. Now, instead of just storing files loosely in 3DSpace, you can store your design library on the Platform and mark them as library items. This makes it easier to find later and ensures that everyone is working from the same set of files.

Is My SOLIDWORKS Still Compatible with 3DEXPERIENCE 2023x?

Maybe, but it depends. This is a major release (i.e. we’re bumping the year). Whenever we get a major release, the requirements for SOLIDWORKS change as well. What you need to remember is that SOLIDWORKS needs to be within 3 releases of the latest version. In this case, that means at least SOLIDWORKS 2021.

It is worth mentioning that this only applies to those SOLIDWORKS users with the Connector (UES). If your SOLIDWORKS is the Connected version and has the Platform built-in, you’ll see SOLIDWORKS update to 2023x as well.

Wrap Up

This being a major release means we don’t have as many functional upgrades as you might expect in a SOLIDWORKS major release. But you should think of this as setting the stage for future functional deliveries throughout 2023. Overall, this upgrade is primarily about data and making sure everything is compatible with 2023. There are still some features to get excited about, like Routing Library Manager, the connector for SOLIDWORKS Composer, and the design library integration.

Nick Sweeney
Applications Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

Below is a list of language operators and examples you can find as helpful aids on the platform. As an added benefit, I’ve included more thorough explanations of the situational examples provided. Hopefully, this further emphasizes best use cases so that you can be more efficient in your day-to-day.

Expression Rules Criteria

Feature:
A feature without any option refers to all options associated with this feature.
Example: [Color]
Explanation: We’ve previously established the feature ‘color’ as a variant for a Model Version. This Variant is the beginning piece of a Rule Expression.

Feature/Option:
A feature with an option is a valid expression.
Example: [Color] [Blue]
Explanation: We’ve previously established the feature ‘color’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘blue’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘color’ by arranging the expression in this order.

Feature/Several Options:
A feature followed by a list of options is equivalent to an OR in between all listed options.
Example: [Color] [Blue] [Green]
Explanation: We’ve previously established the feature ‘color’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the features ‘blue’ and ‘green’’s definitions, both Variant Values, as ‘color’s by arranging the expression in this order.

Standard Operators for Expression Rules

NOT: [NOT] expression1
An expression preceded by a NOT is the logical complement of this expression.
Example: [NOT] [Color] [Blue]
Explanation: We’ve previously established the feature ‘color’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘blue’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘color’ by arranging the expression in this order. Beginning this expression with the ‘NOT’ operator, we define this arrangement to be ‘false/not allowed’, for the associated Model Version.

AND: expression [AND] expression2
AND between two expressions express the logical conjunction of the two expressions.
Example: [Color] [Green] [AND] [City] [Paris]
Explanation: We’ve previously established the feature ‘color’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘green’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘color’ by arranging the expression in this order. Additionally, we establish the feature ‘City’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘Paris’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘City’ by arranging the expression in this order. Placing the operator ‘AND’ between these two expression segments links them ‘both’ in the same rule expression for the associated Model Version.

OR: expression1 [OR] expression2
OR between two expressions express the logical disjunction of the two expressions.
Example: [City] [London] [OR] [Country] [France]
Explanation: We’ve previously established the feature ‘city’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘London’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘City’ by arranging the expression in this order. Additionally, we establish the feature ‘Country’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘France’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘Country’ by arranging the expression in this order. Placing the operator ‘OR’ between these two expression segments links them as ‘one or the other’ in the same rule expression for the associated Model Version.

Conditional Requirement

IMPLY: expression1 [IMPLY] expression2
A conditional requirement – if (expression 1), then (expression 2) – uses the IMPLY operator.
Example: [City] [Paris] [IMPLY] [Country] [France]
Explanation: We’ve previously established the feature ‘city’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘Paris’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘City’ by arranging the expression in this order. Additionally, we establish the feature ‘Country’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘France’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘Country’ by arranging the expression in this order. Placing the operator ‘IMPY’ between these two expression segments links them as ‘one as well as the other/so long as’ in the same rule expression for the associated Model Version.

