SolidWorks and Apple: The Love Hate Love Relationship

by: Eman Kim

Today, it’s not uncommon for me to visit a client and see that they have proudly managed to run SolidWorks on a Mac. After all, the only thing that could rival the loyalty of a SolidWorks user would be that of an Apple products user. Besides being a zealous user base, there also seems to be this culture of cool and superiority that characterizes both Apple's products and users. You see it in everything from the way their products are marketed to how Apple users prominently display their shiny new toys. With this much cultural clout, you’d figure it would be natural that SolidWorks would have jumped on the bandwagon and released a version of their software that would natively run on Apple’s platform.

Don’t hold your breath.

Below is a short history of SolidWorks and Apple’s 15 year love hate relationship.

1995 –SolidWorks 95 is born
As long as SolidWorks has been around, Mac users have attempted to run SolidWorks on a Mac. In the early days, the only way to run SolidWorks on a Mac was to emulate Windows. Users quickly discovered the inherent problems with running SolidWorks® this way. Unlike Word or Excel, SolidWorks® is truly a performance and resource demanding application. OpenGL graphic driver support was nearly non-existent in emulated environments. This, along with the limited amount of memory in early Macs hampered both performance and stability.

2001 – OS X
Apple made a dramatic change to their operating system and moved to a UNIX-like based OS X operating system. Later releases proved OS X to be a very capable and robust platform with a far stronger memory management system. This allowed for greater stability when running emulated environments, but users still needed to sort through the slew of hardware compatibility and performance issues when running SolidWorks.

2005 – SolidWorks eDrawings© on OS X
Collaborators rejoice! Despite not being able to create content, OS X Tiger users could at least view what their PC buddy was doing in SolidWorks®. What’s interesting to note was that the Mac versions of eDrawings© had features that its PC cousin originally did not have. Advanced print preview options as well as the ability to filter components by name came to the Mac version of eDrawings before finding their way onto the PC.

2006 – Intel, Boot Camp©, and Virtualization
In 2006, Apple Computer® walked away from its longstanding PowerPC platform. But what sent shockwaves through the computing community was Apple’s new relationship with long time hardware rival, Intel Corp. This new partnership meant that both PCs and Macs would contain similar hardware allowing Microsoft Windows to now run natively on a Mac.

To accomplish this, users simply need to use the Boot Camp© utility that comes with OS X Leopard and later OS X operating systems. The drawback with using Boot Camp© is the need to reboot whenever you need to change operating system environments.

In cases where users need to run both operating systems simultaneously, virtualization programs like VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop can be used to run Windows in a parallel operating system environment. Unlike earlier emulation software, the current virtualization products no longer need to emulate a PC’s hardware environment. This greatly improves system stability and performance. In regards to SolidWorks, the only sticking spot when running Boot Camp or a virtualized environment is the OpenGL® driver support and higher end graphic functions like RealView. Currently, SolidWorks® and its resellers officially do not support SolidWorks® in either Boot Camp© or a virtualized environment.

2007 - Steve Wozniak at SolidWorks World 2007
Co-founder of Apple Computer, Steve Wozniak was a keynote speaker at 2007's SolidWorks World Event. Though some optimistically speculated that Wozniak was going to announce iSolidWorks during his keynote, we instead got an insightful talk on the importance of synergy between products and their users.

2007 – Drawings Now© on iPhone
The SolidWorks Labs application, Drawings Now© allows users to view drawings via the web. Users simply upload their SolidWorks documents up to the web and anyone can review the documents from a capable browser…including the iPhone’s Safari.

2010 – SolidWorks World 2010 Announcement
Feb 4^th, just days away from Valentine’s Day, it seemed like the perfect time for SolidWorks to announce a new partnership with Apple at SolidWorks World. The initial images that emerged during the general session made it appear that SolidWorks was going multi-platform. Later, we learned SolidWorks was instead going platformless as they would be venturing into the world of cloud computing. In short, regardless of your operating system, users would be able to run a cloud version of SolidWorks as a web application. Timetables were undefined and details were sparse, but it did raise a fair bit of excitement and speculation throughout the SolidWorks community about the future of platformless cloud computing.

So there you have it, a short rundown of the long history of SolidWorks and Apple. Aside from SolidWorks in the cloud, it appears the only native platform SolidWorks will run on in the near future will be a Windows based PC one. Sorry Apple users. Businesswise, it doesn’t make a whole ton of sense for SolidWorks to invest hefty development resources into a lone Mac version of SolidWorks. There’s just so much more SolidWorks needs to fix and develop and Apple takes up less than 8% of the computing market space…

though it is a very cool 8%.

