Drawing Archives - Page 8 of 29

What’s New in SolidWorks 2013: Section View Assist – Part 1

This entry is part 10 of 12 in the series New in SolidWorks 2013

SolidWorks 2012 and prior had two separate tools to create section views in drawings, Section View and Aligned Section View. Although these were very capable tools, there was two different workflows to create cutting lines for section views based on which tool was chosen. The two types of section views where not interchangeable. Both used sketches to determine the path of the section view cutting line. However, both tools produced very different results with the same sketch layout.

Section View tool change SolidWorks 2013 unifies these separate types of section views, along with half section views, into one tool called Section View. This new tool has expanded capabilities, being able to handle a wider range of section view types and scenarios. For example, you can now add arc offsets to your cutting line and get the correct display in the resulting section view. There are many other improvements as well.

When the new Section View tool is launched (without preselecting a sketch), a new user interface appears, called Section View Assist. Section View Assist allows you to rapidly generate cutting lines for your section views without needing to draw sketch entities. Four options for standard section views are immediately available: Vertical, Horizonal, Auxiliary and Aligned. Each of these can be previewed on any standard drawing view. Use Tab and Shift-Tab to cycle through the preview choices. Relations to geometry are automatically identified during the preview.

Vertical cutting line:

Horizontal cutting line:

Auxiliary cutting line:

Aligned (bent) cutting line:

To accept the cutting line placement and geometry relations, simply LMB click when the preview is at the desired location (more clicks will be required to place Auxiliary and Aligned cutting lines). The Section View Assist will then set the preview of the cutting line on the drawing view with any applicable geometry relations. Additionally, the Section View Pop-up appears nearby.

To accept the cutting line location, RMB click OK or select OK button from the Section View Pop-up. Then, just place the section view on the drawing sheet. In many cases, you can add you section view as easy as 1 – 2 – 3 clicks without the need to draw sketches.

Note: you can still create a sketch and preselect it prior to starting the Section View tool. This will allow you to bypass Section View Assist and use the same workflow as in SolidWorks 2012 to create a section view.

Sometimes it’s the little new things (~part II) in SolidWorks 2013: Watermarking

This entry is part 7 of 12 in the series New in SolidWorks 2013

There’s been a long trail of discussions on the topic of adding watermarks to SolidWorks drawings. For one reason or another, watermarks are seen by some as necessary in drawings. The starting point of the conversion can be roughly traced back to the SolidWorks Forum in 2006. In December 2007, I did one article that incompletely addressed the need. If you just needed text to show up on your sheet format, you can review the first article.

Then, a question was asked at the first Stump the Chumps presentation at SolidWorks World 2008 about how to add watermarks to drawings. No answer was given at that presentation (the chumps where stumped).

Soon after SolidWorks World 2008, Ben Eadie (one of the stumped chumps) found an About SolidWorks article that discussed various aspects of this topic. (The article appears to have been maintained/updated since then.) Around that time, I also wrote a detailed article about how to link your custom properties to your watermark and provided a trick to get the watermark note to appear underneath elements on the drawing sheet. Linking custom properties to the watermark allows the watermark value to be controlled by Enterprise PDM workflows.

OK, so what was the trick to getting notes to appear underneath drawing elements? If you created a block of an annotation note on your sheet format, that note block will appear under your drawing (without obscuring drawing content).

In Solidworks 2013, you no longer need to use that trick to get your sheet format note to appear underneath drawing elements. There is now a command that resides in the right-click menu for each annotation note on the sheet format called “Display Note Behind Sheet”. When checked, the note is placed underneath drawing view elements on the drawing sheet, including other annotations, dimensions and model geometry in both HLR/HLV and shaded modes.

Display Note Behind Sheet is a checkmarked command in the

right-click menu for any annotation note on the sheet format.

With the checkmark set on the note in sheet format, the

note appears under all drawing view elements.

Uncheckmarking the option will apply standard ordering

of drawing elements, with geometry obsured by

the note.

Sometimes it’s the little things or Freedom to zoom around (New in SolidWorks 2013)

This entry is part 5 of 12 in the series New in SolidWorks 2013

SolidWorks had an interesting and small limitation for a long time. If you were editing an annotation note in the graphics area of your drawing (by double-clicking on it), you couldn’t use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out around the document. Sure, you had access to increase and decrease zoom level using other means, but that would be focused on the center of the screen in both directions. As such, linking your note to other annotations on other areas of your drawing usually involved planning one step ahead.

Starting with SolidWorks 2013, the mouse wheel now zooms in and out while you are editing an annotation note in drawings. For example, if you are creating your general drawing notes and wish to add a link to a dimension in a drawing view at the other end of the drawing sheet, you can now simply zoom out with the mouse wheel, move the mouse cursor to the dimension and click it, then use the mouse and wheel to zoom back to focus the screen around the general notes while you are still typing.

Another use may be if your annotation note is not yet set to wordwrap and text is extending off the screen. You can now quickly zoom out to see all of the text and set the note’s bounding box so that it wordwraps, then zoom back in to continue your edits.

This is going to be one of those little things that you won’t even notice when you use it. You’ll prolly won’t think twice about it, acting as though this was the way it has always worked.

New Section View Assist tool in SolidWorks used as example of teamwork

I was recently interviewed by Entertainment Engineering, an online magazine that covers technologies used in many types of entertainment devices and events such as movies, concerts, theme and amusement parks, electronic games, etc. The November 2012 issue focuses on the value of individual contributors and also of teamwork in the design process. Here’s the kicker, I’m quoted in the issue’s editorial article along side the great Steve Wozniak. Kinda cool.

The article for which I was specifically interviewed is called Teamwork Improves Section-View Options in SolidWorks 2013, which leads-off a series of interviews with various individuals from all over the engineering discipline. In my interview, I talk about the new SolidWorks section view functionality (now called Section View Assist) that has a whole new user interface that changes the way section views are created on drawings in CAD. This includes how I originally developed the concept which was then improved and refined via teamwork within the SolidWorks organization.

Section View Assist replaces the need to first create sketches before being able to create a section view. Instead, you can directly place cutting line on the original view and have the section view generated automatically. If you want to use aligned section view, you can add offsets to the cutting line directly in the Section View Assist interface (without the need to draw lines or edit sketches). Same goes to notch and single offsets. The new user interface saves time and steps. The improvement is nearly exponential. The more complex your cutting line, the quicker you can create it versus old methods using sketches.