Customer Reviews

SolidWorks For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers))

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The book spends the first 52 out of 322 pages explaining to the reader how to establish and setup a SW session. It is not until page 81 that it addresses the Feature toolbar. There are a few areas in this book that provides sound engineering design principles for any user, using any 2D or 3D software package. The book is very disappointing with the lack of specific usefully information on using SW and sounds more like a marketing and sales pitch / tool for purchasing SW.

Chapter 10 informs the reader on 10 places to go, to learn SW. I wanted the book to do this!

The enclosed CD includes Case Studies, Customer testimonials and Sales and Marketing hoopla. The CD is totally worthless for someone who purchased the book to learn SW. If I wanted Sales literature, I would have obtained free literature through a VAR.

I wanted a book that would provide a high level of overall understanding of SW quickly. I am new to SW. I've been teaching AutoCAD for over 4 years. I purchased this book with an understanding of the Dummy series. I was very disappointed with the lack of information for the new user. It seems that the book is targeted towards a user which has a basic understanding of the Software and that needs to understand the changes between the last version and now. I was not amused or informed.

I have a project that I need to design. It's a simple assembly of a handful of pieces of sheetmetal combined with a few purchased components. It appears that SolidWorks would be a good software package to use in producing the drawings that I need. But I've never used it before so decided to start with this book to see if this was the software package I wanted to buy.

I think this book is aimed, not for the Dummy, but for someone who is already using the product. For instance in Chapter 1 he spends a couple of pages on What's New in SolidWorks 2006. Among the new things is 3D Annotations Views (ASME 14.41-2003). That's good (I guess), but pretty useless for us Dummies. In Chapter 2 he starts by describing eight different types of documents that SolidWorks uses. One of these is 'Macro.' I'm a long ways from needing macros.

In Chapter 3 he starts out saying to sketch out what you need first. Now I'm beginning to understand. But a little more tutorial on taking this sketch and putting it on screen would be good.

Conclusion. Good Book is you already know SolidWorks and want to move on to be a better designer. As for the software, it looks pretty complex to me.

This book is written by the Solidworks Customer Satisfaction Manager.

He rehashes the same stuff as in the Solidworks Essentials manual that comes with the software.

I found it virtually useless.
I was seeking a different viewpoint in the hopes of gaining a better grasp of the many vague issues in the manual.

I am an experienced SolidWorks user who was looking for supplemental information to build my knowledge base and help me transition from SW 2005 to SW 2006. This manual is a decent general reference but it lacks any detailed examples and the CD that comes with it is mostly SW promotional stuff. I bought it because of the low price ($20) Also, there is no information on advanced features such as surface modeling

I love the dummies series, so I was greatly dissapointed by this book. I needed a solidworks tutorial because I found the help files and "basic" tutorials that come with solidworks to be too advanced. When this book is not tooting its own horn on how great solidworks is, then it is way too technical for the beginner. I am a designer, not an engineer. I am hired for the look of a product, not for how it is molded. This book assumes too much. I had to look up chamfer and fillet on Wikipedia, as this books skips the basics and launches into a thou-shalt-sketch-like-this. (again, I am NOT AN ENGINEER) I understand that engineers out there would find this book too basic because it takes half the book outlining anal-retentive ways of structuring workload before launching into actually making anything. [...].

I am a long time user of ProE and found this book a quick and helpful study of the in's and out's of Solidworks.

My biggest disappointment is the lack of help on surfacing- I have yet to find a good book on surfacing with Solidworks. If I were not familiar with surfacing from ProE I would be even more frustrated by this. As it is I can get by, but do not know what I am missing in regards to Solidworks capabilities.

All in all, this is a well written book, the shortcuts on the inside cover are probably the best part.

I bought this book hoping to learn some little known shortcuts, secrets, etc., but all I got from the book was a different writing of the help file.
This might be a great book for someone just starting out.

If you are looking for "learn" the basic principles of SolidWorks, this book is not for you. If you have experience with Autocad or any other CAD software, this book is not for you either. It is an info commercial book. So do not expect to get any good learning of this book.

In the hopes of shortcutting my learning process I bought this book, having found other "...for Dummies" books pretty good. The problems with this book include:

1. Many of the step-by-step examples are too generic to be really useful. Instead of dealing with specific items (such as types of mates) the book covers ALL mates in a broad stroke. Not really useful.
2. Major items are completely missing from the book. Things like equations, and how to link dimensions. There isn't even material about the shortcut menu, if you don't believe me look for "shortcut" in the index. Not there.

I am finding much better material on-line and free. Don't waste your money on this book, but if you do, don't pay full list for it as I did.