Tag Archives: Sketch

Convert sketch entities from internal edges of a face

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Joseph Richter

When using the Convert Entities sketch tool, selecting a face to convert results in the outside edge(s) of that face are converted into  sketch entities.  Sometimes, however, you may wish to convert edges that are internal to that face.

There are two ways to accomplish this:

1) When in a sketch pre-select a face and use the CTRL key to also select an edge of the internal loop, then select the Convert Entities command.  This will result in the internal loop edges being converted to sketch entities.

2) From the Convert Entitles Dialog box, if you select the face and one of the edges from an internal loop (dialog box will show Loop, not edge) then click the green check box. This will result in the internal edges becoming sketch entities.

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Quick Disable of Sketch Snapping

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Quinton Rocke

One great feature in SolidWorks is the ability to easily snap to existing geometry and automatically add relations while you sketch.  However sometimes when your sketching there is a need to not snap or add relations.  To temporarily disable sketch snapping hold down the Ctrl key while sketching any entity.

If there is certain snapping behavior you would like to turn off on a more regular basis you can navigate to Tools, Options, System Options, Sketch, Relations/Snaps and disable any of the types in the Sketch Snaps section.  In this section you can turn off sketch snaps all together or selectively chose which snaps to enable/disable.

In addition in this section of the options you can also disable “Automatic relations”.  If you leave snaps on this will allow you to still snap to geometry but SolidWorks will not add any automatic relations.

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Zero Thickness Geometry Explained

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Quinton Rocke

From time to time you may have received one of these error messages in SolidWorks:

  • Unable to create this feature because it would result in zero-thickness geometry.
  • The model could not be properly sectioned by the section line. Please check that the section line cuts through the model.

These messages will commonly occur when edges or vertices in a solid model do not properly connect with adjacent geometry. To put it simply every edge of a solid body must have exactly two adjacent faces.  Some examples of zero thickness are:

SolidWorks does not allow zero thickness geometry because it can lead to mathematical problems and downstream errors in the model.  If your unable to avoid the zero thickness design one quick way to work around this limitation is to disable the “Merge result” option of a boss/solid feature.

It is important to note that not merging the results of a solid feature will create a multi-body part.

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What is this Filter icon on my cursor for?

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Joseph Richter

A common issue that we hear about in Tech Support is that the filter icon  randomly appears over your cursor.

Why?
This means that a filter has been activated.  In this case it may have been accidental which means that it prevents you from selecting areas of the part, sketch, or assembly.

How?
This happens because the default keyboard shortcuts are assigned to filters as follows:
X – Face filter
V – Vertice filter
E – Edge filter

Solution:
To restore the cursor by removing the filter click [F5] to toggle the filter toolbar on so you can deselect the filter(s) that have been activated.


Final Thought:
If you do not use filters often you may consider removing these common keyboard shortcuts from filters by going to Tools > Customize > Keyboard.

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Sketch Text can be linked to Properties

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Joseph Richter

Did you know that you can link ‘Sketch Text’   to a custom or file property? This can be very useful if, for example, you want the text to change based on the configuration name or other configuration specific file property.
To accomplish this  you just click on the ‘Link to Property’  icon in the ‘Sketch Text’ PropertyManager.  Then simply select which property to link to from the list.

Below are a few examples that we posted on 3DContentCentral.com to illustrate various uses of this function:

Note: In the playing card example we incorporated one of our previous tech tips to insert Windows Character Map symbols in annotations.  You can review this tip here.

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