As this was the second year being invited by Missler Software to attend the TopSolid seminar, i had some idea of what to expect. I had a great time last year and this year was no different.
I arrived at the legendary Carlton Hotel wednesday afternoon and metup with American TopSolid superstar and friend Bill Genc.
Traveling from a cold and snowy Scandinavia i sure enjoyed the sunny weather in Cannes and what would be better than going out for a beer to catchup with some old friends?
Even though there is a welcome dinner on wednesday evening the the one event to kick-off the seminar is the global meeting where Missler Software summarizes the past year and presents news about the coming year. One being a new strategic union with French Comapany Alma, experts in Sheet-Metal. Exciting news for anyone working with Sheet Metal.
There was also some success stories, and presentations of some resellers around the globe from Brazil to Thailand. The latter being 4D Corporation in Thailand who has posted a bunch of cool videos on YouTube.
The next couple of days was filled with interesting workshops about TopSolid product lineup aswell as other useful topics much appreciated by everyone.
There was one meeting this year that was very special for me, i finally got to meet with Saad Gasmi, an AE at Missler Software who is considered to be one of the very best and has some many, many years of TopSolid experience. Saad has been helping out alot since i started the blog, and infact he is behind alot of the material presented on TopSolidBlog. Thank you Saad!
On saturday afternoon there was some other activites, sailing, bus rides or…. driving 2 CV around Cannes which was alot of fun! Check out the video below this post!
Saturday ended with a gala award ceremony where the most successful French and international Sales Teams were rewarded.
One might think that spending almost four days at the seminar you would have plenty of time for meetings or just hanging out. But suddenly i find myself on a plane heading for home and i wonder what happened? Lot´s of people i did not have a chance to talk to or only got the chance to meet briefly.
I would like thank Missler Software and especially the marketing team for letting me be apart of the 2012 TopSolid Seminar! _
TopSolid 7.6 release is just around the corner and while we wait let´s take a look at an early Alpha version of TopSolid 7.7 and a new feature called Tracking Mode.
In TopSolid 7.7 “Tracking Mode” basically means that when enabled, all you have to do is click on a part, operation or entity and it will be highlighted in one of the corresponding “trees”, pretty cool!
Ok, i have to come clean here, there is no such list. Why? Well because there are to many feature requests to choose from! But make no misstake, these 5 are among the most asked for features!
Last spring i was in Toulouse where i was shown how Missler Software handles these feature requests and i got to tell you, that list of feature requests…. is pretty long!
Anyhow, here´s the list of 5 of the most requested features in TopSolid 7.6:
Excel Link
Excel Link is a feature, allowing users to drive a fully parametric model via an Excel Sheet
Check out this video to learn more: http://youtu.be/3tPxIkcKTno
Rebuild Lines and Arcs and “Contour Wizard”
The new sketch operation 2D Sketch > Operations > Lines Arcs Conversion… allows to convert a spline curve in arcs and segments (with tangency continuity).
The new 2D Sketch > Contour Wizard… operation allows to quickly create a contour from a sketch coming from an import. In case of ambiguity (segment joined with several other segments), different solutions will be suggested in the form of graphics handles.
Also, imported sketches can now be directly edited thanks to the contextual command Make Editable…
2D Components
In the same way of the 3d components it is possible to insert 2D Model documents (symbols) in a sketch (title block, view detailing, 2d sketch).
The origin point of the 2D Model document is used as inserted point as default. But it is possible to use others points if these ones had been published.
This new feature allows to create any sort of schema.
2D Components is required to fully detail a 2D Drawing (Include Origin Symbols, Stamps, specific annotations, …)
Custom Revisions
It is now possible to define the text of major and minor revisions to a project element or all elements of a project using the new commands Revision texts… and Default Revision Texts… available from the contextual menu Others on an element or on a project.
Check out this video on Custom Revisions: http://youtu.be/8Zxn5BbIfOU
Exception in Views (2D Drafting)
When an assembly document is drafted, contextual menu on a view provides a new command names Exception allowing you to manage display mode of parts. For each part you can change visibility, line type of visible part, hidden part etc… and set sectionable or not. All these information can be defined in an Exception Style saved in the Styles > Exceptions Style folder of the entities tree.
And yes, these features will all be available in TopSolid 7.6
Ok, so it´s now 2012 and another year has passed. During 2011 there was some 40000 pageviews and 16500 visits by 10000 unique visitors and the videos at the TopSolidBlog YouTube channel has now been viewed more than 22000 times!
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As of december last year 7.6 RC was released and this is the version that will be used on next weeks TopSolid 2012 Seminar in Cannes, France.
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The Polish TopSolid reseller TopSolution have been working hard translating TopSolid 7 to Polish and with the release of TopSolid 7.5 SP12 (released last december) all Polish users can now enjoy TopSolid 7 in their native language.
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Big things coming coming this year, especially with the release of TopSolid 7.6. Also there is a rumour going around that Missler will be announcing something special next week.