Co-dependency Statement

EQUIVALENT: expression1 [EQUIVALENT] expression2
Equivalent makes expression 1 and expression 2 have the same logical content.
Example: [Citizen] [French] [EQUIVALENT] [Country] [France]
Explanation: We’ve previously established the feature ‘citizen’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘French’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘Citizen’ by arranging the expression in this order. Additionally, we establish the feature ‘Country’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘France’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘Country’ by arranging the expression in this order. Placing the operator ‘EQUIVALENT’ between these two expression segments links them as ‘synonymous’ in the same rule expression for the associated Model Version.

Incompatible Statement

You may want to create two incompatible statements. You can do this with existing operators.
Example: [City] [London] [IMPLY] [NOT] [Country] [France]
Explanation: We’ve previously established the feature ‘city’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘London’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘City’ by arranging the expression in this order. Additionally, we establish the feature ‘Country’ as a variant for a Model Version. Here, we assign the feature ‘France’’s definition, a Variant Value, as a ‘Country’ by arranging the expression in this order. Placing the operators ‘IMPLY’ and ‘NOT’ between these two expression segments links them as ‘if so, then not allowed’ in the same rule expression for the associated Model Version.

Additional Examples
Example Scenario: Include a bottle holder whenever we release a bicycle in France.
Example Syntax: [Country] [France] [IMPLY] [Accessories] [Bottle Holder]

               Example Scenario: Exclude a GPS Unit for a bicycle whenever a customer selects 26-inch tires or a basket option.
Example Syntax: [Tire] [Wanda 26] [OR] [Accessories] [Basket] [IMPY] [NOT] [Accessories] [GPS]

Expressions that specify invalid scenarios will automatically prevent certain scenarios from being chosen when creating Configurations.

Wrap Up

By using logical expression rules in your Project Plan Portfolio, you can ensure consistent results across your team. This means everyone always follows the same rules every time. This also makes it easier to manage going forward, as you set these rules up front and become the standards going forward.

Gabriel Rodriguez
Application Engineer II
Computer Aided Technology

Figure 1. Image courtesy of Dassault Systemes.

One of the downsides of hexahedral elements is the meshed geometry must be such that there is a sweepable shape. This means that overhangs, extra extrusions, and holes that don’t follow the sweep direction would all make it impossible to use these advanced elements for analysis. Many simulation programs get around this by splitting or “partitioning” the shape into separate volumes that are sweepable. As usual, 3DEXPERIENCE Simulation does this as well but ups the ante above those other tools. Let’s take a look at partitioning for simulation on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform.

Partitioning for Better Meshing

We’ll start with the part below. It is a cylinder from an air-cooled motorcycle engine. Notice the removal of small features like fillets on the simplified version in the figure below.

Figure 2

We can take the simplified model into the Structural Model Creation app to get feedback on how to best mesh this shape. Select the compass, click Structural Model Creation, click “Partition Hex Mesh,” and finally select the component itself as a support. 3DEXPERIENCE Simulation will then color the part according to the methods that can be used to mesh it.

Figure 3

The orange color on the part in the figure above indicates a volume that is NOT mesh-able by hexahedral elements. As is, 3DEXPERIENCE Simulation will assign a tetrahedral mesh instead. However, many of the areas on this model could be split from the others into sweepable shapes. This is where partitioning comes in!

Meshing in 3DEXPERIENCE with the Partition Tool

The partitioning tool is most easily accessed via the Simulation Model Preparation app included with your 3DEXPERIENCE Simulation role. Simply click the compass and select the app from the list to launch it. This app contains sets of tools used for simplification of CAD models for use in simulation. We’re looking for “Partition” under the “Idealize” tab. See figure 4 below:

Figure 4

All we must do to partition the component is to select the part as the “Volume to partition” and use cutting elements such as faces, planes, surfaces, etc. to divide the part into sweepable features. For example, if I want to partition one of the assembly tabs, I can select the face that it is extruded from as a cutting element. If we extrapolate that face infinitely, it will cut through the tab, separating it as its own volume. See below:

Figure 5

Now if we check the color coding to view the types of mesh we can use for each volume, we see the small extrude we split off is colored yellow-indicating a hex-meshable volume. See below:

