How to exclude hatching in SOLIDWORKS Section Views using Section Scope

In some cases, it may be necessary or beneficial to exclude hatching from particular features of a part or components of an assembly.  Most notably, ribs and similar features can be removed from a section hatch to help add clarity to drawing views.  Thankfully there is a SOLIDWORKS Section Scope function that was built for exactly this purpose.

When creating a Section View through assemblies or components with ribs the SOLIDWORKS Section Scope dialog pops up automatically. You can then select the specific rib features or assembly components that you would like removed from the section hatch (if you’d like to change the section scope after the fact you can simply right-click on any section view and select properties to find the section scope options).

The specific rib feature or assembly components can then be selected either directly by clicking on the feature in your drawing view, or by selecting the feature in the drawing feature tree.

Section View Scope Window

As we can see in the image below, the section view has been hatched appropriately for the component however the rib feature in this case was left unhatched.

Section View with Hatching removed on Rib feature

Similarly, with an assembly we can see this would be very useful when dealing with very small components or gaskets for example where hatching would only add complexity to our section view drawings.

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