Have you ever tried to save time by copying an existing sketched based cut extrude only to find out that when you pasted this new copy that the orientation was flipped around 180 degrees from the original? If so, I... Continue reading

New for 2013 was an option for Linear and Circular Pattern features that allow you to vary instances of your pattern with settings such as dimension variances and spacing variances. But did you know that for many years now we... Continue reading

New for SolidWorks 2013 is the capability to store library features as multi body files. This works great for adding plates and mounting feet to weldment part files. The process for making one of these library features couldn’t be easier.... Continue reading

Assembly Exploded Views have been a part of SolidWorks for many releases now. One new trick that I recently stumbled upon is that from time to time you may need to add a jog in your Exploded Line Sketches to... Continue reading

I am not sure how many of you knew Wayne Tiffany, but I found out some pretty neat information that I wanted to share with the community as a whole. Wayne was a long time user/advocate of SolidWorks software and... Continue reading

Here is a scenario where using the SolidWorks Activation Wizard utility comes in really handy. Let's say you have SolidWorks loaded and activated on a PC. For some reason you decide to remove SolidWorks from this machine, but don't choose... Continue reading

I recently had a technical support call from a customer who was trying to copy an existing project of assembly files and part files to make another project that was similar but different. They had renamed the files with new... Continue reading

Treehouse 2 from SolidWorks Labs A great resource for testing new and upcoming software options can be found at SolidWorks Labs' web site. This site can be accessed from http://labs.solidworks.com and contains several products that may be useful to your... Continue reading

A couple of weeks ago, myself and a couple other members of our tech team made a visit to Waltham, Massachusetts and attended a special invite only training course on SolidWorks’ newest product offering, SolidWorks Electrical. SolidWorks Electrical is a... Continue reading

Select Connected Faces in SolidWorks As SolidWorks development continues to add commands and functionality to each major release of SolidWorks, from time to time they also add in nuggets of goodness to service packs. That's right sports fans, not all... Continue reading

SolidWorks Sketch Slot Symmetric Relation There are often times when designing a part that a typical placement for a sketch entity doesn't always conform to the standard horizontal or vertical placements. Sometimes you need to get creative in how you... Continue reading

Removing Pattern Instances In SolidWorks, you can create a pattern of features using commands like Linear Pattern and Circular Pattern to name a few. With both of these types of patterns, you can also choose to "Skip" instances of these... Continue reading

Instant3D for SolidWorks Assembly Instant3D was first introduced to SolidWorks users in 2008. This allowed you to dynamically change dimensions from sketch based dimensions to feature based dimensions by simply selecting a face of a certain feature in the model.... Continue reading

I had a conversation yesterday from a customer looking for a single line font that they could use in SolidWorks while creating text on their model. This is a common request especially when needing to generate models or drawings for... Continue reading

So here’s a solution for those of you who don’t like figuring tolerance stack-up information with a slide ruler and an abacus. Introducing SolidWorks TolAnalyst. TolAnalyst is an add-in utility which is provided with SolidWorks Premium. This feature allows you... Continue reading

While looking for a display option in my assembly FeatureManager tree one day, I discovered that you can actually show the custom property for Description in the FeatureManager tree. You can show the name of the file, the configuration name... Continue reading

I ran across a discussion at a recent user group meeting in where someone asked me if it was possible to create part configurations where the same sketch segment could have two different sketch relations. I wasn’t sure if this... Continue reading