There are many ways of implementing this technique and SOLIDWORKS has several different tools you can use to make it happen. Each has different strengths and weaknesses, so it may be difficult at first to fully understand the methods. But once you use it a couple of times or see a couple of examples, I think you'll get it.

Master model is essentially a technique where you create a single model, say an alarm clock. You make the alarm clock as a single part, but in reality it will be manufactured from several individual plastic parts. The smooth shape of the clock is broken up into individual parts, which are engineered individually with detailed assembly and functional features and then brought back together as an assembly.

Several tools in SOLIDWORKS enable users to perform aspects of Master Model methods. Each of these tools do something slightly different and some will only work with certain types of data (solid vs surfaces):

• Save Bodies
• Split
• Insert Into New Part
• Insert Part
• Save Assembly as Part

I have split the Master Model tools into two classifications, Push and Pull. We use family-type relations to help define the roles some models play in the process. For example, a parent part would be the first in the process and a child part would be one that comes later and is dependent on the parent.

Push Master Model tools drive the process from the initial part (the parent), pushing the data out to individual part files. The feature that is left in the tree from this operation is left in the parent part, so you can find the child from the parent. The features that push data are Save Bodies and Split.

Pull Master Model tools drive the process from the dependent side (the child), pulling data in from other sources. The features that pull data are Insert Part and Insert Into New Part. These features are left in the child part, so you can find the parent from the child, but you can’t always go the other direction (find the child from the parent).

The reason it is important whether you are using a push or pull method is because the feature that keeps all of the information has to be located in one place, not in multiple places, and you have to be able to navigate up and down the dependency links.

Let's work through each method with this simple RubberDucky model. RubberDucky has three parts: a battery cover, a left half and a right half. We don't know what the batteries do, but all good products must be electronic, right?

Split

The Split tool requires surfaces or planes to split the part into multiple bodies. In this case, I chose to do that with the L-shaped extruded surface at the back to create the battery compartment cover, and the larger planar surface used to split the rest of the duck in half.

You could use the Right Plane to split the duck in half, but it would also split the battery compartment cover in half, and you'd have to join them back together.

Split can be used on solid or surface bodies.

The column of check boxes indicates that the bodies will be split. Bodies will only be saved out if you have file names in the File column. The interface never says this explicitly; I guess somehow, you're supposed to know.

If you put file names in and want to get rid of them, click the scissors icon to get rid of all the check marks. This will split the bodies within the part file without saving them as external parts.

Split does have a couple of functions that are new in the past several releases. It now enables you to save a body to a new file or an existing file. However, you can't just select any existing file. You are limited to selecting files which have been previously linked to this feature before. The point of this is to give the user some options when it comes to file management, in particular when the number of bodies produced by the Split feature changes. If you need other part geometry added to this part later, you can use the Insert Part function, which will be mentioned further down in the article.

Another change to the Split feature in recent releases is that instead of only splitting solid bodies, it will also now split surface bodies.

There are a couple of things going on with the Split feature that might be considered bugs. First, the “Propagate Visual Properties” is not propagating all of the face colors. The eyes of the ducky retain the colors, but in some cases the beak does not.

The second problem is that you cannot manually rename the bodies being saved out. (This is an optional function of this feature; you can also simply split the part into bodies without saving the bodies to external files). If you try, you get the invalid file name error. The directory mentioned is where all of the function DLLs are stored. This appears to happen in versions 2020 pr1 and SP1. This worked if I allowed SOLIDWORKS to automatically rename the bodies.

There is an SPR written against this functionality, so it could be fixed at some point. To work around it, you can create and save a dummy part to the directory where you want to save the bodies as parts and this feature will function correctly for that session.

Save Bodies

Save Bodies is available by right clicking on the Solid Bodies folder in the FeatureManager. It is not available for surface bodies.

Save Bodies also looks like the bottom half of the Split feature PropertyManager, except that it also gives you the ability to create an assembly from any bodies you save out as parts. For this reason, use Split only for splitting solid bodies and then use Save Bodies to save the bodies to parts and reassemble them into an assembly. That bit of automatic functionality saves a lot of time and bother.

The problems mentioned for the Split feature regarding renaming the bodies also happens with the Save Bodies feature. To work around this, you could go ahead and create the automatically named parts, close down SOLIDWORKS and all parts. Rename the files in Windows Explorer (usually not a preferred method, but bear with us) and then edit the Split or Save Bodies feature to use the Existing file option to connect the feature to the renamed part files.

Split and Save Bodies are both Push functions; they push the data out from the parent document. You make a part, split it into bodies and then push the bodies out to individual parts. The Split and Save Bodies features reside in the parent part, making it easy to find the child part from the parent.

The feature put into the child part is called the "Stock" feature. To find the parent from the child, right click on the Stock feature and select Edit in Context, and it will take you back to where the Split or Save Bodies feature created that part. If you notice and recognize the -> symbol, it means in context when you see it in a part in an assembly. This is the same sort of relationship but there is no assembly.

Insert Part

Insert Part enables you to take a part that already exists and insert it into the current part. You are pulling data in, so this is obviously a Pull function.

With the RubberDucky example, if you wanted to use Insert Part to create Master Model type relations, you would have your RubberDucky part already split into bodies and then create a new part and insert the RubberDucky into it.

