Coloring sketches can be useful for communicating ideas to your team members and increase visibility with layout sketches. For this reason, SOLIDWORKS provides a way to quickly change the color of any sketch from default grey. Sketch Color can be found in the right-click menu of the FeatureManager Design Tree. For this example, I will color vertical structural member sketches in my weldment a different color than horizontal member sketches.
Many SOLIDWORKS users are familiar with cosmetic threads. Cosmetic threads are the go-to method for representing and documenting threaded holes and fasteners without needing to schematically represent the physical thread. Schematic representation dramatically increases the draw on graphics hardware resources. As an often-used feature, any changes in how it works are important.
There are times when we need to know exactly what the last version of a file for SOLIDWORKS was saved in. This isn't easily found unless you know how to set it up. In this SOLIDWORKS tutorial, we'll show you how. This process will help ensure that files are opened and saved in the correct release to prevent file version issues. Generally, this is used in a multi-year version setup.
You may have learned that some system options in SOLIDWORKS aren't easy to change. There is a path through Tools > Options and onward that is fine for seldom changes, but for system options used frequently, the number of clicks can add up. While we cannot directly change an option without using the SOLIDWORKS options menu, we can use a macro to get the job done. In some scenarios, it is handy to have a particular option on, while in others, better to have it off.
Have you ever needed to hide or show certain dimensions in a SOLIDWORKS part but wasn't sure how to do it? Believe it or not, this is a relatively simple process. First, check that Hide All Tyles is off (View > Hide/Show > Hide All Types is deselected). Then follow these steps.
You just launched the SOLIDWORKS Toolbox Settings application and all that's showing in the taskbar is the Toolbox icon. The Toolbox dialog box is nowhere to be found. ALT+TAB shows it as a selection but no matter what you do, you can't seem to get it back on the screen. How do we fix it?
The SOLIDWORKS Convert Entities tool is both useful and powerful in that it will project edges of a face onto the active sketch whether or not the face is parallel to the active sketch. These edges will always be projected as seen when looking normal to the sketch. Convert Entities is one of the few tools that behaves differently if you have an object selected before you press the button.
As a designer, I would regularly work on a part file with multiple SOLIDWORKS configurations and would need to get a particular configuration exported to STEP for manufacturing. I also wanted another version to send to the customer, but only the model with the features they requested. To do this, we need to ensure that only the active configuration information is saved into a completely new part.
Many SOLIDWORKS users ask, "How do I add a column to my Cut List that is tied to the Balloon Callouts?" This tutorial walks you through the steps necessary for balloons to be tied to a Custom Cut List Property. In this example, we'll walk through this process for a Weldment Cut List. Let's get started.