Last night, Dana Parrish made his second trip to Huntsville this year to give the North Alabama SolidWorks User Group (NASWUG) a look at COSMOSWorks 2008.  (He was here back in March showing COSMOSFloWorks.)  This was a fairly top-level overview of the software, with mostly video demonstrations, but there were some hands-on demonstrations.

There were several interesting questions posed, and Dana was able to answer them all to everyone’s satisfaction.  I was very impressed with the new alternate mesher, and there were several new capabilities shown, such as improvements to bolt connectors and the ability to add forces at any location on a surface without having to create split lines.  You can read more about the new additions and enhancements in COSMOSWorks here.

As Ricky has already mentioned in his blog, this was the first time that the new SolidWorks 2008 interface was shown publicly in Huntsville.

I think everyone was excited to see what SolidWorks 2008 has in store.  I know I can wait until we roll it out here!

Free CSWA Exams for User Group Members!

There was also an announcement made last night that everyone in attendance will be able to take the Certified SolidWorks Associate (CSWA) exam for free!  SolidWorks has created a beta program for the CSWA exam, which is normally only proctored by authorized educational institutions, and is rolling it out to user group members.  The CSWA certification can be used as a stepping-stone to train for the Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP) exam.