How many of you after switching over to SolidWorks 2008 couldn’t figure out how to hide an extension line? There was a small change to how you hide or show dimension and extension lines that seemed to be made under the radar. The first time I needed to hide an extension line I was shocked [...]

A couple of weeks ago I introduced the Configure Component command in assemblies. In case you missed it, the Configure Component command extends the ability to control the display of components in assemblies in one interface. In one window you can configure a component to be suppressed or unsuppressed in different assembly configurations or you [...]

Last week I wrote about Drawing Notes for Standards Tuesday, I hope you found the information helpful. There were a couple of things I didn’t get a chance to cover because I wanted to limit the size of the post. If you missed it, make sure you read Standards Tuesday – Drawing Notes. What [...]

Before I went to college I played bass in a hard rock band. When people would ask us what kind of music we played we would list our influences. That usually gave a person a good indication as to how we sounded. Our influences did not always influence our sound but taught us something [...]

On the last ‘Standards Tuesday’ I mentioned flagnotes and using the Symbol Library to insert them into your notes. For those who are not familiar with it, the Symbol Library is a library of commonly used symbols ranging from dimension symbols to weld symbols, also the most common flagnotes are available. The Symbol Library can [...]

After the drawing number, title and revision, the Drawing Notes are usually the next thing the someone will look at on a print. The drawing notes provide more information then what is normally provided by the drawing itself. The notes can be used to better describe the part, provide information about finishes, describe inspection requirements [...]

When you are working on designs, there are times when it is necessary to link dimensions. Linking dimensions associates a word or word phrase to a number value that other dimensions in a model can then reference. This is an especially handy tool when you are dealing with complex models that have multiple features that [...]

If you have spent anytime with assembly configurations in SW 2007, you would know how many steps it took to set up components for each configuration. Then if the component had configurations as well, it added even more steps. I don’t want to go on about some of the horror stories I have encountered but [...]

What is the first thing you look at on a drawing? The drawing title. This week for “Standards Tuesday” we will be talking about the drawing titles as there are described in ASME Y14.100. Since one the very first things anybody looks at on a drawing is the title, I figured this is the best [...]

Buried deep in the advanced mates lies a hidden treasure. The Width mate is a little known mate that makes mating tabs and slots possible without calculating distances or using reference geometry. This is not one of the many new mates in 2008, in fact this mate made its debut appearance in the 2006 release. [...]