Showing posts with label Notes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Notes. Show all posts

Friday, July 20, 2012

Parametric Notes

When creating SolidWorks drawings you may find you want to use a parametric value, such as a dimension or an instance count, in a note field. The advantage to using a parametric value in a note is if that values changes in your part it will be automatically updated in the note itself. The process is very simple. Start a new note on your drawing, then while the cursor is blinking in the note field click on the item you want to link to. The following annotations can be used and I have included a photo example.


Dimensions, Instance counts, Hole callouts, Surface finish, Geometric tolerance, Datum feature, Balloon number


Parametric note


Jordan Nardick, CSWE


Technical Analyst


CATI



Wednesday, June 8, 2011

SolidWorks Drafting Standards

Occasionally you find a drawing that doesn’t look right. What I mean is that the dimension size, fonts, etc. don’t match what everyone is used to seeing. Capture6 This might be a really old drawing, it might be that someone used an incorrect drawing template (local versus networked template file). Either way its just not fitting in as we’d like it to. Now at first glance of the Tools, Options, Document Properties is seems like there is a lot of settings to consider, check and change. This usually causes someone to say; “This will take too long, the heck with it.”


Hold on! There is a solution to this, see the first category under Document Properties, it says Drafting Standard. Capture4 To the right of this is a couple of buttons to “Save to External File…” and “Load From External File” and this is the quick solution. From a “good” drawing file, go to the options and pick “Save to External File…”. This will capture to a file what a good drawing’s Drafting Standard has for everything down the tree below Drafting Standard, all the way to Virtual Sharps. Once this file is created, you can then (in the drawing that doesn’t look right) “Load From External File”. This will bring in and set all of these Drafting Standard items to the way the other drawings look. – Viloa!


For another method to do this, consider the SolidWorks Design Checker Add-In. It’s available for those who have SolidWorks Professional and Premium and offers more checks and changes than just the Drafting Standards items.