Articles by: Mehdi Rezaei, CSWE
When a *.stl or *.obj file is imported into SOLIDWORKS, the 3D model opens in a tessellated or meshed form. All faces are broken into some triangular faces. Round faces will have more segments than flat faces. In SOLIDWORKS 2017 a *.stl file could be…
Mirror Sketch Entities using Reference Planes and Planar Faces in SOLIDWORKS 2018
In all versions of SOLIDWORKS in the past, we had to draw a center-line to be used with the Mirror Sketch tool. Either the center-line or a straight edge of a solid body was necessary for Mirror Sketch to work. In SOLIDWORKS 2018, planes and…
When creating cut-extrudes on sheet metal models, it is recommended to choose the Normal Cut option under cut-extrude properties. What if a cut has already been made on a sheet metal and it is not normal? It could even be made by cut-loft feature. In…
The SOLIDWORKS 2018 Circular Sketch Pattern command is available for both 2D sketch entities and 3D features. There used to be a limit of 1000 instances for patterned instances in SOLIDWORKS 2017 and older versions. But in SOLIDWORKS 2018 there is almost no limit for…
Using Automatic Solve specifies whether SOLIDWORKS should automatically do the computation to solve the sketch geometry of your part as you create it. When you are in the process of changing many dimensions in an active sketch, you may want to turn off the Automatic Solve option temporarily. Same…
In SOLIDWORKS, a Weldment model usually includes many numbers of components which show in the cut list table. To reduce the rows in the cut list to a manageable number or to create sub-groups for the model, one can group components and save them under…
The Performance Evaluation tool in SOLIDWORKS provides the capability of showing the rebuild time for the whole model. In addition, one can see a break down of rebuild time for individual feature. Because the rebuild times for feature are sorted from longest to shortest, the…
Why is the SOLIDWORKS Measure Tool not allowing me to take Arc/Circle Measurements?
Has it ever happened that you are trying to measure the distance between two arcs or circles, but when you run the SOLIDWORKS Measure tool the Arc/Circle Measurements option is grayed out? The following image shows a screenshot of the measure window where the first…
In this article, manipulating SOLIDWORKS extension lines after being added by dimensions is examined. It is shown that the extension lines could be treated as a separate entity in drawings and we can even decide to show or hide them. Some settings existed under Tools…