Figure 6

Automatic Partitioning for Automatic Meshing

We can continue splitting features manually to create the fully partitioned model. It’s a simple process that works very well. However, recently one of the updates to the meshing feature in 3DEXPERIENCE Simulation has added an automatic partitioning tool to do all of that work for you! All you must do is select the volume, and click the checkbox for “Automatic Partitioning,” and soon you will have a fully hex-meshable part! You can see my example below:

Figure 7

As with all automated tools this will not work for every geometry, but in my experience, it does a great job splitting prismatic parts like this one. A further benefit of using the “Partition” tool is that the partitioned hex-mesh will be fully conforming. That means that adjacent volumes of hex meshes will share common nodes at the volume’s boundary.

Figure 8

Figure 9. Image courtesy of Dassault Systemes.

Finally, if you are attempting to mesh a part that has non-sweepable volumes, the partition hex-mesh algorithm will assign tetrahedral elements to the non-hex volumes and create a “tie contact” between the volumes automatically! Optionally, you can also specify a layer of pyramid elements to act as a conforming mesh boundary between the hexahedral elements and the tetrahedral elements. You can see a visual representation of how that works below:

Thank you for partitioning some of your time to read my blog today. Simulation model preparation is a vital step in achieving accurate simulations, and again the 3DEXPEREICNE Platform goes above and beyond in enabling engineers to do what they do best.

Matt Sherak
Sr. Simulation Product Specialist
Elite Application Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

That’s where 3DEXPERIENCE Works comes in. 3DEXPERIENCE Works makes selections from the 3DEXPERIENCE portfolio to provide an easy and productive starting point for SOLIDWORKS businesses that are ready for a digital transformation.

The 3DEXPERIENCE solutions connect people in an interactive environment to securely share, collaborate, and manage data at any time and on any device while accelerating your product development process.

When you think about the future, you can expect the 3DEXPERIENCE Works portfolio to be dynamic. Therefore, you may see products added, removed, or combined as they evolve.

Within the portfolio, categories, or “domains” are the groupings for each product. As of right now, these are the current domains:

• Designer/Engineer
• Governance/Management
• Engineer/Analyst
• Manufacturing/Production

Each of these domains includes the core collaboration and product lifecycle management functionality of the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. Do note that you may see this solution presented in a couple of ways. First, you may see it as the Platform Contributor role. Alternatively, you could see it as two roles, Collaborative Business Innovator and Collaborative Industry Innovator.

3DEXPERIENCE Works Domain Breakdown

Designer/Engineer

This domain includes 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS and 3DEXPERIENCE DraftSight. Something to know about these tools is that neither of them runs in the cloud. Instead, you install and run each on a local computer. Other cloud-based design and planning tools included are 3D Creator, 3D Sculptor, and Project Planner. With these roles, designers and engineers have better control over their CAD data and better visibility over the product development process.

Governance/Management

This domain includes Project Planner and Social Business Analyst. Social Business Analyst allows you to aggregate and analyze information from online sources to quickly determine trends in topics related to the user’s business.

Engineer/Analyst

This domain includes 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS and 3DEXPERIENCE STRUCTURAL roles like Structural Mechanics Engineer. Structural Mechanics Engineer provides comprehensive structural analysis to guide engineering decisions and optimize product performance while reducing reliance on expensive prototyping.

Manufacturing/Production

This domain includes 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS and 3DEXPERIENCE NC PROGRAMMING roles like NC Prismatic & Mill Turn Machine Programmer, and Production Engineer. These roles make your manufacturing more efficient, minimizing errors, preventing bottlenecks, and maximizing utilization, with complete visibility and traceability of the entire manufacturing process.

The 3DEXPERIENCE Works cloud portfolio connects your entire organization, providing the tools and platform to design, develop, manage, and manufacture in a collaborative, real-time ecosystem.

Todd Myers
Senior Application Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

Private 🡪 Protected

Private 🡪 Public

Protected 🡪 Public

With the changes to the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, there’s more flexibility for you to change the visibility of a collaborative space. Think of a scenario where you have a cloud tenant with a Public Collaborative space. This means all users that have access to the tenant can see all the data within that particular tenant. If you’d like to invite a customer into the tenant for them to see their customer-specific data, the previous setup didn’t allow that.

