Designing in the context of an assembly or top down design is one of the great benefits of SOLIDWORKS. The designer can use components in one assembly as a reference to design a new component in another assembly. If the

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Structure System Solidworks The term structural system or structural frame in structural engineering refers to the load-resisting sub-system of a building or object that transfers loads through interconnected elements or members. In SOLIDWORKS 2020, the structure system feature is an advanced

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Hello to all, Welcome to the new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News!  This monthly news blog is co-authored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide.   3DEXPERIENCE WORLD 2020 is right around the corner By Nicole

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Learn how to use Cut Planes to slice and dice your geometry.

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SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic has added many new features this release to make completing electrical design projects easier than ever. The new Project Preview option, accessed from the Project Manager, lets you review a projects’ contents prior to opening it.  This

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This is a SOLIDWORKS tutorial to create a Magnetic Penguin Puzzle. This tutorial focuses on the use of the Split Tool. It also demonstrates how to export the split bodies to parts, and create a simple gravity motion analysis animation with an assembly of the finished puzzle. The decals and DXF file for the design are available to download in the description below.

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Who wants to work harder, using the same outdated methods, when new tools are available? Not me! There might not always be an “easy button” …. but sometimes there is: 3D Interconnect. Since its introduction in SOLIDWORKS 2017, I have

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DFMXpress is the smaller brother of the full blown version DFMPro by HCL Technologies, LTD and is included in each level of SOLIDWORKS. DFM stands for Design For Manufacturability. This is a tool we can use to improve our designs

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This SOLIDWORKS tutorial is for a Wooden Canvas Teepee, the tutorial focuses on the use of Circular Patterns of part bodies and the use of 3D sketch for extrusions between guide points, and profile sweeps along a path. This is a fun tutorial that if you follow, you can create you own Teepee model, and apply a range of designs to with decals. The decal swatches seen in the video are available to download in the description below.

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You may have heard that Windows 7 is ending support on the 14th of January 2020 but, what does this mean to you? In short, now is the time to upgrade to Windows 10 Professional. Your machines will continue to

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In every new version of SOLIDWORKS there is always some new features that steal all of the attention. In this post i will highlight five favorable features in SOLIDWORKS that may not be as known, but still can help you

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This is a two part SOLIDWORKS tutorial to create an Afternoon Tea Ferris Wheel Toy. In Part 1 of this tutorial you can learn how to draw and create the parts for a moving Ferris Wheel. The decals for the design are available to download in the description below. The Afternoon Tea Food Accessories are also available to download to be used in Part 2 of the tutorial.

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SOLIDWORKS Multibody Part Assembly An Exploded View is used to communicate your design or drawings in a more proper and precise way. It really helps to clearly understand the sequential order of the assembly. Moreover, the exploded view is used

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Learn how to use a transparent background to add your renders on top of an existing image or background.

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This case study seeks to find the answer to a common question: Which way should you affix hooks to your fence so they can properly handle the load of a hanging flower basket? Javelin’s Application Engineer; Colin Murphy CSWE, takes

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This is a two part SOLIDWORKS tutorial to create an Afternoon Tea Ferris Wheel Toy. In Part 2 of this tutorial you can learn how to assemble parts, and run a motion analysis to create a moving Ferris Wheel. The decals for the design are available to download in the description below. The Afternoon Tea Food Accessories are also available to download to be used in Part 2 of the tutorial.

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Do you enjoy making home improvements? Do you have a flare for design and have some SOLIDWORKS skills? Perhaps, you just want to install a fence? Depending on when and where you purchased your home it may have a fence

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What if you needed to pull a cross-section of a solid with the ability to trace it? Well there are a couple of ways you can go about doing just that. The first is the Slicing tool which first made

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One of my favorite new things in the SOLIDWORKS 2020 portfolio is Quick Search in SOLIDWORKS PDM. This tool presents the user with a “Google-like” ability to simply type in search terms across multiple metadata fields, using logical operators to

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Need for Surface Surface Modelling is a method used to create and represent complex shapes with high curvature controls. Generally, surfaces are used as an alternative where a particular feature is difficult to create using solid modeling. It is helpful

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Every year SOLIDWORKS hosts one of the largest engineering conferences in the world. Since SOLIDWORKS World 2000, Model Mania® has been an attraction for many engineers wanting to show off their SOLIDWORKS skills. Model Mania, for those not familiar, is a

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This is the first blog post regarding the SOLIDWORKS activation error message. I will briefly try to go through the four most common activation error messages when using a standalone license. I will in a later blog post cover the

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Learn how to use the Region Render tool to only render sections of your Visualize Viewport.