SolidWorks Rx

While it would be great if all of our favorite applications ran without issue, it simply isn’t the case. It is not uncommon for me to issue crash reports for applications on my phone. Most of these applications range from a few kilobytes up to about 25 MB. Yet, no developer can anticipate all the combinations of running applications and other aspects of the health of my smartphone. Now, let’s expand this concept to an application the likes of SolidWorks. Now we’re talking about a program that is several gigabytes and installed on computers that vary wildly in both hardware and software configurations. We have all pushed our computers to the limit with SolidWorks at some time. RAM usage ramps up when we load large assemblies. Our CPUs are constantly hitting 100% regardless of the number of processors or cores we have. Additionally, the beautiful graphics we enjoy including real-time reflections and self-shadowing are only possible by giving our workstation-grade video cards a full workout. If we drove our cars the way we operate our computers, we would expect things to constantly break and wear out. Of course, we have no patience for our workhorse applications to just take a break when we’re in the middle of drafting our latest designs. So, while SolidWorks is always working to address reported problems with the software, they have provided a tool for us to help identify aspects of our computers that might be less than ideal habitats for SolidWorks. Enter SolidWorks Rx.

As is obvious from its name, SolidWorks Rx is a tool to help you diagnose issues with your computer that might cause issues while running SolidWorks. Let’s take a glance at some of its features.




The Home tab briefly describes the tools included within the utility. There’s also a couple of links to help you launch SolidWorks in one of two “Safe Modes.” These are intended to help you bypass things that commonly cause problems. By launching SolidWorks in Software OpenGL mode, you’ll be bypassing your graphics card and using your CPU to process graphics. Expect SolidWorks to run slower when you’re interacting with your model. Rotating and zooming will likely be significantly slower than you’re used to. This will, however, help you determine if your graphics card is possibly the source of issues. The other Safe Mode will, as it states, bypass your Tools/Options settings which are stored in the registry which, if damaged, can cause all manner of odd behavior. Now, just because these two Safe Modes are listed on the first screen of Rx, it does not mean that you should start troubleshooting by launching SolidWorks from these links. Instead, I suggest you start with the Diagnostics tab.

On the Diagnostics tab, you will find lots of information about your computer, especially as it pertains to SolidWorks health. Ideally, you will find all green checks along the list. However, it is quite common to see red or yellow X marks or a bubble with an I in it. Generally, the red X marks deserve the most immediate attention. You’ll find all kinds of useful information on this page including your graphics card model and driver version, how much RAM you have free and even if you have SolidWorks Toolbox loaded locally (a subject for another entry).

The Troubleshoot tab is quite handy for running pre-defined searches in the SolidWorks online Knowledge Base. When you click on any of these links, you will be taken to the KB inside the Customer Portal. You will need to have or create a Customer Portal account to access this information.

One of my favorite tabs is the System Maintenance tab. From here, you can configure a handful of tasks for Rx to run. These tasks can clean up temporary files, run checkdisk and also defragment a couple of drives. While these may seem like minor items, gigantic piles of temporary files and heavily fragmented drives can actually cause “Not Responding” messages while using SolidWorks as Windows may be scanning through thousands of files or waiting on a bouncing hard drive head searching the world over for your desired file or while searching for a place to store temporary data. This message is often misinterpreted as a crash (although that may be the case) when, in reality, Windows has just waiting longer than expected to hear communication from SolidWorks when Windows itself may be the culprit. Keeping close tabs on your temporary data and disk fragmentation is a simple, crucial step to keeping your computer running as expected. Once you have setup your tasks as you want, you can run them all at one time immediately or on a schedule. I have mine run every single day at noon. This way, I don’t forget to grab lunch while I’m plugging away. Note that SolidWorks does not need to be running for these tasks to execute. Since I run these every day, it takes no more than 10 minutes for Rx to tidy up my 500 GB HDD.

For repeatable issues that you are encountering, nothing surpasses the Problem Capture tab for helping tech support delve into what might be causing your problems. If you find yourself saying anything like “every time I click on this button in SolidWorks…” then the Problem Capture tab should be something you try out. The point of this feature is that you can have Rx record a video of your SolidWorks session, then optionally attach the video, some system information and even your SolidWorks files along with your description of how to reproduce the problem all packaged into a ZIP file. When you send this ZIP file to TriMech technical support, we can use it to diagnose or attempt to reproduce the problem. It is also invaluable if we need to submit the problem to SolidWorks Corp. Believe it or not, if you have just encountered a problem with SolidWorks, but you weren’t recording the session with Rx, you can still use Problem Capture to record some information about your system. Once you have captured a problem, the Files and Logs tab will be available so that you can see what was recorded and even playback the video.

