SolidWorks 2011 Assemblies Bible - Matt Lombard [208]
• www.core77.com. This is probably the premier industrial design website available.
• www.mcadforums.com. This site has a lot of traffic and content, but also uses Flash advertisements.
• www.eng-tips.com. This forum receives plenty of traffic, has a sign-in popup, and is highly censored.
• www.3dcadtips.com. This site is run by the owners of the Design World magazine and has a lot of information on general engineering topics as well as CAD.
Non-Commercial Websites
The sites listed here are run by individuals, lack advertising, and contain information created by the owner of the site. They are my favorite types of places to find information. Even though most of these folks are not professional HTML coders, the information is useful and presented well.
• Rob Rodriguez (www.robrodriguez.com) features rendering topics. Rob used to host the PhotoWorks rendering contest, but that has moved to http://rendercontest.com/.
• Paul Salvador (www.zxys.com) has some nice models and images.
• Edgar Gidoni (www.ragde3d.com) is a prolific creator of beautiful SolidWorks models, and he writes nice step-by-step tutorials, many of which are free.
• Stefan Berlitz (http://solidworks.cad.de) is the unofficial German SolidWorks site. If you read German, this site is loaded with great information. Although it does contain some advertisements, I still consider it a non-commercial site.
• Scott Baugh (www.scottjbaugh.com) has several sample models and a section on tips.
• Mike Wilson (www.mikejwilson.com) has some amazing things posted to his site that he has done with SolidWorks. They are great models from which to learn. The site has not been updated for some time, but the models and techniques shown are fascinating.
Appendix B: What's on the DVD
In This Appendix
Reviewing the system requirements
Troubleshooting during the install of the DVD
Extract the contents of the file to your hard drive in a location that is easy to access. The DVD contains example and tutorial parts, assemblies, and drawings, as well as templates, macros, and tables as appropriate for each chapter. The files are organized within folders for each chapter and are named for the chapter and the function they demonstrate. Some of the files are starting points for tutorials, and some are finished models meant to be examined.
If you make changes to files, I recommend that you use the Save As command (File⇒Save As) to keep the original file intact. You also can retrieve originals from the DVD again if needed.
The DVD also includes several video tutorials on various topics related to material in the book. The videos are narrated and offer another learning option to the print-only tutorials found in the book. The videos do not duplicate the print-only tutorials. The main goal of the video tutorials is to demonstrate the workflow or visual options for SolidWorks tools.
Caution
I do not recommend that you open files directly from the DVD or from the Zip file, because SolidWorks will respond with messages about read-only files.
Cross-Reference
The files on the DVD are also available on the publisher's website at www.wiley.com/go/solidworks2011assemblies. Click the Downloads link.
System Requirements
Make sure that your computer meets the minimum system requirements listed in this section. If your computer doesn't match up to these requirements, you may have a problem using the contents of the DVD:
Note
These requirements apply to Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista, and Windows 7:
• Intel and AMD processors, single, dual, or quad cores
• 1GB RAM minimum (2GB recommended)
• Virtual memory twice the amount of RAM (recommended)
• A certified OpenGL workstation graphics card and driver (Check the SolidWorks website for details: www.solidworks.com.)
• A mouse or other pointing device
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 minimum (IE 7 recommended)
• A DVD drive minimum
For more details about the system requirements for SolidWorks 2011 and a list of certified graphics cards and drivers, visit www.solidworks.com.
Using