Here is the workflow for the Insert Part feature:

• Start with an open part. This can be a new part with no features or an existing part with a lot of features.
• Initiate Insert Part from the Insert menu or you can use the icon, but it isn't on the toolbar by default. You can find it via Tools > Customize > Features.
• Select the part to insert from a list of currently open parts or use the Browse button to insert a part that isn't currently open.
• You can use the Configuration drop down list to pick which configuration you want to insert, or use Default.
• Select which types of data you want to insert with the part. Note that you can chose solids and/or surfaces, as well as other types of features. This will bring in all solid or all surface bodies (unless you have created configurations with just the bodies you want to transfer).
• The part will locate such that old origin will be aligned to the new origin by default, but you can use Move/Copy Bodies to position the new part.
• Using the Link box, you can choose to break or maintain the link. Once the link is broken, you can't re-link it (be aware that the Mirror Part works much like this Insert Part feature, including the link breaking option).

Once you have used Insert Part to bring the RubberDucky into this new part (make sure the Solid Bodies box is checked), you can use the Delete/Keep Bodies (right click on a body in the Solid Bodies folder) and delete two bodies, keeping one.

Repeat these steps for two more parts, keeping a different part each time.

Yes, this is a lot more work than the Save Bodies method, but sometimes it is the feature you need to use. For example, if you want to bring forward something other than a single solid body.

If you want to find the parent part, just right click on the RubberDucky feature and select Edit In Context. Again, notice the In Context symbol ->.

Breaking Links After the Fact

If you have created an Inserted Part and chosen initially to preserve the links, you get the familiar In Context body feature, shown here to the right with the Buggy Body.

Let's say that after you have created it, now you want to break the link because you want to make some changes that aren't compatible with the original model. To do this, you would right click on the Buggy Body feature and select the External References option.

This brings up the External References dialog and from here you can break the link. Also as a part of this, you can bring in all of the features from the original part. This type of functionality is also available in the Mirror Part tool.

Insert Into New Part

Insert Into New Part is slightly different from the other push/pull features. In this case, you initiate the feature from the parent but the feature winds up in the child.

Insert Into New Part can transfer solids and/or surfaces, but if you initiate the feature from a folder it will only transfer the same type as the folder. If you want to transfer both solids and surfaces, initiate the feature by right clicking on a solid body in a folder or a surface body in a folder, but not on either folder itself.

Also notice that the interface enables you to select which part file to insert the selected bodies into. Just be careful, because if you select a part with existing features, it will overwrite the part. You are better off to just type in a new name when prompted.

When you have created the new feature, you get the same Stock feature that the Split and Save Bodies features created in the child part, but Insert Into New Part doesn't create any features in the parent part.

Here is a summary table to help you decide which features to use when.

Summary

Using these Master Model techniques requires expert knowledge of multibody operations, and they are standard operating procedure for plastic assembly design and other design processes. These techniques can be confusing, especially if you have to navigate up and down the parent/child ladder and in and out of external references, but they help you avoid the typical shortcomings of in-context relations using assemblies.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

Engineering.com first covered Zuyderduyn’s program when his tutorial for designing a Jumbo 747 plane was released. While the tutorial doesn’t go into all the intricate details of the design—things like electrical systems, fasteners, engine design—it does explore aesthetically creating the model and walks through both the basics of design and helps establish valuable design habits that can benefit both young and old engineers.

The LearnSOLIDWORKS.com tutorials cover a number of different designs, including one to model the Tesla Roadster which walks through designing the gorgeous curves of this vehicle.

One of the three free Tesla tutorials covers the roof while another covers the side of the vehicle, going into detail about adding planes, building the wheel trim with arcs and splines, and starting to bring out the details that make this model look like a Tesla Roadster.

First Steps: The Roof

There are a number of individual eBooks that walk through every component of modeling this vehicle, so you can work off of your previous iteration or you can download a SOLIDWORKS starting file to jump right in. This tutorial was created by Romain Ginestou, a contributor to LearnSOLIDWORKS.com, and he begins the lesson with some of the basics.

The roof is a great starting point for modeling a vehicle because it encompasses a lot of design without being overly complex. The curved profiles span a large portion of the vehicle, giving us a f baseline for the rest of the vehicle.

Ginestou’s tutorial creates the roof as a half that will be mirrored, which simplifies the process. There are four profiles needed to build the roof, which are light blue in this graphic.

Using the SOLIDWORKS starting file, select the right plane and start a new sketch.

In the Sketch ribbon, select the Spline tool and position three points, using the print as a reference.

Add global construction lines by going to the Centerline tool in the Sketch ribbon. Add vertical Construction Lines from each point that was used to define the spline down to the top plane. These lines will not register as profiles in SOLIDWORKS, but they can be used as a reference for dimension during the design process.

Use the Smart Dimension tool to set a specific distance between the front plane and the construction line closest to the front of the vehicle. Set the distance to 1,200 mm. With the same tool, click the frontmost construction line and enter 815 mm.

Now, the spline’s point has been fixed horizontally and vertically. When the construction line and the spline’s point turn black, it’s a visual notification that these elements are completely constrained—they have no degrees of freedom left.

Repeat the process for the other two spline points and their associated construction lines, as demonstrated in this dimensional sketch.

At this point, clicking on the spline will make the Spline Handles appear. These handles allow for adjustment of the curve on the spline, so we can create that sports car top line.

Using the Smart Dimension tool, the tutorial walks through the process of creating specific dimensions and angles on the roof, as well as fully constraining elements to make the rest of the design process easier.

With the use of projected curves and more construction lines, the tutorial combines a few sketches to create the curves, bezels and surfaces of the sports car roof. The tutorial is well-worth a look, but let’s pivot to a different component to see what the process looks like.

Pivot to the Fenders

The free tutorial goes much further in-depth on the details of completing the roof of a Tesla model, but let’s switch to an even more interesting element of the vehicle: the fenders. Using mostly the Extruded Surface and Trim Surface tools, the tutorial walks through modeling up the edges of the fender on the Tesla Roadster.

