solidworks 2010…multibody part drawings

Continuing on with the theme of the last couple of weeks about drawings and detailing I want to show you another really nice enhancement that was made to the drawings area.  In the previous posts about these topics it has been about a 50/50 share between the drawings and detailing portion for each enhancement.  However, the next 3 enhancements are going to be strictly drawings enhancements and not so much about the detailing end.

How many of you have become extremely frustrated with the inability to create drawings of multibody parts very easily in the past.  That is going to change in SolidWorks 2010.  You will be able to create the 3 standard views of multibody parts and for flat patterns of multibody sheet metal parts you can use one body per view.  So how do you do this you ask, let me show you.

As you can see below I have a drawing for a part that has 3 separate bodies in it.  In the Drawing View PropertyManager you will notice a Reference Configuration heading and below it there is a Select Bodies button.

When you click that button it will automatically take you to the part file that contains these 3 bodies.  Now all you need to do is select which bodies you would like shown on your drawing and click the green check mark.

You will then be taken back to your drawing and voila, you are now showing a multibody part in your drawing.

solidworks 2010…configurations & dimensions

Today’s previews are not eye popping but they still deserve a mention.  As I stated earlier in this release SolidWorks focus was not on bright and shiny new features but on the little things like cleaning up the code and making the user interaction.

The things that I am going to show today prove that theory because they are not the cool new functions but they are functional enhancements that will help the everyday user tremendously.

Configurations

The process of changing configurations for a drawing view kind of was long winded in previous releases.  RMB click on a drawing view, select Properties, look on the pop up for the configuration section and then pick your desired configuration from the drop down.  Sounds right?  Well in SolidWorks 2010 it will be a lot easier and smoother to do this.  The option to change configurations is at the top of the Drawing View PropertyManager.  You can see it in the screenshot below under the Reference Configuration heading.

Diameter Dimensions

In SolidWorks 2010 when you insert a diameter dimension in a section view you will now see the diameter symbol like you would in a normal drawing view.

solidworks 2010…section views

Another week is upon us and yet more previews of SolidWorks 2010 are comin’ at ya.  I am going to stay in the areas of drawings and detailing this week because there are so many good additions to this years release.

Today I am going to take a look at section views.  If you are like me section views are one of those tedious processes that just aren’t all that fun to make.  Don’t get me wrong, they are needed but just not fun to do, because everything should be fun right?  Let’s get started!

Aligned Section Views

Now you could always create aligned section views (well maybe not always) but the kicker was that you could never accurately dimension across one.  That’s about to change because starting in SolidWorks 2010 you will be able to dimension across an aligned section view.

Section Depth

Another really cool/nice feature in SolidWorks 2010 is the ability to set the depth of the section view in part drawings.  What this allows you to do is set to how far beyond the section line you want to see.  You can set this in the Section View PropertyManager under the Section Depth heading.

solidworks 2010…part & assembly title blocks

So over the last week we have looked at a whole bunch of new enhancements to the drawings and detailing portion of the software.  Well this one I guess can kind of be grouped into that but it also has to do with part and assembly files.

Raise your hand if you have ever wanted to add a tolerancing chart to your part and/or assembly.  Well in SolidWorks 2010 you will now be able to do that.  This will be extremely nice if you are a company that runs productions or a machine shop and you have people out on the floor that are looking at your 3D models.  How did you communicate to them in the past all of the information that is normally put on the drawing?  Now you will be able to insert a title block into your part and assembly files so that you can have all of that information readily accessible for anyone that might be opening that file and checking it out.

In order to insert one all you need to do is go to Insert > Tables > Title Block Table.  You can either user the default SolidWorks table that they provide you or you can create your own and use that.  These title block tables act the same as they do in drawings by being able to pull information out of your properties in order to populate the necessary cells.

You can see an inserted Title Block Table in the 2 pictures below.  The first screenshot shows it in a part file and the second screenshot shows it in an assembly file.

I would love to hear how you think you could use this new option.  I outlined some of my ideas about uses above but I would love to hear what you think.

solidworks 2010…fractional & ordinate dimensions

Today’s preview of new functionality is not quite as sweet as the last 2 days but still deserves mention because they may be useful in some certain circumstances.

