Changing the SOLIDWORKS Standard View Orientation

Have you ever imported a model from a vendor, customer, etc. and the part orientation just doesn’t make sense? Well it just so happens you can change the default view to any rotation that you’d like! We are going to focus on the Update Standard Views command to change the SOLIDWORKS standard view orientation of our model.

View Orientation pop-up

This command will change the view to your desired orientation. This is extremely handy when you are bringing your part into the drawing environment and the views just don’t make sense.

I will use this flashlight to demonstrate this tool.

Bad orientation of model

As you can see, this flashlight’s “front” view is at an odd angle.

If I click on the face that I want to be the “front” view. Then press the spacebar to open the Orientation window. Then click “Normal To”. The flashlight will rotate so the face you clicked is parallel with the screen. Now press the spacebar once again and click the update standard view command. This will prompt you to select the Standard View you would like to assign the current view to.

Assigning a Standard View Orientation to the Front Plane

Select the standard view you would like associated with the current screen view, in our case the Front Plane. You will then get a warning pop-up: click Yes.

SOLIDWORKS Standard View Orientation warning message

You now have successfully changed the views on your part. If you do not like what you have done you can always use the Reset Standard Views to go back to the default view the part came with.

Reset Standard Views command