To start off, add two planes that pass through both wheels’ axes that are parallel to the front plane of the vehicle. These will help keep placement of the wheels centered and keep the arc of the fender tight to the wheel itself, for that sports car look.

In the Features ribbon, go to Reference Geometry and click Plane. Select the front plane as reference, enter a distance of 920 mm and check the Flip Offset box.

Repeat those steps to create another plane 3,950 mm away from the front plane, and you should have something like this:

Those extra reference planes are going to give you solid points to anchor the rest of the design.

Adding the “Sports Car” Lines

The next steps will help the vehicle start to take shape, and the curves that make the Tesla Roadster a sports car will start to emerge.

Starting a new sketch after clicking on the front plane, insert a simple Spline that covers the wheel on the side of the car and make its lower endpoint coincident with the top plane.

Insert a construction line that travels from the spline’s upper end to the right plane horizontally, to help dimension the sketch. Then using the Smart Dimension tool, define the distances of the horizontal end points with respect to the right plane, and set the height of the upper end point to 830 mm.

Make the splines upper handle vertical, and using the Smart Dimension tool again, set the handle’s weight and a 75° angle between the top plane and the spline’s lower handle. Then close the sketch.

By selecting the last sketch in the Features Manager, you can click Insert > Surface > Extrude, and extrude the sketch 1,500 mm toward the back of the car. A little tip: if you click on the arrows next to the Blind parameter, you can reverse the extrusion direction.

Once extruded, this surface is too large for the purposes of this design, so cutting this surface according to the fender arch is next. Using the Wireframe view mode simplifies this process, since only the surface’s edges are displayed, and you can better see the blueprint beneath.

The tutorial goes further in-depth on using splines, equal curvature, and offset entities to flesh out the sexy curves of a Tesla Roadster, including the tricky details of taking the print from 2D to 3D.

Watch this video where LearnSOLIDWORKS speeds through the process of modeling this entire vehicle—and you can slow it to half or quarter speed if you want to model along.

The entire tutorial for modeling a Tesla Roadster covers 20 eBooks, with each eBook covering a section of the car.

To learn more about SOLISWORKS, check out the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

Hide/Show FeatureManager F9

Screen space is often at a premium so anything you can do to preserve it, or at least efficiently manage it, is very welcome.One of the fastest ways to gain a lot of real estate in the graphics window is to press F9, which hides the entire FeatureManager. You can get it back by pressing F9 again.

Split FeatureManager

You can split the FeatureManager area to show the FeatureManager on the bottom and another panel such as ConfigurationManager on the top. You can also move PropertyManager so that it is in a floating window.

Rollback, Roll Forward, Roll to Previous and Roll to End

These are basic feature for going back in your design history.

Freeze Bar

This is the ultimate tool for people who complain about history. Instead of rolling from the bottom like the Rollback bar, the Freeze bar rolls from the top. You can freeze features above the Freeze Bar so that they do not change. In fact, you can take the frozen features and convert them into "dumb" bodies.

This is essentially how Solid Edge Synchronous works. The initial body has no history but after that, you can have history-based features. It helps you there, because you have real direct edit tools, but in SOLIDWORKS the dumb body conversion removes parametric and associative relations for those who don’t have expert control over their models.

You can use both Freeze and Rollback at the same time, but one can't go past the other. They can, however, meet in between two features. You should work with some example files to more fully understand how these two tools work individually and together before having users use it on production models. In particular, you should investigate how frozen external references work (or don’t work. Spoiler!).

Arrow Key Navigation

If you use the Rollback bar, you can then use the arrow keys up/down to scroll through the FeatureManager more easily. The arrow keys will continue navigating the FeatureManager until you click in the view window again.

Scroll Selected Item Into View

This option is turned on (in Tools/Options) by default, so that if you select something in the graphics window, the FeatureManager will scroll up or down as necessary so you can see the item’s entry in the tree.

Use Transparent Flyout FeatureManager in Parts/Assemblies

The flyout FeatureManager solves a lot of workflow problems having to do with the feature list getting hidden by a PropertyManager when you need to select something from the tree. Learning to use this will streamline your selection workflow in cases where a new feature requires you to select a named item from the FeatureManager.

One thing you can do is to hide the main FeatureManager while using the transparent flyout FeatureManager. This can be visually a little messy but it gives you more room.

Display Pane

The display pane is a great tool that enables you to show/hide, change display style or transparency in FeatureManager. Hit F8 to turn it on. The display pane can be used for sketches, bodies, parts and assemblies. This is one of the most underused tools in the FeatureManager interface.

FeatureManager Filter

The FeatureManager filter is essentially a search function that works great for long FeatureManagers or big assemblies. It will search feature, part, tags and folder names as well as descriptions. This is another reason to have good names or descriptions for items you're going to access a lot.

The FeatureManager Filter can be set to affect the graphics view in addition to the display of names in the FeatureManager. You can also choose to have it access or ignore suppressed or hidden components. It can also be set to filter for custom properties.

Find/Go To

Instead of using the right mouse button for features in the FeatureManager or the graphics window, you can select the Go To option. This brings up a dialog box which enables you to find a particular piece of text that may be in the FeatureManager somewhere.

This is similar to the FeatureManager Filter in some ways. SOLIDWORKS has been known to create partially duplicate functionality.

Dynamic Reference Visualization

From any selected feature, dynamic reference visualization (DRV) will show you parent (up the tree) and child (down the tree) features to help you troubleshoot dependency issues. All of the blue (up) and purple (down) arrows can get distracting, so it is recommended that you assign this to a hotkey.

Flat Tree View

Flat Tree View shows the features in the FeatureManager in the order in which they were created, with no indentations, no absorptions, no history-based or parent/child or hierarchy shenanigans. Just a straight ordered list of your features.