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This SOLIDWORKS Tutorial for a Insulated ceramic coffee cup focuses on the combine tool, and uses an assembly to create the layout of the final design before saving back into a part, and turned in to a functional coffee cup. Decals for the tutorial are available to download in the description.

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You probably remember last year’s video; The Benefits of the Structure System Tool in SOLIDWORKS 2019. By popular demand, Elite Applications Engineer Colin Murphy is back to highlight the benefits of the Structure System tool in SOLIDWORKS 2020!   What

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This is a SOLIDWORKS tutorial to create a pot of gold money jar. This tutorial demonstrates a range of modelling tools, but also highlights the use of the centreline sketch tool as a guide for sketches, new planes, and axis for pattern or move features. The decals and coin part for this design are available to download in the tutorials blog description.

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This SOLIDWORKS Tutorial for a Ceramic Cup Plaster Mold walks you through start to finish of the process of creating a model for a plaster mold and a 3 part cup mold. The tutorial focuses on copying bodies and combing them with each other to finish the tutorial with a 3 piece mold. The final ceramic cup is available to download in the description.

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This helpful #TechTip is brought to you by our Training Manager John Setzer, and covers using the smart dimension tool when sketching arcs and circles. Find more options available to you, when you want to create a dimension and don’t

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Hello to all, Welcome to the new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News!  This monthly news blog is co-authored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide.   Configuring the SOLIDWORKS PDM ‘Draftsight to PDF’ task to use

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A Special Purpose Machine, which is intended to perform a specific task, have a wide range of scope in the Industrial Applications like quantity packaging and bottle filling. It includes limit switches, sensors, logic controls where the process can be

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Many designers use golden ratio in their artworks as it can create organic and aesthetically pleasing composition. You can easily find examples in daily life such as shell, flower and logos. We can also use golden ratio in SOLIDWORKS. It

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Working with a higher performance CAD environment is the major criterion these days in the design community within SOLIDWORKS. Now we have a new option for opening the drawing within seconds and make changes in drawings to communicate with our

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Communicating design information is a key part of any workflow, and the SOLIDWORKS suite of products has three specialized tools to enable Intelligent Communication: SOLIDWORKS Composer for technical illustrations. SOLIDWORKS MBD for product manufacturing information, and SOLIDWORKS Visualize for photo

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In SOLIDWORKS Electrical, we have the capability to create symbols with defined circuits on the fly, or for use with connectors that entail many, many pins. These are traditionally called Black Boxes. See figure 1 & 2.    Figure 1

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All, As we’ve written before, Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS is committed to helping our customers be the most productive while working from home during this time of social distancing. Right now, it’s not possible to grab a drawing from the plotter or

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Working with SOLIDWORKS on an SNL server, you can sometimes experience an Activation error message. Often these messages are not the same as the activation error messages you recieve when performing standalone activation What is SNL? SNL is short for

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Being able to have an overview of changes to designs since initial release is an important aspect to time-efficient engineering. Making use of an automatically updated revision table helps with that.  What version are we using? Who has made these

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It’s always interesting to know about some cool tricks that you can use when it comes to modelling within SOLIDWORKS. Well, within this blog we just happen to have one of those tricks for you. They always say a magician never

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SOLIDWORKS Costing is ready to use with both customized and standard templates for our company to accompany the more specific manufacturing needs. SOLIDWORKS Costing Templates Sheet Metal / Weldment Parts Machined Parts Plastic Molded / Cast Parts 3D Printed Parts

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Learn how to use the Bloom Filter to add pops of glow to your images and animations.

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For this SOLIDWORKS tutorial, you can follow to create a Goldfish shaped Cat Treat Toy ready for 3D printing. The DXF files for this tutorial are available to download from the blog below. You can also download and 3D print this design yourself as the STL files are also available to download.

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Child Reference State One of my favorite new features in SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional 2020 is the Child Reference State condition in Workflow Transitions. I can’t tell you how many times as a PDM administrator I had wished for a feature

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Learn how to easily delete a face from a solid or surface body when modeling in SOLIDWORKS. Our #TechTip this week is by Training Manager John Setzer. Video Transcript Hi and welcome to another GSC tech tip. Today we’re going

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Everyone knows SOLIDWORKS is very flexible and user friendly to execute the commands to complete any 3D design easily. When it comes to handling Complex assemblies (Increased in number of components) many of us will search for special tools to

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In part 1 of this 2-part SOLIDWORKS Tutorial you will learn how to create the body of a Pinata. Part 2 of the tutorial involves shelling the model to turn it into a 2-part jar, and applying decals. The DXF file used in this tutorial are available to download from the blog description.

