SolidWorks 2014 Tutorial: What Was Hard Now Is Easy When Applying Tangent Mates [VIDEO]

SolidWorks has always been a user-friendly software, mostly because 99.9% of the workflows in SolidWorks are natural, like in the real life. From this point of view, compared with other CAD software packages, users are really pampered when working in the SolidWorks Universe.

It is understandable then why some SolidWorks users might become frustrated when having to find workarounds for the other 0.1% of the situations, when the solution to a specific problem is not so intuitive.

Case in hand: applying a simple tangent mate between a curvilinear edge or a sphere and another face was very hard to do in SolidWorks 2013 and older versions. The Javelin Blog published such a solution in the past. The SolidWorks Forum has a full discussion about this topic turned into a brainstorming about finding workarounds.

That is no longer the case in SolidWorks 2014. What was very hard to do a month ago it is now very easy and natural!

Watch this video for a quick demonstration of the enhanced functionality of the Tangent Mate in SolidWorks 2014:

 Thanks to Glen Schroeder for providing the inspiration for this article!