If you have created reference sketches early in the tree that got absorbed by references further down the tree, seeing everything in correct order is very helpful. To access this view, right mouse button to the top-level item (part name) in the FeatureManager and use the Tree Display flyout to select the top item which is Flat Tree view.

Use this for troubleshooting and editing, especially when using complex parent/child features such as compound curves, sweeps and anything with a sketch.

Breadcrumbs

This is another function that you have to use in order to get the hang of it. This is still relatively new, so it might not have caught on yet for a lot of users.

When you're navigating a website, a breadcrumb display shows the hierarchy of the selections you have made to get where you are—like Windows Explorer showing the path to the current folder.

SOLIDWORKS does the same thing. If you have a sketch in a part in a subassembly selected, the breadcrumb display shows this. Like the website or Windows Explorer display, you can also navigate back up the crumb trail to select something specific, like a body or a feature that can't necessarily be selected from the graphics window. This might take some practice or some time watching someone else do it to get the value, but I think you'll find this helps you navigate complex parts, and especially assemblies, more efficiently.

History Folder

This doesn't have anything to with history-based history, as such, but it has to do with the history of the features or other items you have recently created or edited. If you have a big assembly or part, this gives you easy access to things you have been working with.

Folders

You can create folders for features, parts or mates to help you organize items in the FeatureManager.

There are a lot of options for things you can hide or display in the FeatureManager and icons that indicate various situations. There are also tons of things you can find in the various right mouse button menus from the FeatureManager. You can find all of this stuff in the SW help under the FeatureManager heading.

Summary

The SOLIDWORKS FeatureManager can seem like a simple list of features or parts, but it is a highly developed organizational tool to help you classify organize and access information about a design. There is a lot of functionality that might seem hidden but once you learn to use it efficiently, it may be difficult to remember how to work without its powerful tools.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

Jan-Willem Zuyderduyn operates LearnSOLIDWORKS.com where he says you can “become a SOLIDWORKS pro in days, not years.”

Rather than teach with boring machine components or slow-paced builds, he takes the more interesting route and provides a free tutorial on designing components for an Aston Martin ONE-77.

Key Takeaways

Zuyderduyn first came to the attention of the Engineering.com community when he modeled an entire Boeing 747 as an assembly of 677 solids. While the final product was not modeled down to all of the mechanical, electrical and otherwise functional components, it is a true-to-life aesthetic version of the plane, and a version that can be further improved in Keyshot and other renderers.

Now Romain Ginestou, a contributor at LearnSOLIDWORKS.com, has taken to teaching us how to model a high-end sportscar. This tutorial provides a SOLIDWORKS starting file to help you get the baseline of the design but then it jumps right into building some of the coolest elements of the car.

Focusing on splines while creating the model of the car, the tutorial walks through every step of basic vehicle elements—except they aren’t basic at all. It’s an Aston Martin.

Getting Started: Top Line of the ONE-77

Ginestou starts the tutorial with a projected curve and proceeds step by step through its creation. Using the Spline tool, we create the topline of the vehicle. Making use of the Smart Dimension tool, we set the distance between the endpoint of the spline and a plane.

The horizontal dimensions are defined in relation to the front plate and the vertical dimensions are in relation to the top plane.

Adding two construction lines from the endpoints of the curve up to the top plane will later allow for easier conversion from a skeletal drawing to a model. Construction lines can also really help with measuring elements of your sketch.

To get a feel for how the spline interacts, click the spline and move the handles. At this point, you can add weight to the handles by using the Smart Dimension tool. It’s also possible to set the angle of the handles by clicking on them and then clicking on a line or plane.

That’s the first sketch.

More In-Depth Design

The rest of the tutorial delves into a number of details, including using the Features Manager, modeling the fenders and dimensioning components in relation to the previous sketches.

One useful tool covered is the use of Trim Entities in the Sketch ribbon. When designing the fenders over the front driver’s side wheel, you’ll create a sketch of a circle. Using the Trim Entities tool, hold the mouse button down while moving around. When the cursor’s trajectory intersects with a sketch entity, it gets trimmed.

We use this tool to create the arc of the fender in true artsy Aston Martin fashion.

To finish off the arc of the fender, we create splines and make them tangent to the remainder of the circle. This is done by first creating the splines, selecting one curve and the circle while holding the Ctrl key. Then, in the pop-up choose Curvature relation.

The tutorial walks through using Splines, the Smart Dimension tool and the Trim tool to finish off the fender from all angles. The rear fender is similar but isn’t quite as symmetrical from the side, which leads to a number of learning opportunities with the Trim and Offset tools, as well as playing with interesting angles.

The trim along the bottom of the ONE-77 that connects the two fenders is complex. Ginestou makes note of using an array of reference pictures in order to create the proper angles and design elements.

As with the other elements of this design, it starts with creating a spline. Dimensioning the spline by fixing the weight and angle of each handle creates the starting shape of the connecting trim.

Switching to the top plane, another spline is used to create the curve. Then use Insert > Curve > Projected…, and select the last two sketches to create a projected curve.

A few more tweaks and splines, and we add the Boundary Surface by going through Insert > Surface > Boundary Surface…, and suddenly the vehicle starts to take some shape.

At the end of the tutorial, we’re left with some of the first sexy curves of an Aston Martin ONE-77: the top line and the lower fender areas.

The full tutorial is available at LearnSOLIDWORKS.com but you can see the whole process, including this tutorial and others, in the video below.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

1. How to handle top-down design
2. Feature Manager management
3. Interface setup and use
4. Surfacing work
5. Manual file management

1. How to Handle Top-Down Design

Top-down design is one of those things that salesmen are quick to promote but technical people are quick to mock because in the wrong hands it can cause some major heartaches and loss of data. There are several ways of handling top-down design, but only two real concepts.

