It can be advantageous to have some of the fields in the drawing titleblock auto-populate with information from the referenced model or assembly.
Create a part that has the properties you want linked to the title block. To add properties select Properties from the File pull-down.
Insert a drawing view of part the into a drawing that will be used as your drawing template.
For people who are new to SolidWorks, and want to setup some standard templates, this will be a good article to start with.
The background information stored in a new drawing file is from two locations – drawing template and sheet format.
Sheet format stores the sheet size, scale, title block, etc. Basically what you see in a new drawing file (no views inserted yet) is controlled by sheet format. File name extension is “.SLDDRT”.
Drawing template includes drafting standards – font sizes, dimension, annotation styles, etc, AND a link to the sheet format (optional). If there is no link, you will start with an empty sheet and you can choose a sheet format manually. File name extension is “.DRWDOT”.
While teaching a SolidWorks Essentials course, a customer attending the class asked for the best practice on how to add a sharp point to a part so that they can dimension to the sharp point.
His method was to insert a sketch point using the Point command and then add coincident relationships to it to both sketch lines in order to find the virtual sharp point. While this certainly works, there’s a more efficient way.
Before yesterday, I was sure I knew everything about custom properties and how to use them in parametric annotations. After all, if the information is already in the model, why not use it in Drawings, BOMs and other interesting places. Well… turns out I was wrong and… I am very happy about that!
The values for some custom properties have to be input manually by the user, but a lot of them are filled in automatically by SolidWorks. The problem is that SolidWorks works in silence and does not brag about it. So imagine my surprise (a pleasant one, of course) when Michel Cloutier showed us how fast and easy is to populate a note with the sheet metal parameters of your part with just 2 clicks.
If you ever get a chance to use “cosmetic thread” function on a model, you may also want to display the callout in 2D drawing.
First, create a cosmetic thread display on the model by going to “insert” -> “annotations” -> “cosmetic thread”.
A new option was added in SolidWorks 2011 SP3 that you may find quite useful. In a past release, the new functionality of merging drawing notes when dragging over one another was introduced. This is great when you need to combine the annotations, but can make the positioning of notes tricky when in close proximity and you don’t want them to merge.
In the latest service pack, the new option can be found under System Options > Drawings > “Disable note merging when dragging”. Enabling the option will prevent notes from merging with other notes, balloons, and dimensions.
If you don’t know how to add foreshortened diameter dimension in the drawing, this article will help you.
Warren Isaacs posted a very interesting question on the SolidWorks Forums:
I have a section view on a drawing whose part has been modified such that the section is now redundant. Since the section view was projected from a parent view, can I convert from section to projection? I’ve trawled through the Help and various menus, but to no avail. I tried deleting the section line from the sketch, but SW didn’t like the empty sketch it left behind, so reinstated the original line. If such a change isn’t possible, then is it possible to move all my carefully laid out dimensions and notes, en masse, from the section view to a new projection view without having to lay them all out again? Every time I switch dimensions between views (using <Shift>-drag), they seem to drop wherever they please.
The solution is actually quite simple.
One of the modules that received the most enhancements in the 2011 version of SolidWorks is the Drawing Environment. Most of the new functionality is well documented in the “What’s New” document (Help menu/What’s New) and in the Help file.
Paul Marsman, a regular contributor on SolidWorks Forums, noticed a new, undocumented, functionality in regards to linking model configurations in drawing views. I tried it myself and I believe it can be a great time saver.
Increasing drawing performance can start with the Open dialogue box. By using “Select Sheets to Open”, you select the sheet(s) you need to work on. The remaining sheets can be viewed in “Quick View”, which is a read-only mode that provides a simplified representation of the drawing. To load a sheet, right-click on the sheet or the sheet’s tab and select “Load Sheet”.
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