Speaking of next week, it´s time for the annual TopSolid seminar for TopSolid VAR’s coming from all around the globe.
Myself and Bill Genc fromClearCut Solutions will try to post some news and updates on Twitter. To join the fun and stay updated add Daniel Norée and Bill Genc! Everyone is more than welcome to join the conversation.
It´s not everyday we have a guestblogger here, so therefore it´s with great pleasure i present to you Ulrich Alt.
Representing West GmbH from Germany,
Ulrich Alt has an impressive twenty years experience of working with TopSolid and i guess that qualifies him as a true TopSolid veteran.
So here it is, Ulrich Alt sharing his thoughts and dreams on TopSolid.
Ok, so we have seen a bit of the new “Deformation” command already. And as i mentioned before the 7.6 is still in Alpha and while things are under development they are also subject to change. And in this case the new “Deformation” tool got an update called “Profile on Profile deformation” and basically it´s creating a deformation following a profile.
In the video below i modeled a tube which i then applied the deformation to using a spline. Of course it doesn´t have to be a pipe or a spline, the choice is yours.
And by the way, check out the updated Sketch Radius tool!
Another year has passed and this blog is now two years old.
It might be a worn out expression but time really does fly when you are having fun.
The last twelwe months have been really awesome!
I got to travel to Berlin to meet Missler Software staff and resellers from around the world, met some amazing people there!
And if that wasn´t enough i also got to travel to Toulouse and Missler Software to attend some TopSolid 7 training and also to meet with the developers of TopSolid to see how they work.
Also during this year i uploaded 22 new videos to YouTube so now there are 42 videos which have been viewed more than 11000 times these last twelve months
And on the blog there have been 15000 visits and 40000 pageviews from 9000 visitors from more than one hundred countries!
Now i´m gonna go and have some cake and maybe even a beer or two later!
Swedish TopSolid guru Thomas Ericson is not only one of the guys making the impossible made possible at Swedish TopSolid reseller Protech but he is is also a huge fan of classic American cars and at the moment it´s a Chevrolet Impala 2D HT 1966 that is getting all the attention. Sure it´s coming along fine but this beauty wasn´t always a beauty, when Thomas first laid his eyes on this car it was a burned out wreck. _
But as the hours go by (i wouldn´t want to guess how many) this Chevrolet Impala comes closer to it´s former greatness. But a problem with a project like restoring such a car is that getting all the right parts can be really hard or even impossible. So what to do? Give up? Or if you you are like Thomas you just make your own brand new parts! Check out Thomas blog to see how TopSolid and a 3D Printer from Stratasys can make life a whole lot easier when restoring old cars.
Bill Genc from ClearCut Solutions is on a quest. A quest to educate the world on TopSolid 7. And if that´s not enough, for some reason he want´s to save you money aswell.
In this post he explains how to create and work with a custom stock model in TopSolid’Cam 7 . Or actually TopSolid 7 is doing all the work, so i´m not sure what Bill is doing really..
If I wanted to make my own toys when I was a kid I have would carve them out of a wooden block using a knife. And I tell you, that was no walk in the park. Blood, sweat and tears and one or two blisters in my hands was all I got… _ But these days some 30 years later it´s a whole other ballgame. Advanced software together with state of the art machinery opens new doors to say the least. But come on, where´s the fun in that?
Anyway, as you might have read a while back my son Love got to design a toy car in TopSolid 7 (you can read about it here).
Luckily for us Swedish TopSolid reseller Protech are also experts on 3D Printers and they promised to produce what ever Love designed if he did it on his own. Protech kept their promise and eventually a package was delivered to our house. It would be an understatement to say Love was excited. Next time he will design a train he says… Well, let´s see, all in due time.
Check the video below to see how Loves car came to life.
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If your in Malmoe, Sweden on the 4-5 th of may you should visit Protech at the Plastteknik 2011 fair. And if you do, be sure to say hi from me.
As this was the second year being invited by Missler Software to attend the TopSolid seminar, i had some idea of what to expect. I had a great time last year and this year was no different.
Even though there is a welcome dinner on wednesday evening the the one event to kick-off the seminar is the global meeting where Missler Software summarizes the past year and presents news about the coming year. One being a new strategic union with French Comapany Alma, experts in Sheet-Metal. Exciting news for anyone working with Sheet Metal.
There was one meeting this year that was very special for me, i finally got to meet with Saad Gasmi, an AE at Missler Software who is considered to be one of the very best and has some many, many years of TopSolid experience. Saad has been helping out alot since i started the blog, and infact he is behind alot of the material presented on TopSolidBlog. Thank you Saad!
One might think that spending almost four days at the seminar you would have plenty of time for meetings or just hanging out. But suddenly i find myself on a plane heading for home and i wonder what happened? Lot´s of people i did not have a chance to talk to or only got the chance to meet briefly.
Ok, i have to come clean here, there is no such list. Why? Well because there are to many feature requests to choose from! But make no misstake, these 5 are among the most asked for features!