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There are 3 main tools that can project our 2D sketch onto a face: Project curve, Split line and Wrap. How should we choose and what is the difference between them? Here are some tips for you. Project curve –

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Product complexity places unique challenges on Engineering Teams, making the interaction between Mechanical and Electrical designers more critical than ever. New enhancements in SOLIDWORKS 2020 have taken the ECAD/MCAD collaboration to the next level, by providing an intelligent collaborative environment

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CNA Staff, Apr 14, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Cardinal George Pell has said culture wars and anti-Catholic sentiment could have played a part in the decision of Victoria police to pursue charges against him, even while they lacked supportive evidence of the allegations in his case.

Cardinal Pell described Victoria police as having “advertised for business” against him in an April 14 interview with Sky News Australia. Pell was asked about the decision by Victoria police to launch an open-ended investigation into him, despite having received no complaints of a crime.

The interview was Pell’s first televised appearance since his release last week after more than 400 days in prison. On the evidence of a single accuser, Pell was convicted in December 2018 of sexually assaulting two choirboys at the Melbourne Cathedral in 1996.

On April 7, the Australian High Court unanimously ruled that the evidence presented during the trial would not have allowed the jury to avoid reasonable doubt and ordered Pell’s acquittal and release.

On the day of his release, Pell told CNA that “The only basis for long term healing is truth and the only basis for justice is truth, because justice means truth for all.”

Pell spoke with Sky News’ Andrew Bolt about the decision by local police to bring 28 allegations of sexual abuse against him, only to see 27 of them dropped before reaching court. The remaining allegation resulted in Pell’s conviction by a Victoria jury and eventual acquittal by the High Court.

Asked directly if he thought police were “out to get” him, Pell said he did not know.

“I don’t know how you explain it, but it is certainly extraordinary,” Pell said.

Asked if he thought there was an anti-Catholic bias at work in the decision of police to charge him and by judges at the Victoria Court of Appeal to sustain his conviction, despite the evidence which eventually led to his exoneration, Pell said it was a possibility.

“I’ve seen too many people [make the leap] from possible to probable to fact. Certainly, people do not like Christians who teach Christianity, especially on life and family and issues like that.”

“The culture wars are real,” Pell said. “There is a systematic attempt to remove the Judeo-Christian legal foundations [on for example] marriage, life, gender, sex.”

“Unfortunately, there’s less rational discussion and more playing the man, more abuse and intimidation, and that’s not good for a democracy.”

During the interview, the cardinal was also asked if he believed that there was any connection between his work to reform the Vatican finances during his time as Prefect for the Economy and the emergence of charges against him in Victoria.

“Most of the senior people in Rome who are in any way sympathetic to financial reform believe that they are [connected]. But I have seen too much from people, as I said, going to possibility to probability to fact – I don’t have any evidence of that.”

“But one of my fears was that what we had done [to reform the Vatican finances] would remain hidden for ten years or so, and they’d would be revealed and the baddies would say ‘Well, Pell and Casey [Pell’s chief advisor] were in charge then, they turned a blind eye and did nothing to it.’”

“Thanks be to God all that’s gone, because there was a flurry of articles just before Christmas exposing all sorts of things like a disastrous purchase – actually a couple of them – in London, and it was very clearly demonstrated that we tenaciously opposed those things.”

“What we were pushing and saying has been massively vindicated,” Pell said. “Now you can see why they sacked the auditor [Libero Milone], why they got rid of the external auditors.”

Asked how high up in the curial hierarchy financial corruption goes, Pell said “Who knows? It’s a little bit like [anti-Catholicism] in Victoria, you’re not quite sure where the vein runs, how thick and broad it is, and how high it goes.”

But the cardinal also made clear that, in financial reforming efforts, Pope Francis had “absolutely” supported him and that “at the feet of the pope we’ve got Cardinal [Pietro] Parolin, he’s certainly not corrupt. Just how high up [the corruption goes] is an interesting hypothesis.”

Pell said that despite the difficulties he faced in prison, where he was held in solitary confinement for much of the time for his own safety, he bore no anger towards his accuser.

“I’ve got no anger, no hostility towards my complainant, I never have,” said Pell.

“I am called to forgive what happened to me that might have been a little unjust, and there is this heroic Christian call to forgiveness in the most appalling circumstances.”