What Recent Changes Mean for Collaborative Space Visibility

With the recent changes to the platform, the customer can be invited to the environment and the existing collaborative space can be changed to a Private collaborative space. By doing that, the customer will not see any of the data in the environment at any point. You can then add all the customer data to a new Private collaborative space and add them to it. Once this is done, they will only be able to see the data in their collaborative space. Once the customer is done in the environment, you can remove their access to your tenant and change it back to Public. This drastically helps with flexibility and does not lock you into a specific visibility as before.

With the new changes, there are also some new messages that come up in the Platform to warn you about the new changes you’re about to make.

When going from a Public to a Protected Collab Space, you will see the following message on the EDIT command. The same thing goes when changing it from a Protected to Private Collaborative Space.

When going the opposite direction and changing from Private to Protected, Private to Public, or Protected to Public, you will now see the below warning message.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you change a space from Public to Protected or Public to Private, you will need to add members to that collaborative space now in order for them to see the data (if they aren’t already a member of the collaborative space).

Ritesh Dalal

PLM Solutions Architect

Computer Aided Technology

You may have heard about it at 3DEXPERIENCE World. And more than that, who doesn’t want SOLIDWORKS in the Cloud? It’s the dream of every engineer I talk to and when Dassault introduced the SOLIDWORKS Cloud offer, it made waves as the future tool for every CAD user. But what exactly is it? To be perfectly clear, this isn’t SOLIDWORKS as you know it. However, it’s the same team behind it, so you get a very familiar feel. Let’s take a closer look at what you can expect.

The SOLIDWORKS cloud offer is a set of next-generation design solutions that run fully in a web browser. This means you can design whenever and wherever you like.  You can create designs on your laptop, tablet, MAC OS device, or even your cell phone.

But this is not “SOLIDWORKS in the Cloud”. That said, these intuitive, specialized tools were developed by the same team behind traditional desktop SOLIDWORKS. Many of the functions feel similar to SOLIDWORKS, but there are also many nice time-saving enhancements in these apps that are even better.

The tools let you create parametric mechanical shapes, sub-divisional ergonomic freeform shapes, welded structures, sheet metal designs, 2D drawings, 3D annotations, photo renderings, and product documentation.

These tools are powered by the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, which means you’ll also get built-in cloud-based data and product lifecycle management, as well as collaboration tools. This allows you to share designs and get input from team members, customers, and suppliers.

WHO is the SOLIDWORKS Cloud Offer for?

The cloud offer is perfect for startups, early adopters, or any organization with cloud-only initiatives. Additionally, it’s perfect for groups that want to minimize CAD administration or don’t want to install software or manage updates. It’s also a great tool to reduce or eliminate the need for costly CAD-specific workstations.

Check out our website to learn more about the SOLIDWORKS Cloud offer and see if it may be right for you.

There are two roles that everyone needs for both 2D (logical) and 3D (physical) electrical design. These are called the ‘Collaborative Business Innovator’ (IFW) and ‘Collaborative Industry Innovator’ (CSV) roles.

CATIA V6 Electrical Required Foundational Roles

Collaborative Business Innovator brings the connected environment into an entire organization. This role allows people from inside or outside of your company to securely view and share content while in a web browser. It also lets you do all of the work in a single location from design to market. You can add the power of collaboration and data sharing to your 3DEXPERIENCE platform and create a hub for your designs in a convenient place where you can collaborate on the cloud from anywhere.

On the other hand, Collaborative Industry Innovator is best described as a product data management tool. This browser-based role gives PDM additional functionality by letting users compare, markup, and view realistic CAD data. This provides a collaborative way to monitor iterations and changes to your electrical designs.

2D Electrical Schematic Role Breakdown

Collaborative Business Innovator and Collaborative Industry Innovator are the base roles you need for the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. Together, these tools integrate seamlessly with the roles that make up CATIA Electrical. For the creation of schematics and 2D logical designs, you’ll need the ‘Systems Schematic Engineer’ (TIC) role. This tool allows designers to create intelligent schematics for wiring, cabling, piping/tubing, and HVAC systems. Let’s look at some of the capabilities

• Fully define 2D electrical component, port, and wire/cable libraries
• Define and connect electrical and fluid system schematics for a complete detailed logical system design
• Build logical architecture of harnesses
• Capture attributes and technology automatically within the schematic.
• Edit the attributes of electrical components within the schematic
• Create links between logical components and realistic 3D representations
• Analyze connectivity and quality of schematic design and ensure synchronization with the 3D design using business intelligence rules.