One concept—the typical in-context method—is to make references between parts within the assembly. This can include making references to layout sketches that have fewer layers of problems but still the same underlying issues. This approach works, but it adds a lot of overhead to the assembly, and you have to have the assembly open to update the parts. It is fraught with problems such as slow speed and references getting lost due to file management issues. You also have all of those icons in the Feature Manager.

Companies often require users to delete all references or round-trip export the data at the end of a project. It is silly and unnecessary, but I get it. They don’t understand what’s going on or don’t trust their employees or systems.

The second method is the master model. In the master model, you model the parts that require external references in the assembly as a single part. It could be a multibody part or a single solid, and can be a mix of solids and surfaces. In this way, all of the references for changes and updates stay within the same file.

To make parts from the multiple bodies, use the four master model push or pull type features: Save Bodies, Split, Insert Into New Part and Insert Part. Refer to Surfacing Episodes for a detailed explanation of how these features are different from one another and how to pick which one to use in different situations.

Once you break the individual parts out to separate files, you can put them back together again in an assembly. They will all share the same origin, so they are easy to assemble. You can also add additional features to the broken-out parts. Details, plastic features, shell, draft, mating features and anything else you need can be added after the part is broken out from the master model.

The advantage of the master model is that it does not require an assembly file to control anything. It also allows you to break up the rebuild times for parts that have large feature trees. This means that, for all the detail work, you won’t have all of the initial features rebuilding. This technique requires the master model and the child parts created from the master. You still have to understand and follow some basic file management rules but should you break something, it is easy to fix.

The main disadvantage of the master model method is that you have a master model part file that is not part of the assembly. It won’t show up on a BOM, but you have to have it if you want to make changes.

2. Feature Manager Management

There are two kinds of users as far as I’m concerned: those who make complex assemblies of simple parts and those who make small assemblies of complex parts. I’m typically the second kind. Either way, you can get a Feature Manager full of stuff that needs some special tools and techniques to manage.

There is a detailed article that talks about this topic here.

For Feature Manager management, itis mostly about the tools and how you use them.

• Naming features.
• Grouping features and bodies into folders.
• Using color to identify special faces or features (using the Display Pane).
• Using Freeze Bar to prevent rebuilds.
• Dynamic reference visualization.
• Use the FeatureManager filter.
• Flat tree view shows things in order of creation instead of consuming parent features.
• Gain additional display real estate by detaching the FM or using the flyout FM.
• Navigate with arrow keys.
• Use Scroll Selected Item into View in the RMB menu.
• Split the Feature Manager to see the top and bottom at the same time.
• Hide/Show Feature Manager with the F9 key.
• History folder for parts in assembly shows the features you have recently touched.

3. Interface Setup and Use

Users have different goals for the interface and there are many factors that push your use in a certain direction. Hardware is one factor that influences your interface decisions. Do you have multiple monitors? Is your main computer a laptop? Do you have a 3D mouse device?

Some people may select how they use the interface based on what’s new or what they feel is being sold as “cool” by someone they look up to or trust, and may even assign labels like “old fashioned” to some interface elements. This is an emotional approach. It is true that certain parts of the interface can be inefficient. But there are always ways you can do better.

I judge an interface setup by six criteria:

• Speed
• Clicks (mouse or keyboard)
• Mouse travel
• Memorization
• Device change (moving hands from mouse to keyboard)
• Setup time/effort

For example, using hot keys is fast but it requires setup, memorization and moving your hands from mouse or 3D mouse to keyboard. Using the radial or RMB (right mouse button) menus minimizes mouse travel but requires setup and two clicks per command. Using the regular menus requires no setup but a lot of memorization, mouse travel and, in some cases, a lot of clicks.

But isn’t everything you do some sort of compromise? Do you use the software all day every day or just once a week? Do you usually repeat an action or feature again and again or is every new feature a chess move?

I personally use the context menus—the right and left mouse button clicks that bring up contextually sensitive menus usually have the things you’re looking for when a specific item is selected.

If I’m doing a lot of specialized work, I might set up hot keys. Hot keys work best for stuff you do frequently and can remember easily. If you have to look it up on a list, it’s not helping.

4. Surfacing Work

Not everybody uses surfaces. Some people who don’t really should and some who do really shouldn’t. You should only use surfaces in these specific situations.

• You cannot make the shape you need using solids (organic shapes).
• Using solids would be inefficient (splitting a mold),
• You have to fix a badly translated model.
• You have imported a surface model for reference.

If you need to do this, take some time to look at some examples. Get comfortable with managing bodies in folders, using color (for identification) and all of the body manipulation tools you need to trim, knit, intersect, split and otherwise manage surface bodies.

Solid modeling actively tries to make a single solid body for you. Surface modeling, by default, makes a new body every time you make a new surface feature, even if it touches other surface features. It’s a different way of working.

Also, be aware that history-based CAD is not necessarily the best tool to do organic shapes. Consider tools that include T-splines, sub-D modeling or other push-and-pull type shape manipulation.

5. Manual File Management

When starting out with a new program, you are left on your own to manage the files. Some people take the folder approach; others put all the files in one big folder. Some try to get fancy with revisions or projects, or the function of the part.

SOLIDWORKS uses a system of searching for references and if you make changes or create copies, you will probably break a bunch of the references. In the beginning, we all make mistakes and sometimes make bad mistakes.

Manual file management can depend greatly on your part numbering system. There is a lot to say on this topic, but in the end, my bottom-line recommendation is to use a system with a semi-intelligent part name that allows you to identify the type of document quickly by sight, but which has in it a sequential number. Some special part types might have an identification suffix, which is also smart.