But, Pell said, he had no hesitation in condemning the terrible scandal of sexual abuse in the Church.

“I totally condemn those sorts of activities [of abuse] and the damage that it has done to people – and I have seen the damage that it has done to people.”

“One of the things that grieves me is the suggestion that I’m anti-victim or not sufficiently sympathetic. I devoted a lot of time and energy to trying to get [victims] justice, and to get them help and compensation.”

Pell noted that as archbishop in the 1990s he set up the Melbourne Response to deal with sexual abuse in the Church and bringing about justice and compensation for victims.

“I worked hard,” Pell said, “when it wasn’t easy or fashionable, to get something in place – not run by clerics – that would give some protection and redress to these people, and I have worked consistently at that since at least the middle 90s.”

The cardinal said he had kept the same routine while in prison that, as a bishop, he had often urged on priests who found themselves “in a bit of trouble;” getting up early and at a set time, praying, exercising, and eating well.

“If you can’t pray when you are in trouble, your faith is very weak indeed.”

Asked if he had ever asked God, in the words of Christ on the cross, “why have you forsaken me?” Pell responded “No.”

“But I have said ‘My God, my God, what are you up to?’”

“One of the strangest teachings about Christianity – and the most useful – is that you can offer up your suffering,” Pell said. “Suffering is not just a brute fact. A Christian can offer that up to the Good God.”

CNA Staff, Apr 15, 2020 / 03:30 pm (CNA).- The U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom has called on the Pakistani government to ensure aid for the COVID-19 pandemic is being justly distributed to religious minorities, after receiving reports that aid organizations were barring Christians and Hindus from receiving food assistance.

“These actions are simply reprehensible,” USCIRF Commissioner Anurima Bhargava said in an April 13 statement. “As COVID-19 continues to spread, vulnerable communities within Pakistan are fighting hunger and to keep their families safe and healthy. Food aid must not be denied because of one’s faith. We urge the Pakistani government to ensure that food aid from distributing organizations is shared equally with Hindus, Christians, and other religions minorities,” she said.

According to the commission, recent reports have shown that in Karachi a non-government aid organization, the Saylani Welfare International Trust, has been denying food assistance to Christians and Hindus, telling them that the aid was reserved for Muslims. Pakistan’s state religion is Islam, and around 97 percent of the population is Muslim.

The authorities of Pakistan have consistently failed to implement safeguards on behalf of religious minorities, despite numerous policies in favor of economic and physical protections for members of non-Muslim religions.

For example, the country has promised to provide quotas for employment to ensure that religious minorities are granted equal access to jobs, but so far it has not done so.

Additionally, strict blasphemy laws in the country are reportedly used to settle scores or to persecute religious minorities. While non-Muslims constitute only 3 percent of the Pakistani population, 14 percent of blasphemy cases have been levied against them.

In a recent highly publicized case, Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five, spent eight years on death row on blasphemy charges after being accused of making disparaging remarks about Muhammad after an argument stemming from a cup of water. Amid strong international pressure, the Pakistan Supreme Court acquitted her in late 2018.

A 2019 report from USCIRF found that Christians and Hindus “face continued threats to their security and are subject to various forms of harassment and social exclusion,” the USCIRF statement said.

The country was also designated by the US Department of State as a “Country of Particular Concern” in December 2018 for its poor religious freedom record.

USCIRF Commissioner Johnnie Moore noted in the April 13 statement that in a recent address to the international community, Prime Minister Imran Khan said that governments in developing countries must work to save people from starvation during the coronavirus pandemic.

Pakistan’s health ministry has reported nearly 6,000 cases of coronavirus in the country of 212 million people as of April 15.

“This is a monumental task laying before many countries. Prime Minister Khan’s government has the opportunity to lead the way but they must not leave religious minorities behind,” he said. “Otherwise, they may add on top of it all one more crisis, created by religious discrimination and inter-communal strife.”

A March 2020 report from USCIRF noted other countries who have had religious freedom problems in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, including in China, where the virus originated.

According to USCIRF, reports indicated that Chinese authorities forced Uighurs, a Muslim minority that has been forced into concentration camps since 2017, to work in factories to make up for the lack of workers during the country’s coronavirus quarantine. Reports also indicated that some Uighur residents in the city of Ghulja had “limited access to food and local officials have demanded payments in order to bring supplies,” USCIRF noted.

In South Korea, the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a fringe Christian group that reported already facing “hostility” from mainline Protestants before the pandemic, faced additional pressures and harassment from the government and citizens after a 61-year-old female member of the church - known as Patient 31 - attended a church service with a fever before being diagnosed with coronavirus, and thus spreading the infection to thousands of others.

