This webcast covers the different tools and techniques for direct editing in SolidWorks. Whether you have a imported body or a complex part you just don’t want to disturb the feature history you will find this webcast valuable. Topics include:
- Import Formats
- Direct Editing Tools
- Advanced Techniques
- Best Practice
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This webcast covers many techniques to manage, automate, and most importantly master using custom file properties in SolidWorks.
- Custom file properties (part or assembly level and configuration specific)
- Property Tab Builder
- Linked properties on drawings
- Dynamic Properties that update with dimension changes
- Title Block Tables
- SolidWorks Task Scheduler
- Enterprise PDM and 3DVIA Composer
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New in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2012 is the ability to customize menus for the Windows Explorer interface. These menu customizations can also be copied to other users to have a customized yet standardize UI experience. Example: Adding ‘Update References’ to the file right click menu.
To copy a menu customizations between users:
It’s important to note that you’re pulling the settings information from one user into another users account.
Reference the ‘What’s New SolidWorks 2012′ PDF for more details in this new functionality for 2012.
One great feature in SolidWorks is the automatic snapping while placing an annotation or dimension to help the user quickly create a very clean looking drawing. However sometimes in a drawing with lots of dimensions or annotations this behavior can actually make it more difficult to place things.
To temporarily disable the snapping hold the ALT key while you drag the dimension or annotation. As soon as you release the ALT key the snapping behavior is re-enabled and behaves as normal.
For those that would rather permanently disable this behavior you can do this by navigating to Tools, Options, System Options, Drawings and toggle the option called “Disable note/dimension inference”.
When importing DXF/DWG data, tracing sketch pictures, or importing ECAD circuit board routes into a part or a drawing you may find yourself working with a overly complex sketch.
To improve the import processing time of these files you should pay close attention to the import options and clear the “Add Constraints” check box. This will prevent SolidWorks from adding relations to the sketch entities such as horzontal, vertical, concentric and so on.
If you attempt to move any of the entities in the sketch after importing the file, a warning message pops up that indicates ‘Automatic Solve Mode’ is off. This Specifies whether SolidWorks should automatically do the computation to solve the sketch geometry of your part as you create it.
In order to make this sketch more manageable you can use the ‘Make Block’ command to combine sketch entities together into a group. This prevents SolidWorks from calculating the sketch entities and their relations.
In this example over 4500 sketch entities can be reduced to 1 block by using the ‘Make Block’ command found under the Tools > Blocks pull down menu. Once you have created your block(s) to simplify your sketch you can turn Automatic Solve back on from the Tools > Sketch Settings pull down menu. Creating blocks in a sketch is similar to breaking a large assembly into multiple subassemblies in terms of performance.
