Adding simple collaborative actors in SolidWorks Composer

In SolidWorks Composer, collaborative actors are markup tools, annotations, measurements, etc. that appear in a viewport. Today, I am going to show you how to create just a few of the many collaborative actors that you can create.

The first one that we are going to create is an exploded line. After you have moved the geometry actor to it's desired location, then you can add the line. One way to add a single line is to go to Author, Polyline.

After selecting Polyline, you can hold down the Alt key to snap it to a center or specific location. Once you have created the line, you can right click your mouse to end the line funcion. Now that we have a line, we want to change it to look like an exploded view line. You can change the properties of any actor by selecting the actor and going to the properties tab.

The next collaborative actor I would like to add is a circular arrow. Again, there are a number of different annotations you can add to a view. We just want to show you how to create a few of the most common. Go to Author, Arrow, Circular Arrow.

Once you select Circular arrow, as you hover your mouse over a geometry actor you will notice that you can align the arrow in the direction you desire.

Again, you can also change several properties of the arrow like, direction of arrow, opacity, angle, transparency and several others.

Hope this helps you create better looking and more easier to read documentation.

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.