SolidWorks 2009 Preview: Magnifying Glass

If you are anything like me you have worn out your middle scroll mouse button from scrolling in on features or edges to select them and then back out again so that you can see your entire part or assembly.

Well in SolidWorks 2009 they have added a magnifying glass tool that allows you to quickly zoom in on and feature and select a feature or face and even section the view for a better look. This is a great tool for helping you to quickly select entities for creating mates or selecting faces to create a sketch on.

The first step is to hover over the area that you want to zoom in on and then select G, the magnifying glass should open for you. If you already have G assigned to another function I am not sure how it will handle it when you first install SolidWorks 2009. If it does not open the magnifying glass operation simply go to Tools>Customize>Keyboard>Others>Magnifying Glass and assign a new keystroke to it.

Once the magnifying glass is open move your pointer around the model and the magnifying glass will maintain its same degree of zoom while the model stays stationary. You can however rotate your model as you normally would by holding down the middle mouse button and moving your mouse. To better move around your model while in the magnifying glass mode you can hold the Ctrl + middle-drag to pan around your model. You can also zoom in and out by scrolling like you normally would while the rest of your model stays stationary. Very cool!

To see a section view while in the magnifying glass function simply hold the Alt key and scroll in and out using the middle mouse button to control the depth of the section. This section view will display parallel to the screen.

To select entities while in the magnifying glass mode hold the Ctrl key while selecting your entities. The first entity that you select without holding the Ctrl key will close the magnifying glass tool. You can also press G or Esc to close out of this tool.

In my opinion this is one of the cool new “bling” features that everyone can and should use on a regular basis. As you will see in my upcoming posts SolidWorks 2009 does not offer as many of these new “bling” features, as I like to call them, as they did in previous releases but the things they did add will greatly increase your productivity on a daily basis. The magnifying glass tool will decrease the amount of time that you spend scrolling around your model selecting entities which is nothing more than a time consuming operation. Now that time consuming operation will be cut down so that you can focus more on your design and less on mouse movements.

Stay tuned for more RockSolid SolidWorks 2009 previews to come.

If you would like to see these new features for yourself please participate in the SolidWorks 2009 Beta program which is open to all subscription customers. Check out this cool program and the awesome prizes you could win by heading over to the SolidWorks 2009 Beta Homepage.