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SolidWorks 2012: Drawing Enhancements
In many companies, Drawings are still were “the rubber meets the road”. Let’s take a look at what I think will be some of the more popular enhancements to the Drawing and Detailing area of SolidWorks 2012. I’ve tried to keep the descriptions short and sweet because like me, I’m sure many of you don’t…
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SolidWorks Tip: Import DXF/DWG Set Origin
I ran across this today when importing a DXF file from a vendor. I’m not quite sure how long it has been there, but this is the first time I have noticed it. 🙂 When importing a DXF/DWG file you are presented in an import wizard with many options. The first screen is shown below.…
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DraftSight Officially Released
Dassault Systemes today took the “Beta” wraps off DraftSight and have announced it’s full release. With this full release you also get a few enhancements. Those enhancement include: Trapezoid command API Support (Only included with the paid Premium Pack) Localization of help files Command Variables – Enhanced to allow users to set and change system…
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Part Numbers and Configurations
If you do a little searching around the net, there are many discussions on the subject of internal company part numbers. Many of the discussions center around the great debate of intelligent part numbers vs. unintelligent part numbers. I’ll dive into that discussion a little later on. One of the interesting things I have found…
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SolidWorks 2010: Sketch Pictures in Drawings
With my schedule relaxing a bit, I’m finally back in the groove and am excited to bring some new posts to the site. This one is kind of a “reminder post” of a new feature in SolidWorks 2010 that is easy to overlook. You can now show Sketch Pictures inserted in models on the Drawing! …
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SolidWorks 2010: Awesome Tables!
Sometimes when testing newer versions of Software you discover some “unreported” enhancements that really can be a time saver. That type of enhancement is the source of this post, but first we’ll take an overall look at the enhancements to Tables in SolidWorks 2010. As reported in my SolidWorks 2010 Enhancements Highlight article, all Tables…
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SolidWorks 2010: Mouse Gestures
Today we are going to take a look at perhaps one of the most underrated new features of SolidWorks 2010, the Mouse Gesture Wheel. While this new tool has gotten some good press in recent weeks, its hard to gauge how useful this command can be until you actually use it. The Mouse Gesture wheel…
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SolidWorks 2010: Drawing Dimension Enhancements
As I said in my first post on SolidWorks 2010, Drawings received A LOT of enhancements! Today we are going to take a look at a few of them that relate to dimensioning. Rapid Dimension is a new option that allows for quick placement of dimensions in Drawings. As soon as you select a edge…
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SolidWorks World 2009 Presentation: Custom PCB Design with SolidWorks
This year at SolidWorks World I gave a presentation on Custom PCB Design with SolidWorks. It covers not only useful features in SolidWorks that can help make the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design process faster, but also recommendations on the process itself. The presentation along with all the model files is available for download HERE.…
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The S Key Experiment – Part 3
The S Key Experiment continues for me and in this post we dive into Part 3 which covers using the S Key shortcut menu in the Drawing environment of SolidWorks 2009. In case you missed it, I covered the Part Environment in Part 1 and the Assembly Environment in Part 2. I have found the…
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SolidWorks Video Tip: 2009 BOM Restructure
SolidWorks 2009 has been out long enough now that most of the “major” enhancements have probably been talked about on quite a few sites across the web. Here’s an enhancement that I have noticed hasn’t gotten much press. That enhancement is the ability to restructure Bills of Materials (BOM) in Drawings. This video tip will…
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SolidWorks Video Tip: 2009 Title Block & Custom Properties
I’m sure if you have read any of the SolidWorks Blogs in the past couple of weeks, you have probably heard of the new Custom Properties Task Pane window in SolidWorks 2009. The interface for this window is completely customizable. SolidWorks includes an application called Property Tab Builder that allows you to design the interface…
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SolidWorks Tip: Converting Drawing Views
When working in SolidWorks sometimes it is necessary to convert Model Views in a Drawing to Vector entities (lines and arcs) so that the view is NOT tied to the geometry of the solid model. An example of this would be a view of an electrical connector’s pin numbers for a cable/harness drawing. In cases…
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SolidWorks 2007: Relative View
For those of you that use the Weldment functionality in SolidWorks, there is a nice little enhancement that has been included in SolidWorks 2007. The Structural Member functionality in Weldments allows you quickly create weldment frames using a multi-body approach. If you need to detail a specific body in a drawing the drawing view creation…