SolidWorks World - Day 1

I'm arriving late at this event. I left late, after putting my upFront.eZine into the mail, after the flight arriving late, after taking a taxi thru rush hour in Las Vegas...

SolidWorks is claiming two #1s this week: largest attendance at an MCAD show (3700+) and the largest grouping of CAD journalists (90+).

The first event for me was dinner for the media at a nearby golf course. Cool stuff included:

* a fellow hand-rolling cigars. I don't smoke, but I can see how having a fat cigar in one's mouth would make one feel powerful.
* 2GB iPod Nanos for everyone at the diner.
* Sitting at the table behind me was the Minister for Education from Rwanda; at the next table were the designers of the bike that Lance Armstrong rides in the Tour de France, and at my table the Swedish designer of high-end regulators for deep-sea divers.

Plus I met and spoke with CAD journalists from Italy, the Czech Republic, Canada, USA, and Sweden.

Earlier in the day, the company showed some details of SolidWorks 2007, due to ship this summer. Full details on Thursday morning. They also showed a desktop 3D color scanner that directly inputs triangle data into SolidWorks. On the show floor is a $650,000 600HP sports car designed in Sweden, the only one in the USA -- which I hope to see, if my schedule doesn't prevent me.

There was apparently an counter-event from a competing CAD package a 40-minute roundtrip walk away from our hotel, but I didn't see any sign of it. Maybe it had already been shut down due a lack of interest.

Comments

[rajinamasivas]

thank you for your good service

[Corporal Willy]

Hi Ralph,

I'm so sorry I did not meet you at the show. I read most everything I can find that you write articles on. I live here in Las Vegas and really met a lot of wonderful and talented people at the Solid Works show. Meeting you would have been really great.
Richard Williams, cplrich@cox.net