The irony is that manual file management is thrust on beginners but requires the knowledge of a veteran user. Only users with a lot of experience and knowledge can set up a manual file management system that will always work.

However, anyone with that much experience and knowledge knows that manual file management is one of the most dangerous things you can do with your company’s data.

The simple solution to manual file management is not to use it. Get an automated file management system like DBWorks or one of the SOLIDWORKS PDM applications. Unfortunately, any automated file management system will require a lot of specialized knowledge, training and maybe different skills.

An automated file management program enforces all of the best practice rules for file management. People get in trouble with file management by not knowing, not understanding or simply not following the rules. Sometimes the tools meant for manual file management are limited and not understanding those limitations can also cause you problems. For example, a search might only search where you tell it to look, it may not be able to find parts that have been moved off the network or to a folder out of your search area.

If you still feel like you need to use manual file management, here are some rules you have to follow:

• Use unique file names—always. The extension counts as part of the name.
• Do not put revision level in file name (unless it is for obsolete revisions only).
• Do not separate parts/assemblies/drawings into different folders—you have to maintain links between documents.
• Don’t use configurations for different part numbers.
• Don’t use configurations for revisions.
• Use Pack and Go, SOLIDWORKS Explorer/SOLIDWORKS File Utilities or SOLIDWORKS itself to copy, rename or move anything that is referenced by other documents or references other documents (such as parts, assemblies and drawings).
• Put shared library files in a centralized shared network location.
• Projects can all be kept together in a folder or sub-folder structure as long as they are put there when created or moved there using the tools mentioned above.
• File names should be part numbers, the description should be a custom property
• Revision should be a custom property.
• Decide which documents are release/revision controlled—drawings for sure, but how about parts and assemblies?

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the ebook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

In fact, the demand for 2D CAD is significant enough that publishers best known for 3D CAD, such as Dassault Systèmes, have introduced their own flavors of 2D CAD. In 2010, Dassault Systèmes released DraftSight, a 2D CAD application with which any ACAD user will feel right at home.

In hindsight, I should have realized that 2D CAD would have some sticking power. After all, at the time I made my prediction of the impending demise of 2D CAD, drafting boards were still in general use.

For trivia buffs, the patent for the first drafting table as we know it was awarded to George Ring on July 18, 1905 (U.S. patent 795,065). How many people do you know that still use a drafting board? There may be one or two diehards for whom mechanical drafting continues as an art form.

The first modern drafting board.

Why does 2D CAD persist? Early on, from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s when 3D CAD was still new to people, many viewed it with skepticism, perhaps as a passing phase. By around 2005, most of my students were still 2D CAD users. Many students in the early days (1998 to around 2005) only interacted with a computer to use ACAD or to play a game of Tetris or Solitaire. Windows was a mystery to them, and I often found myself teaching both SOLIDWORKS and Windows.

One student told me over lunch on the first day of 3D CAD training that he would leave design rather than learn a new CAD program. That could have been an indication that 2D CAD would stay around because of the reluctance to change in what might be called mid- to late adopters—except that most of them have aged out of the workforce. The people who are currently using 2D CAD today are younger and computer savvy. They often have experience with other design packages, so hesitancy to change is not a problem.

Cost is one factor in 2D CAD’s lingering popularity. Generally, 2D CAD costs less than 3D CAD, and the hardware required for 2D CAD is generally less expensive. For many companies, such as a small machine shop that just needs to sketch up a prismatic shape every once in a while, an inexpensive 2D CAD program running on an inexpensive PC is sufficient.

That being said, smart companies know that the cost of software and hardware is far less than the costs of the greatest assets—their employees. They know that the intrinsic efficiencies of 3D CAD far outweigh the additional costs. Smart companies also realize that when there is little advantage to 3D CAD, like the small machine shop with simple prismatic parts, the costs of purchasing 3D CAD will be hard to justify—not to mention the costs of retraining employees and the learning curve of mastering 3D design.

Careful evaluation of the return on investment (ROI) in migrating to 3D can also keep 2D CAD around. A hybrid 2D/3D environment may be the best solution. A company that has been around for a while has likely accumulated a large amount of 2D CAD drawings, which will provide reason enough to keep 2D CAD.  

In some cases, 2D drawings of designs are rarely referenced or changed. Since 2D drawings can be of complex assemblies and remodeling in 3D would take a considerable time and effort, it may be deemed more expedient to edit the 2D CAD for the few times that changes are needed.

A legacy 2D CAD drawing.

Many companies have a bounty of physical drawings and may need to get these drawings into a digital format. While it is easy enough to scan a paper drawing to 2D CAD, getting a 3D model is more of a manual process. And if scanning is not an option, then it’s back to the drawing board—figuratively speaking.

Legacy does explain all of the reasons for 2D CAD still being around, but this accounts for only a fraction of the amount of 2D CAD being used. For certain disciplines, 2D is still a better tool.

Take civil engineering, for example. Civil engineers use layouts and elevations in the form of 2D drawings. Creating 3D models of the surrounding landscape, road elevations and gradients may not be worth the effort when 2D drawings can convey the same information.

2D civil engineering layout drawing.

However, 3D CAD is gaining traction in civil engineering, particularly in the design of structures such as buildings, dams and bridges. In additional to their better visualization, 3D models lend themselves to simulation. It's hard to imagine that many of today's amazing structures could have been built without the ability to simulate how these structures will react to forces generated by wind, seismic activity, heat, cold and a variety of conditions these structures must endure.

The use of 3D models for evaluating wind effects.

