Surfaces

How to use SOLIDWORKS Surfaces as Reference Geometry for Mates

SOLIDWORKS Surface Reference Geometry

Dummy/reference surfaces can be utilized for various design situations in SOLIDWORKS. Due to the fact that the surfaces have no thickness and do not contribute to the weight or mass properties of the parts or assemblies. Surfaces are useful as reference geometry and can then be hidden…

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Inserting Surfaces in SOLIDWORKS Drawing Views

Surfaces do not appear in SOLIDWORKS drawing views by default.  When used as reference geometry, surfaces are usually not required in a production drawing.  However, when the entire model or some of its elements are designed as surface bodies, the drawing is incomplete if surfaces are…

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New in SOLIDWORKS 2015 – Slice Section View now includes Surfaces! [VIDEO]

Until the current release of SOLIDWORKS, displaying surfaces within a drawing view has been a bit tricky in SolidWorks. Past releases have had us jump through a few hoops to get exactly what we want to have displayed on a drawing. SOLIDWORKS 2015 alleviates the…

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New in SOLIDWORKS 2015! – The Split Feature can now split Surface Bodies! [VIDEO]

Split Surface Bodies

As we climb up the steep hill that is the list of new enhancements to SOLIDWORKS 2015, I wanted to peddle backwards for a moment to a feature that is a tad underused by most SolidWorks users – The Split Feature. This tool gives us the…

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SolidWorks Tutorial: Import Diagnostics (4) – Sheet Metal Conversion [VIDEO]

This is the fourth in a series of articles focused on troubleshooting and healing topological errors from geometry imported in SolidWorks. After we demonstrated the power of the Import Diagnostics tool for healing topological errors in imported geometry, today we will consider a completely different case study;…

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Thoroughly Checking Models with Verification on Rebuild

In general, a standard rebuild with the toolbar button or a complete rebuild by pressing CTRL-Q will update the model with the changes you’ve made.  But you may want to add an extra step if you’re working with complex models or surfaces. By default, rebuilds…

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How to prepare pictures of real parts or hand drawn sketches as input for SOLIDWORKS 3D models

Remote Control Sketched Elevations

As SOLIDWORKS users, sometimes we have to convert hand drawn sketch into SOLIDWORKS model provided by a creative professional, such as an industrial designer. Quickly adjusting the images in Adobe Photoshop can provide more accurate results when the images are used as modelling aids in…

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SOLIDWORKS Surfacing Techniques: Embossing on Non-Planar Faces

This post originates from a discussion I had with students in my SOLIDWORKS Essentials training course a few months ago. Some time, in the third day of the course, we decided to take lunch together so I could answer all questions in regards to their further…

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Let’s get picky and use the Selection Manager

Dan Johnson asks this question in the SolidWorks Forum: I am trying to create a handle that is part of a scanner body and I made my curves using a 3D sketch. When I try and make either a loft or boundary surface, I try to grab just one curve in my 3DSketch, but it wants to grab the entire 3DSketch. How do I select just 1 curve for my profile? I tried the right mouse click, selection filter, but it grabs the entire 3d sketch too. Can anyone help?

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