GoEngineer Blog

SOLIDWORKS has powerful solid modeling tools that can help create virtually any shape or design imaginable. However, you may get stuck trying to accomplish something, and all the solid modeling tools you've tried, won’t do the trick. In times like these, use SOLIDWORKS Surfacing tools! 

 

We recently had a customer call our SOLIDWORKS technical support line worried that his master weldment model was corrupted because of a missing cut list folder in the SOLIDWORKS FeatureManager design tree. It wasn’t that his cut list was missing, it was that his cut list folder was hidden from the FeatureManager design tree.

Symbols are useful tools to simply convey valuable information in a SOLIDWORKS drawing. However, it may be useful to create a custom symbol for proprietary or other use. There are two ways to create custom symbols in SOLIDWORKS: the easy way and the hard way. The easy way utilizes SOLIDWORKS Sketch tools to create a block and may take 1-2 minutes.

 

 

 

In part 1 and part 2 of this series, we discussed the definitions of continuity in sketches and surfaces. This included C-0 (contact), C-1 (tangent), and C-2 (curvature) continuity in both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional scenarios. When striving to create a certain type of continuity, it is often important that we confirm its presence. In this article, we will discuss edge continuity, Deviation Analysis, Curvature Display, and Zebra Stripes.

In our introduction to continuity and curvature in SOLIDWORKS (Part 1), we discussed the concepts of continuity, tangency, and curvature and used them to establish a 2-dimensional definition of C-0 (Contact), C-1 (Tangent), and C-2 (Curvature) continuity. In this blog, part 2, we will focus on these concepts in a 3-dimensional context inside of SOLIDWORKS and the tools we can use to analyze them.

Throughout SOLIDWORKS, we often see options to make things “tangent” or “curvature continuous” (or other similarly-stated options). These options show up in sketching and solid/surface feature creation, but their mathematical definition is less apparent. Learning to manage your continuity and curvature properly in SOLIDWORK is integral to creating designs with high-quality form factors.

When a SOLIDWORKS model or drawing is saved as a PDF, the image quality can decrease. This can be frustrating for some SOLIDWORKS users because saving to a PDF is a great way for non-SOLIDWORKS users to view a drawing or model. Luckily, there are some simple changes we can make when saving to a PDF that will improve the image quality of a drawing or model. 

 

In this SOLIDWORKS tutorial, we are tasked with making an enclosure where we have formed areas on the vertical edge of the encloser, and there needs to be a clearance hole for the mounting hardware. To accomplish this, we need to make the form, create a form folder in our Design Library, save the feature in our form folder, and then accurately place the form onto the enclosure. Let’s get started.

Anyone that has gotten deep enough into SOLIDWORKS automation has dabbled in macros. But what happens when we forget the password for a protected VBA macro? Don't worry there is a solution.