Lastly, on the Addins tab, you can find a link to the Administration Guides on the Customer Portal and can even tag on links to launch any executable that you might want to group here. For instance, you might want to create a link to the SolidWorks Copy Options Wizard so that you can quickly save and load your SolidWorks options settings. You can also add a link to launch other diagnostic tools such as Performance Monitor or your favorite Resource Monitor.

For further assistance diagnosing your system or interpreting the data collected by SolidWorks Rx, contact your friendly TriMech support technician and share your Rx results with them.

SolidWorks Sustainability

SolidWorks Sustainability – Really
When I first heard that SolidWorks was going to release a Sustainability product I can honestly say that I was less than thrilled. I think that it has been equally dismissed as heralded in the general press and the online world. I personally have seen some keen interest in the SustainabilityXpress version as well as the stand-alone product and so I thought that I would share my experiences with you.

You may already know that the technology is pretty well known and regarded. The data used by SolidWorks Sustainability is provided by PE International of Stuttgart, Germany. They have provided software and consulting services in sustainable design and LCA for almost 20 years. As I write this I am drinking out of a Deer Park water bottle that on the label talks about using an Eco-Slim cap that uses less plastic. In fact, this press release earlier this year titled SolidWorks Sustainability wins Design News Golden Mousetrap Award 2010 for Innovation and Creativity, shows some good promise.















Life Cycle Assessment, LCA, is the analysis that looks at a product’s entire life, including ore extraction, material production, manufacturing, product use, end-of-life disposal, and all of the transportation that occurs between these stages. This is potentially a simple way to include some additional information into your design cycle to help you make better decisions. Information is power.

The information that you will be able to review is Air Acidification, Carbon Footprint, Total Energy Consumed, and Water Eutrophication. If you would like a more detailed description of these metrics, please review the Sustainability website. The important point to remember here is that these are concerns that help provide you insight into what impact that you have by choosing manufacturing aspects of your design and can give you a qualitative assessment of your choices.

So, give the SustainabilityXpress product a shot; you can find it under the Tools toolbar and see if this is another tool that you can use to provide you some insight into your overall design process.

Note: If you’re using SolidWorks 2009, you can download SolidWorks SustainabilityXpress at SolidWorks Labs.

Weldments...and more

Weldments have been around for quite a long time in SolidWorks; introduced in the release of SolidWorks 2004, Weldments make it much easier to create structural steel assemblies. In this posting, I’ve taken the opportunity to answer a few questions about the tool and to highlight some things that might help even the most experienced of users to get the full use of this extremely powerful tool.

Q: What is a “Weldment”?

A: That’s a great question. Every time I type “Weldment”, spellchecker goes crazy and says it doesn’t exist as a word. A “Weldment” is typically structural steel or aluminum members that form some kind of framework.











Q: Okay, great…I don’t do structural steel shapes, I’ll just deactivate “Weldments” from my Command Manager

A: Hold on just a second….the “Weldment functionality” in SolidWorks can be used to quickly create any model where a typical profile follows a path. Think of something like a deck. Decks are typically constructed using a few different size board profiles (2 x 4, 2 x 6,etc). We can use SolidWorks to sketch the path for all the boards and then lay in the profiles using the “Structural Member tool”. The great thing is that Weldments can be used to produce a cut list (similar to Bill of Materials for assemblies), and in this example you could take it down to your favorite hardware supply store to purchase your materials.














Q: When I activate the Structural Member command, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of options for profiles to follow my path.

A: That is correct. You may have to create profiles for “non-steel” shapes such as 2 x 4’s, etc., but if you do it once, that option will always be available for you down the road. It’s a pretty easy process to create those profiles. Typically, if you used the default install location, your weldment profiles will be located in some area such as C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidWorks\data\weldment profiles

You can always open up and modify an existing profile (saving it as a different name, etc.); you can see below that it’s a pretty basic sketch that you are working with. The subtle difference is that this is saved as a library part vs. a regular part file.


















Q: All we do is structural steel shapes and we use a lot of them. Why can’t SolidWorks just include them in a library for us?

A: Actually…they did. SolidWorks included the profiles, but there is a little process to add them in. In fact, you must first download the profiles from the internet. My guess is that the reason they are not included on the default install is that the size of all those profiles eats up a good amount of disk space. If you download the “Ansi Inch” group alone, it’s over 30MB.

Go over to your design library area in the Task Pane, and browse the folder at the bottom “SolidWorks Content”. There, you will see a variety of profiles. If you hover above the icon, then instructions will pop up that tell you to hold “Control” and left click to download the zip file. Download the file to a location you like. After the download, you will need to unzip the files and locate them in the Weldment profile directory (described above). If you have done that correctly, you will get all the weldment profiles you could ever want or need when you go back into the Structural Member tool.