GoEngineer Blog

What is a surface? To understand what a surface is we must understand what a solid is. In a solid body, every edge is a boundary between two faces, which creates a watertight, enclosed volume that can contain mass. So that means that conversely, a surface body will have edges that bound only one face, leaving an open model with an open volume. The edges of a solid will be black while the edges of a surface will be blue. In this blog, we'll go over everything you should know about SOLIDWORKS Surfacing.

With the release of SOLIDWORKS 2020 and the introduction of ‘Detailing Mode’, the below scenario (loading an entire assembly…) is no longer the case. Detailing mode is useful if you need to make minor edits to drawings of large assemblies. Or, if you need to make edits to drawings with many sheets, configurations, or resource-intensive views.

SOLIDWORKS Simulation has many great features to help you find data about your assemblies. One of which is the motion study. The motion study allows you to create simple animations of how your assembly moves. A more realistic simulation using motors, springs, and gravity can be defined using the basic motion option. 

If only I could have had access to Silhouette Entities at the beginning of my SOLIDWORKS career. With Silhouette Entities, the job I mention below would have taken a fraction of the time.

If you are like me, the traditional AVI output for Composer animations is nothing but headache after headache. SOLIDWORKS Composer 2020 now supports animation output in MP4 format, so there won’t be a need to find a (free) translator online and convert the AVI down to a reasonable size.

Visualize 2019 added support for MDL Materials (Material Definition Language – Nvidia) and PBR (Physics Based Rendering) Appearances. While there were some limitations with their usage in 2019, Visualize 2020 has added more functionality with MDL materials. Users can now tweak the appearance more than was available in the previous version. Hot on the heels of these new appearance types, SOLIDWORKS has added support for the AxF (Appearance Exchange Format) Material!

When using a single-extrusion 3D printer, it can be helpful to better define edges for post-print painting. Before I 3D print a CAD model, I look for dividing edges or boundaries for painting different colored surfaces. In SOLIDWORKS, Offset Surface can quickly be used with the Thicken command to raise a surface. You do not have to be a Surfacing expert to use this technique.

While it is possible to manually move your notes and dimensions around so that they look neat and evenly spaced if you’ve ever attempted this, you’ve probably thought to yourself, “Man, it’d be nice if SOLIDWORKS would do this for me.” Good news—it will! This article covers aligning and grouping parallel/concentric and collinear/radial dimensions in SOLIDWORKS drawings. 

 

New in SOLIDWORKS 2020 you can create Alternate Position Drawing Views of Parts. Before you could only create Alternate Positions Views of Assembly Components, usually to show range of motion. Now you can use different part configurations and overlay views, that will show in phantom lines, in a single drawing view.