Plants are laid out with floor plans and elevation drawings. Simple shapes, such as rectangles, are sufficient to represent equipment and the area they will occupy. For large plant layouts, detailed 3D CAD models may be counterproductive because of the complexity of the model and the strain they will place on the computers that have to store and display them.

A 2D plant layout drawing.

Schematics are another area where 2D CAD rules. Whether it be electrical, PCB, hydraulic or pneumatic, schematics can easily be most efficiently represented by simple symbols, 2D routes and a series of tables.

PCB schematic.

However, there is 3D CAD software, such as SOLIDWORKS Electrical 3D and SOLIDWORKS Routing, that can help automate the process of generating these systems. A 3D model can be invaluable when routing piping, as shown below.

3D pipe routing.

For those who have evaluated their needs and concluded that 2D CAD is the right solution, there are many products to choose from. Dassault Systèmes' DraftSight is one.

Dassault Systèmes began to offer two versions of DraftSight around 2010: a fully functional, free 2D CAD version and a pro version that added AutoLISP support and access to technical support.

DraftSight is available in several flavors that provide solutions for the varying needs of individuals and organizations. For those who are familiar with AutoCAD, DraftSight offers a similar look and feel. It has the same command line, and there is a coordinate system that ACAD users are familiar with. Granted, there are some differences, but most ACAD users should be able to grasp these differences quickly.

The variety of bundles is one of the strongest selling points of DraftSight. This diversity allows individuals or organizations to pay for what they need. The bundles include DraftSight Professional, which costs $249 for a 12-month subscription, and DraftSight Premium, which costs $599 per year as of the time of this writing. DraftSight also comes in Enterprise and Enterprise Plus versions. Enterprise versions  are geared towards organizations that have large 2D CAD departments. For these organizations, the Enterprise offerings can be more cost-efficient than purchasing individual Professional or Premium licenses.

DraftSight bundles.

A detailed feature comparison of the different DraftSight offerings is available from this link.

In hindsight, my proclamation of the death of 2D CAD was, in the words of Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated. Although 3D CAD has replaced traditional 2D CAD in many fields, as seen in this article, 2D CAD remains useful and is healthy and strong. Therefore, I revise my prediction to one that believes 2D CAD will be alive and useful for some time, between the next generation and forever.

About the Author

Joe Medeiros is an Elite Applications Consultant at TRIMECH, a premier SOLIDWORKS reseller servicing customers throughout North America, and offers SOLIDWORKS customers expertise in implementing and using Dassault SOLIDWORKS solutions.

Joe has been involved in many aspects of the Dassault SOLIDWORKS product family since 1996, and as an award-winning blogger, he regularly writes about Dassault SOLIDWORKS solutions.

Figure 1. Alin's treasure chest of best practices, tips and tricks.

Starting with this article, I begin sharing the most sparkling ones with the readers of EngineersRule.com.

Browsing, Searching or Simply… Clicking

What is the first thing most users do upon starting SOLIDWORKS? Open a file, of course.

95 percent of users find the files they need to open by browsing through multiple folders. This is a costly process that can take tens of seconds and even minutes. The other 5 percent use some type of a search tool, either as part of PDM or the Windows operating system. Searching, especially using the PDM functionality, is much faster than browsing but still requires typing and multiple clicks.

But most of the time, the document we need to find has been used recently and could be found instantly using the versatile Recent Documents list. Therefore, the focus of this article is on digging up all the gems buried in this tool.

Accessing the Recent Documents List

The documents used recently can be found by accessing the Recent tab in the Welcome dialog box. This box appears automatically once SOLIDWORKS is loaded, unless at one time you checked the Do not show on startup box.

Figure 2. The Welcome dialog box.

The Welcome dialog box can be recalled at will by:

1. Pressing the Home icon on the standard toolbar.
2. Pressing the Home icon on the task pane.
3. Double-clicking on the empty SOLIDWORKS window.

Figure 3.

That being said, the fastest way to access the recent documents list is by using the R keyboard shortcut.

Figure 4.

Setting Up the Maximum Number of Recent Documents Displayed

The number of recent documents displayed is 50 by default. Users can increase or decrease this number from 1 to 100 by adjusting the corresponding system setting.

Figure 5.

I strongly recommend checking the box that allows for the inclusion of documents opened from other documents. Examples:

• Opening a component of an assembly.
• Opening a part or an assembly referred by a drawing view from a drawing.

Recent Documents Functionality

Filter documents by:

• Type: Parts, Assemblies and Drawings
• Top-level assemblies
• Name
• Combinations of all the above

See more information about the document:

• Type
• Size
• Date modified
• Owner (who has writing rights)
• Location

Pin documents at the top of the list.

Select the document in File Explorer.

Remove documents from the Recent Documents list:

• Individually
• All unpinned documents
• All documents

Open documents (writable or read-only):

• Resolved
• Quick view (for parts)
• Lightweight (assemblies and drawings)
• Large Design Review (assemblies)
• Detailing (drawings)
• Select opening configuration
• Select opening display state
• Access file references
• Load or not hidden components (assemblies)
• Force the loading of Speedpak configurations (assemblies and drawings)

Filtering Documents

The filter area is found at the top of the dialog box.

Figure 6. Display all recent documents.

The first three icons are toggle buttons. Any combination of part, assembly or drawing type can be displayed, as shown in Figures 6 through 12.

Figure 7. Display part documents only.

Figure 8. Display assembly documents only.

Figure 9. Display drawing documents only.

Figure 10. Display part and assembly documents.

Figure 11. Display part and drawings documents.

Figure 12. Display assembly and drawing documents.

A special toggle button is the Filter Top-Level Assemblies icon. Once activated, it will cancel the other three filters and will display only the assemblies that are not used as subassemblies in their own folder.