3D Physical Electrical Design Role Breakdown

For 3D physical design, you’ll use the ‘Electrical 3D System Designer’ (ELG) role. This tool is an integrated 3D electrical development environment, which enables the physical design of wire harnesses and cabling in the conditions of the complete product. Some of the main features to point out include:

• Create electrical geometries, electrical branch geometries, and electrical physical systems
• Synchronize electrical schematics to 3D designs to improve electrical systems quality and consistency
• Create or import conductor specifications
• Design and optimize electrical wire harness bundles and cable ways accurately in the realistic environment of the full system
• Route 3D wires and cables to obtain exact bundle diameters and wire/cable lengths
• Simulate routes between selected network ends and compute route lengths

CATIA V6 Electrical provides a logical to physical electrical system design solution and is fully integrated with the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. This means that you can easily incorporate CATIA V6 Electrical into your design lifecycle process. This allows you to efficiently collaborate with the other roles that 3DEXPERIENCE has to offer, giving you a more seamless process.

Jacob Quintana
Application Engineer Specialist, Electrical
Computer Aided Technology

So how could Dassault Systemes make SOLIDWORKS better? They add a ton of capabilities to it of course! Dassault Systemes has created a product that connects the SOLIDWORKS you know and love with a cloud-based, CAD-aware, product lifecycle management (PLM) system called 3DEXPERIENCE Works (commonly referred to as the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform). The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform assists throughout all aspects of the design process with an entire suite of collaboration, data management, and productivity tools. This means more of what you love in a seamless ecosystem.

But the most important question is “what happens to my SOLIDWORKS with 3DEXPERIENCE?” Nothing! When you use a 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS license, you still do things in SOLIDWORKS the same way. You may use some different tools, which we’ll dig into in a bit, but you can still extrude, cut, loft, sketch, and pattern the same way as before. So, with that said, let’s take a look at how 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS handles some of the basic questions, starting with how it impacts your modeling.

How does 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS change my modeling?

Really, your modeling doesn’t have to change much, if at all. One of the biggest things I want to emphasize is that 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS is still SOLIDWORKS. Your buttons are in the same spots, your functions are named the same, and your settings are right where they are now. The differences in modeling lie in how the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform manages your configurations and other variations of your models.

In any PDM/PLM system, the discussion surrounding configurations varies. SOLIDWORKS the CAD system does not have a way to protect or lock individual configurations. So, if PDM/PLM gives you access to a SOLIDWORKS file you have the potential to change any of the configurations (sometimes accidentally). This is one of the reasons why the best use of configurations in both PDM/PLM is to create a representation of a part, not a new part number. So, as an example, configurations of an air cylinder in fully extended and fully retracted positions is a great use of a representation of a model. Configuring the SOLIDWORKS file to show different sizes of the air cylinder is defining different part numbers.

That is not the best practice with PDM/PLM. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform introduces a couple of new terms with regards to configurations; a CAD FAMILY and a PHYSICAL PRODUCT. The CAD family is basically the CAD file that contains the configurations. You can think of it as the umbrella that all the configurations fall under. The Physical products are those configurations. Therefore, the physical products are what we interact with inside SOLIDWORKS. Speaking of managing files, how does 3DEXPERIENCE let me save, manage, and share my models?

How Does 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Manage my Models?

Product data management, or file management, is something that every SOLIDWORKS user needs. You can benefit from data management’s features anytime from early in the design phase right through to sustaining engineering work done over the years. The ability to take many snapshots in time while early in the design phase and the design is changing rapidly, to the ability to lock down and rev control released files can all be had with document management.