“The Shincheonji church has faced considerable criticism and even harassment from the South Korean government and society. Although some government measures appeared to be driven by legitimate public health concerns, others appeared to exaggerate the church’s role in the outbreak,” USCIRF reported, adding that members of the church have faced “discrimination at work and spousal abuse because of their affiliation with the church.”

Other countries in which coronavirus is reportedly impacting religious freedoms include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Georgia, Italy and the Vatican (for government-mandated cancellation of religious services), the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, and Tajikistan.

CNA Staff, Apr 17, 2020 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- Reports of an Indian hospital's segregated wards for Hindu and Muslim coronavirus patients drew concern from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, though Indian authorities strongly disputed the allegation.

"USCIRF is concerned with reports of Hindu and Muslim patients separated into separate hospital wards in Gujarat,” the commission said on Twitter and Facebook April 15. “Such actions only help to further increase ongoing stigmatization of Muslims in India and exacerbate false rumors of Muslims spreading COVID-19.”

The bipartisan U.S. federal government commission linked to a story in the Indian Express newspaper that cites a hospital official and a patient in the city of Ahmedabad in the western coastal Indian state of Gujarat.

India's Ministry for External Affairs opposed the commission, saying it was spreading “misguided reports” and “adding religious color” that distracts from India's efforts to combat the novel coronavirus.

“No segregation is being done in civil hospitals on the basis of religion, as clarified by the Gujarat government,” the ministry said April 15.

The reports concern Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, where there are some 1,200 beds prepared for patients suffering from the novel coronavirus.

Medical Superintendent Dr. Gunvant. H. Rathod described the hospital division to the Indian Express, saying “generally, there are separate wards for male and female patients. But here, we have made separate wards for Hindu and Muslim patients.”

“It is a decision of the government and you can ask them,” he said.

Deputy Chief Minister and Health Minister Nitin Patel said he was not aware of the situation and would make inquiries. Ahmedabad's district magistrate, K.K. Nirala, also was not aware of any decision, the Indian Express reports.

However, the Indian Express cited a hospital patient who said the names of 28 men in a ward were called out, and they were moved to another ward.

“While we were not told why we were being shifted, all the names that were called out belonged to one community. We spoke to one staff member in our ward today and he said this had been done for ‘the comfort of both communities’,” the patient said.

The Gujarat Health and Family Welfare Department said the reports were “absolutely baseless.” Rather, it said, patients are treated based on symptoms and severity and “according to treating doctors' recommendations.

As of Wednesday, new known cases of coronavirus in Gujarat rose by 127 to 766, with 88 cases in Ahmedabad. The death toll there totals 33, the Times of India reports.

The Indian newspaper The Week reported that the commission had previously criticized India's Citizenship Amendment Act, which became effective in January 2020.

In December 2019 the commission expressed concern about the legislation, which enshrined a pathway to citizenship for immigrants but specifically excluded Muslims. The commission recommended U.S. sanctions on India as a possible response.

The U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom reviews alleged religious freedom violations and makes policy recommendations to the U.S. president, Secretary of State, and Congress.

The commission’s 2019 report said that religious freedom conditions in India “continued a downward trend” in 2018. It said India’s “history of religious freedom has come under attack in recent years with the growth of exclusionary extremist narratives—including, at times, the government’s allowance and encouragement of mob violence against religious minorities—that have facilitated an egregious and ongoing campaign of violence, intimidation, and harassment against non-Hindu and lower-caste Hindu minorities. Both public and private actors have engaged in this campaign.”

Mob violence against Christians by Hindus has been particularly acute.

In August 2019, six suspected members of a radical Hindu group were arrested after dozens of Catholics were attacked on a Marian pilgrimage from Karnataka to the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health in Velankanni, a coastal town in south east India.

In September, around 500 armed Hindu extremists attacked a Jesuit mission in the Archdiocese of Ranchi. Armed with sticks, chains, iron bars, knives, and pistols, the mob beat tribal students including two who were seriously injured, and also seriously damaged the school’s facilities.

Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal has said numerous mob lynchings of Christians have occurred in which the victims are accused of eating beef or otherwise harming cattle, which are considered sacred in Hinduism.

Karnataka state suffered a wave of anti-Christian violence in 2008, when Hindu extremist groups led attacks on churches, schools and homes of Christians and physically beat hundreds of people. A 2011 independent report on the violence, known as the Saldhana Report, charged that attacks were pre-planned and backed by the state’s highest government authorities.