Fractional Dimensions

In the next release of SolidWorks you will now be able to decide whether or not you would like to see the double prime symbols (“) added to fractional dimensions.  This is more of a company by company basis I would imagine.  I can see some users what them and some don’t so in order to make everyone happy the option has been added.

To access this option go to Tools > Options > Document Properties > Dimensions > Fractional display.  Please note that these are document settings so they do not carry over from document to document.  If you would like this to be a global setting you can change this option in your template and you should be set.

Ordinate Dimensions

A little bit cooler addition that may be more widely used is the ability to continue ordinate dimensioning on a detail view.  As you can see below I have my “0” point set at the bottom of the model and when I add a detail view based off of this view I am able to add an ordinate dimension that is referencing my “0” point.  This works no matter where you place the dimension on the drawing.  This is going to be very nice.

So like I said at the beginning, these are not as big of changes to preview as the last 2 days but they are still very nice and useful. 

solidworks 2010…dimension palette

As I stated in an earlier post a lot of changes and additions have been made to the detailing and drawings portion of the software for 2010.  The new feature I covered yesterday, Rapid Dimension, is one of my favorites and likewise the item I am going to cover today I think is equally awesome.

One of those most tedious tasks during a design process is putting your creation on paper.  In previous versions of SolidWorks I always felt that drawings and detailing never got a whole lot of attention compared to actual modeling functionality.  The interface and speed of drawings was always nasty to deal with but that is all changing this year.  One of the great new enhancements is a new feature called the Dimension Palette.

Starting in SolidWorks 2010 when you add a new dimension you will notice a popup that appears next to your highlighted dimension.  This new popup is the dimension palette and what it allows you to do is really anything that you would otherwise have to go into the PropertyManager to do.  You can change tolerances, how far a dimension is carried out, position, etc. etc. etc.

You can also quickly add text or symbols to you dimension as there is open areas to the left and right, top and bottom of the dimension for your own personal pleasure.

Another cool part of this new feature is the style button (shown selected below) which will allow you to quickly access recent and saved formats to add to new or existing dimensions.  You can also select multiple dimensions and add a style to all of them in one swift swoop.

Pretty cool, huh?  When I saw this demonstrated earlier this year I was extremely impressed and very happy with how SolidWorks focused on streamlining the design process.

solidworks 2010…rapid dimension

Continuing the focus on detailing and drawings today I want to look at one of the single greatest additions to the software for this release.  Last the magnifying glass was introduced as a way to limit the zoom in zoom out repetitive task that most of did on a day basis especially when detailing drawings.  You have make make sure you are selecting the right line or profile, right?

Well SolidWorks 2010 will introduce a new tool called rapid dimension.  What is this you might ask?  As you can see in the screenshot below you will notice a pie looking icon appear when you select an edge to dimension.  By selecting one of the pie corners, whether it is 4 different locations on a diameter or 2 different locations on a line it will place the dimension automatically in the direction you select.  The picture below show a diameter dimension.

The picture below show a linear dimension which only offers 2 locations.

Now you might be wondering how the heck do you locate the dimensions and set the spacing.  You can do this by going to Tools > Options > Document Properties > Dimensions and under the Offset distances grouping you can select the distance from the part to the 1st dimension and then also the spacing between the dimension thereafter.

This might be a tool that takes a little getting used to in the beginning but it can be very handy once you start using it.  So give it a try either when you implement SolidWorks 2010 or you can download SolidWorks 2010 Pre Release 1 right now.

solidworks 2010…centermarks, notes, & tables

Well another week is upon us which means more SolidWorks 2010 previews coming your way.  This week I am going to be focusing on some more detailing and drawing functionality that is changing in the next release of SolidWorks.  Like I mentioned last week the detailing and drawings area of SolidWorks received some MAJOR enhancements this time around which was much needed.

Today I wanted to show some of the changes that were made to centermarks, additions to notes and the revamped interface of tables.  So let’s get started.

Centermarks

In SolidWorks 2009 when you dimensioned to a diameter or radius it based the dimension extension lines off of the center of the arc but in SolidWorks 2010 it will put a gap in for the centermarks to make a nice and cleaner looking drawing.  You can see the changes in the picture below.

Note Borders

Another really cool enhancement coming out in SolidWorks 2010 is the ability to add a border to a specific portion of text in a note.  When you add a note you will now see another section in the Note PropertyManager called “Border”.  You can select a wide variety of different border shapes and also how much spacing you would like for the text.  As you can see in the screenshot below simply highlight the portion of the text you would a border around and set your options.