The 3DEXPERIENCE platform offers cloud-based document management and collaboration. You can access your cloud-stored files directly through SOLIDWORKS CAD. This makes it easy to share and you never have to leave the familiar CAD interface. The SOLIDWORKS CAD integration allows you to find files, open them in SOLIDWORKS, lock them for editing, and save your changes right back up to the cloud. You can even apply a formal release process for your data! We can configure the release process for a simple self-approval, require a handful of electronic signatures from across the company, or anywhere in between.

So How is That Different Than Traditional PDM?

Some of you are saying “SOLIDWORKS Professional (or Premium) has PDM Standard as part of its bundle.” That’s true, but it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. Neither PDM Standard nor PDM Professional have the PLM capabilities of the 3DEXPERIENCE Cloud. PDM is just that – Data Management. It does a stellar job managing files. But where both of the traditional, on-premise PDMs fall short is managing tasks, resources, issues, and projects. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform supplements the PDM capabilities with those additional PLM functions.

What does 3DEXPERIENCE do for My Simulation Tools?

To be clear, the SIMULIA Products are additional licenses, just like Simulation Pro/Premium. But with 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS as part of your tool kit, your data’s already in the platform, ready to be analyzed by SIMULIA. The caveat to this scenario is if you already own SOLIDWORKS Simulation Pro, Premium, or Flow, those licenses won’t “add-in” to 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS. In that case, you might consider sticking with traditional desktop SOLIDWORKS and keeping your existing add-ins.

While not part of the 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS bundle, the 3DEXPERIENCE platform does offer SOLIDWORKS users access to the advanced simulation products that Dassault Systemes offers. Those products fall under the SIMULIA brand and have capabilities above and beyond traditional SOLIDWORKS Simulation Professional and Premium. It’s powered by the Abaqus FEA solver but operated through 3DEXPERIENCE. SIMULIA offers a wide range of additional capabilities, including advanced non-linearity, advanced meshing, and cloud computing. Basically, you can think about it as the next level beyond SOLIDWORKS Simulation Premium.

Do I License and Install 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Any Differently?

3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS has some differences from the traditional desktop version for installation and licensing. Let’s start with licensing. This is a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) product so the licenses are sold as “named user” licenses. In other words, licenses live with the user and NOT the machine. So, any user can log in to any CAD machine anywhere in the world, install 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS, and design. The license is designed to follow the user and behaves very much like the discontinued “on-line” licensing model that existed for the desktop software.

A small detail you may have missed there is that the license is global. Traditionally, you have to purchase and use SOLIDWORKS licenses in the same geographic region. That isn’t true for 3DEXPERIENCE, as you can use it anywhere in the world. Additionally, you can reassign the license after 30 days if the CAD user leaves the company.

The reduced up-front cost is another benefit of named user licensing. Desktop SOLIDWORKS has a license cost and a subscription cost. Named user SaaS licenses eliminate the upfront license cost and just need a yearly subscription. I’ll refrain from putting numbers in this blog and just ask that you contact your salesperson for more detail.

As for installation, 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS is still a locally installed version of SOLIDWORKS. The installation, in this case, does not require a serial number, so you don’t need to track where you installed your serial number. You start the installation once logged into the platform, which is much simpler than traditional desktop SOLIDWORKS. Since the licenses are tied to the user, the platform knows what software options to install and will not ask the user the lengthy list of installation option questions like traditional desktop installations.

Additionally, because the installation comes from the platform the user is always on the latest version of SOLIDWORKS. For most of you, that’s perfect, as you’re prompted to install updates over the course of the year. However, for those of you who absolutely must install an older version, that cannot be done. There can only be one major version – the latest – installed on the machine.

Did 3DEXPERIENCE make any applications obsolete?

Getting into some of the minor details, let’s go through some of the items that were removed from 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS and were often replaced with an equivalent or better tool. Surprisingly, you’ll notice 3DEXPERIENCE doesn’t include eDrawings. Once files are in the platform, any viewer of the system can view files with software very much like eDrawings but native to the platform with no local installation required. That app is called 3DPlay.

Another app 3DEXPERIENCE removed was PhotoView360, the original photo rendering app. In this case, you’ll find a much better rendering app replacement- Visualize Professional. With it, you can create magazine-quality images and animation. Additionally, we no longer need Task Scheduler, so it was also removed. This was not a hugely popular application, but it did offer an option to batch export files to various formats. It has been replaced with 3DEXPERIENCE Derived Format converter with similar capabilities.

Of course, 3DEXPERIENCE does remove some options without a replacement. That includes any of the Xpress Products – SimXpress, FlowXpress, and DriveWorksXpress. The value of the platform makes that a small price to pay for the removal of those tools. The Xpress tools are not full-function tools. Each one has an equivalent full-function software that you could purchase to augment SOLIDWORKS further. The Xpress tools are truly meant as an introduction to their more robust siblings.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, this info whets your appetite and gives you the desire to look into the 3DEXPERIENCE platform further. The platform opens a world of possibilities that couldn’t really be covered in the span of one blog. CATI invites you to contact us for a demonstration what the product is really capable of. We think you’ll agree that 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS packs great value. And you’ll want to partner with CATI as we have years of experience in configuring the product and training companies like yours how to use the product effectively.

First and foremost, to utilize physical products and representations, you need to check “Enable 3DEXPERIENCE Integration” in your SOLIDWORKS System Options, shown in the image below.

The 3DEXPERIENCE Integration category in System Options only appears when the 3DEXPERIENCE add-in is active. As indicated near the top of the page, you can only toggle this option when there are no files open.

The two radio buttons determine whether the traditional ConfigurationManager remains visible in your models. If “Configurations: CAD Family only” is selected, the ConfigurationManager will be replaced by a similar panel that shows the physical products and representations in the model. If “Configurations: CAD Family and Configurations” is selected, this new panel will be displayed alongside the standard ConfigurationManager. When you create a new physical product or representation in the CAD Family section, it will create a new configuration in the ConfigurationManager, and vice versa.

Although the ConfigurationManager allows you to edit some properties of the configurations that the CAD Family panel currently does not—for instance, the ConfigurationManager lets you decide whether a part configuration should be excluded from BOMs by default—I, personally, find it somewhat confusing to show both, so I’d recommend using the “Configurations: CAD Family only” option.

In the CAD Family tree on the left in the image above, the CATI-0014 and CATI-0015 objects are physical products, while the two “Pre-Machining” versions are representations—notice that each representation is tied to a physical product. The SOLIDWORKS file in which I’ve created everything, Plate.SLDPRT, is referred to as the “CAD family.”

In the ConfigurationManager on the right side, the physical products show up as configurations and the representations are treated as derived configurations. There are, however, some differences between physical products and configurations and between representations and derived configurations, which I will get into a bit later.

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Physical products are meant to represent unique items in your product line. They’re things that would be listed on bills of materials and could be ordered. Every CAD family has to have at least one physical product.

In my example, CATI-0014 has four mounting bosses while CATI-0015 has five. Because these parts are very similar, I decided to make them as separate physical products within a single CAD family. After finishing the CATI-0014 model, instead of starting a brand new SOLIDWORKS part file and recreating all the features for the CATI-0015, generating another physical product allowed me to reuse the existing features and just change a couple dimensions and pattern instance counts to get what I needed.

Representations are meant to illustrate different versions or different states of a single product. For instance, you might want to demonstrate an assembly’s range of motion by having one representation in an extended position and one in a retracted position, or maybe you are looking to run a simulation on your model and want a simplified rendition that removes some of the cosmetic details. While each CAD family has at least one physical product, physical products do not need any representations; representations simply offer the ability to store multiple forms of a physical product if desired.

The “Pre-Machining” representations in my model are supposed to reflect the part before the holes are added. I just needed to suppress a couple features to set them up. Since we would never actually sell a version of this part without the holes, I didn’t want these to be separate physical products; I just have them as a reference.

In general, I tend to think of representations as variations kept for internal company purposes, whereas the physical product is what you want the customer to see.

In 3DEXPERIENCE, physical products are listed as separate objects in the database. This is the main difference between physical products and configurations. Configurations are not standalone files. If you want to open a specific configuration, you need to first find the model to which it belongs and then tell SOLIDWORKS you want that configuration when opening.