Tables

HALLELUJAH!  If you are anything like me you get used to maneuvering around cells in SolidWorks a certain way and when I go into SolidWorks and create a table it is tough to not be able to maneuver around the same way.  That is all changing in SolidWorks 2010 as you will not be able to cruise around in SolidWorks tables the same way you do in an Excel file.  This includes but is not limited to Tab, Enter, and Arrow navigation.

Another cool option is the ability to now copy cells in Excel and paste them into your SolidWorks table.

As you can probably tell I am really excited about the updates to the drawing and detailing portion of SolidWorks 2010.  Stay tuned this week to find out what else is getting a makeover. 

solidworks 2010…bom’s

Bill of materials are always a hot topic of interest and usually get a pretty good round of applause at SolidWorks WORLD when they announce the upcoming enhancements during the Wednesday morning General Session.

SolidWorks 2010 will include a few new additional updates to the area of bill of materials.  Some of these enhancements are probably bigger than others but all of them will be useful in certain circumstances.

Assemblies

In the upcoming release you will be able to set the following options for specific assembly components.

• exclude items from the BOMs
• edit the display of child components
• change how the part number is generated
• control how the quantity is figured out

To access these releases RMB click the component in the BOM and select Component Options

Linked BOMs

You will be able to link a new bill of material that you copied from a previously created assembly BOM.  You will be able to do this from the BOM PropertyManager.  Here is the cool part, if you update either the assembly BOM or the drawing BOM it will push back the changes to the other BOM.  If you would like to unlink the BOM that is possible at any time as well but once it is unlinked you will not be able to relink it again.

To link the BOMs go to the BOM PropertyManager and under BOM Options select Copy existing table and Linked.

Part Descriptions

In the Configuration Properties PropertyManager of parts and assemblies you will see the option Use in bill of materials.  When you type text for the Description and select Use in bill of materials it will use that part description as the description in the BOM.

Highlighting

This is a very cool update for BOMs.  When you select an item in a BOM it will highlight it in the graphics area.  This also works the reverse way, if you highlight a component in the graphics area it will also highlight it in the BOM.

Moving BOMs

SolidWorks 2010 also will give you the ability to move BOMs to different sheets within the same drawing file.  You can move a BOM by dragging it onto a sheet tab, sheet icons in the FeatureManager tree, or a different window of the same drawing.

solidworks 2010…annotations & balloons

One of the areas in SolidWorks 2010 that I see has the largest amounts of BIG improvements is drawings and detailing.  I think these areas have always been an afterthought of SolidWorks as the focus was always on the modeling portion of the software but I think the last 2 years have shown a shift in focus from the development team at SolidWorks.  The next grouping of posts are going to cover some of the updates in these 2 areas.

This post is going to start with some of the updates to the detailing portion of the software.

Annotations

One of the areas that I have always struggled with is the ability to attach annotations to dimensions on our drawings in the way that I would like to see them.  This has been updated in SolidWorks 2010.  It is now easier to attach annotations to each other.  The annotations this covers are geometric tolerance symbols, datum symbols, and surface finish callouts.

You can now attach annotations to dimension extension lines, move annotations around dimension extension lines, and also use handles to detach annotations from extension lines.

Balloons

One of the items changed in balloons is that you can now set them to follow the item numbering of a selected BOM inside your assembly under Balloon text source in the Balloon PropertyManager.

Another significant change is that you can include a parametric quantity to your balloon in 1 of 4 directions.  There seemed to be some things that were brought up during the blogger visit to SolidWorks headquarters in August about the spacing of the quantities but all in all this is a great addition for anyone that has had to balloon an assembly in the past.  You can see a quantity added to a balloon and the Balloon PropertyManager in the screenshot below.

Another key addition to balloons in this release is the ability to have a custom size for your balloons.  You can access this option by going to Tools > Options > Document Properties > Drafting Standard > Annotations > Balloons and then change the “Size” setting under Single balloon and Stacked balloons to Custom Size and specify your size.  You can see all this in the screenshot below.

These are just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the updates done to the detailing portion of SolidWorks 2010 so stayed tuned right here to see more of what has been updated.