When searching with 3DEXPERIENCE, every physical product and CAD family will have its own entry in the results, so you can access the model from several different places. Representations, by contrast, do not have their own objects, so they will not appear in searches and cannot be opened directly from the platform.

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Normally, when you make changes to a configuration, those changes get pushed down to its derived configurations. Whether you’re adding a feature or altering a dimension, the derived configurations will match it (though there are ways to prevent this). This relationship is not entirely upheld for physical products and their representations unless you make a slight settings adjustment.

When defining a new representation, the option to “Suppress new features” is enabled by default. (This option is turned off by default when working with derived configurations.) This way, any features that get added to a different version of the model—including the parent physical product—will be suppressed in that representation. When disabled, adding a feature to the parent physical product will add it to that representation, though adding a feature to any other member of the CAD family will not. So, if you want to keep a physical product and its representations synchronized, make sure to disable this option when setting up each representation.

As for dimensions, updating a value in the parent physical product will propagate to its representations unless you unlink that dimension at the representation level, which is also how derived configurations behave. Additionally, the “All Configurations” option in the Modify Dimension dialog can still be used to apply a dimension change to all of the members of a CAD family.

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Before you commit to using physical products and representations to manage your designs, it’s important to understand their behavior with revisions. When you add a new revision to a model, it affects the entire CAD family, meaning all physical products and representations will be revised at the same time. In other words, the physical products and representations within a CAD family will always be on the same revision.

Now, this makes sense for our definition of representations. You would likely want these to match the revision of the physical product with which they’re associated. This may not be desired for different physical products though. Even if two products are similar, it’s possible that you would want to revise one before the other, and that just isn’t allowed within the CAD family. If you do expect to need independent revision numbers for different versions of your model, you will be better off creating branches or entirely separate CAD files to depict design variations, as these methods will result in individual CAD families. (If you are looking to learn more about branches, this webinar from the Dassault team contains some helpful details.)

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To summarize, the main difference between physical products and representations is that physical products are treated as separate objects in the 3DEXPERIENCE database while representations are not. Each physical product should be a unique part number in your catalog, whereas a representation just reflects an alternate way of showing a particular product. Because all physical products and representations within a file share a CAD family, you can easily push changes from one to another. However, this relationship also means that they will always be on the same revision, as the CAD family is what gets revised, not an individual physical product or representation.

As is often the case with new technologies, 3DEXPERIENCE comes with a new lexicon that may steepen the learning curve. If you have any questions about physical products, representations, or any other aspect of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, feel free to reach out to us.

Anthony Sandri
Application Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

DraftSight Standalone users that want to use the 3DXPERIENCE Platform for PLM Services need to connect the two somehow. What you’ll need is the 3DXPERIENCE Role called Collaborative Designer for DraftSight. This lets users connect their standalone version to the platform so they can use the 3DXPERIENCE PLM Services by installing the Design with DraftSight Connector and the Derived Format Converter as seen below and you are set.

When opening DraftSight with these apps installed, the 3DXPERIENCE PLM Services are located in the Task Pane allowing users to manage files on the cloud. Using the integrated PLM functionality allows you to collaborate with others in a team environment or gives someone access to files from virtually anywhere they have an internet connection.

Additional Information about DraftSight

Some facts you need to know:

• DraftSight Standalone and 3DEXPERIENCE DraftSight cannot reside on the same computer. It’s one or the other. You can connect DraftSight to the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform with the roles mentioned above, but it’s one tool or the other.
• DraftSight will reside on a person’s computer for both instances.
• DraftSight Desktop and 3DEXPERIENCE DraftSight have no difference in functionality. DraftSight is so similar to AutoCAD for those users switching to this format and note that you can customize DraftSight to look almost identical to AutoCAD.
• DraftSight Enterprise and Enterprise Plus are network licenses and need a server for the license manager. Enterprise Plus has a 3D Modeling Option.
• DraftSight is light, meaning that it only needs 1 GB disk space and 2-8 GB RAM.

Does that clear up a few questions? See your Sales representative for more information and start today! Please read other 3DEXPERIENCE and DraftSight blogs to find out even more.

Thanks for reading!

Judy Hahn, CSWE, CSPP
Application Engineer Manager
Computer Aided Technology