All four icons can be used in conjunction with the text input in the Filter by Name box. Documents matching the file type, which contains the string of characters from the Filters by Name box, will be displayed.

Figure 13. Filter by Name.

Figure 14. Filter Top-Level Assemblies.

Access More Information About a Document

Hover over a document tile to see:

• Document type
• Size
• Date modified
• Owner (who has writing rights)
• Location

Figure 15. Hover to see document details.

Pin and Unpin Documents

If users plan to work with the same document for a longer duration (such as hours, days or weeks), it is a good idea to pin it. To do that, hover over the document and select the pin icon.

Pinned documents will be moved to the top of the list, behind only previously pinned documents. These documents will not disappear from the list, regardless of how many other files are opened.

Figure 16. Pinned vs. unpinned documents.

Quickly Locate and Select Documents in File Explorer

One of the most useful functions of this tool is the ability to instantly trigger the opening of a File Explorer window in the folder where the document is located and with the document already selected.

For that, hover over a document tile and select Show in Folder.

Figure 17. Show in folder.

Remove Tiles from the Recent Documents List

At the end of a project, it is a good idea to declutter the Recent Documents list.

To remove individual tiles, right-click on the tile and select Remove.

Figure 18. Remove tiles from Recent Documents.

To remove multiple tiles, select the Remove drop-down button and select either:

• Unpinned items
• All items

Figure 19.

Advanced Opening Functionality

To turn on the advanced opening box, you can either:

• Hover over the document tile and select the double arrow from the bottom right corner of the tile (Figure 20).
• Right click on the tile and select Open with options (Figure 21).

Figure 20.

Figure 21.

The result is shown in Figure 22.

Be curious and select each drop-down menu in turn.

Open:

• Open resolved
• Open read-only

Figure 22.

Mode:

• Quick View and Resolved for parts (Figure 23).
• Large Design Review, Lightweight and Resolved for assemblies (Figure 24).
• Detailing, Lightweight and Resolved for drawings (Figure 25).

Figure 23.

Figure 24.

Figure 25.

For parts and assemblies, the document can be opened in a specified configuration or display state.

Figure 26.

It is worth noting that new configurations can be automatically created for assemblies upon opening if the <Advanced> option is selected (Figures 27 and 28).

Figure 27.

Figure 28.

Assemblies and drawings can be forced to automatically load all components in a Speedpak configuration, if one exists (Figure 29).

Figure 29.

To speed up the opening process, assemblies can be opened without the hidden components’ body data loaded. This works well when the assembly contains optimized display states.

Figure 30.

Access to file references is available for all document types. This allows the user to control which files are loaded as:

Figure 31.

Opening Documents from a Recent Used Folder

As new documents are opened, SOLIDWORKS collects their locations in the Recent Folders. These folders can also be pinned as needed.

Figure 32.

Once a folder is selected, SOLIDWORKS starts the File Open command in the selected folder.

Figure 33.

Summary

Most of the files you are opening when using SOLIDWORKS have already been opened in the recent past. Mastering the use of the Recent Documents list can make the difference between spending minutes browsing for them or locating and opening them in a couple of clicks.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the ebook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for TriMech Solutions, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 33 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, twice at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community.

In recognition of his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

Here are some of my favorite tips and tricks you can use to save time when working with SOLIDWORKS.

Get a Customizable Mouse

Imagine never having to touch your keyboard again and have your control, shift and escape keys dusty from disuse. Too good to be true? This can happen with a simple mouse upgrade.

Many users learn the basics of modeling using a very basic mouse—something with a left button, a right button, a scroll wheel and a cord that was way too short. I was forced to rely on keyboard commands to perform simple tasks hundreds of times a day.

That all changed when I upgraded my mouse. If you have permanent use of a workstation, I highly recommend investing in a mouse that has as many programmable buttons as you think you will use. There are hundreds of options out there, all with different features. You can even go wild and get a 3D mouse if you like.

Look at all those beautiful buttons.

You may not get used to the feel of a 3D mouse, although many users swear by them. But the value of a 3D mouse is in all those buttons, which can be programmed to do whatever you want in SOLIDWORKS. For example, on my personal mouse I have a button mapped to the Escape key, so that I don’t have to reach to the top of my keyboard. I also have a button that acts as a Shift + Click for selecting multiple edges or faces, as well as one mapped to the Normal To command instead of the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + N. Some mice even have number pads, so you can achieve true one-handed modeling.

You can use your free hand for high fives.

Mouse Gestures, Sort Of

Now that you have a fancy new mouse, it’s time to put it to work. You have probably already heard plenty about mouse gestures and why you should use them. If you haven’t, there are millions of articles just like this one explaining how they work. But if I’m being honest, I really don’t use them. Having four directional options isn’t enough for me, and moving up to 8, 12 or 16 gets way too messy. However, I finally found a workaround that turned mouse gestures into something I could use: mapping my custom shortcut bar to one of the directions.

Just right-click, swipe down, and have instant access to your most-used tools.

The shortcut bar, like mouse gestures, can be customized for sketches, parts and assemblies. Simply go to Options > Customization > Shortcut Bars, and drag and drop all the tools you want. Then, go to mouse gestures and map the shortcut bar to your favorite direction. Here’s an example of what mine looks like:

All my most-used sketch tools in one compact place.

Now, you can finally stop feeling guilty about not using mouse gestures.

Speed Up Your Sketches

There are two sketch features (of many) that I wish I would have known from day one.

Extend a curve from a line.

Let’s say you need to draw a line and then a tangent curve at the end of the line. So, you select Line, draw it, hit Escape (or double click), select Curve, draw an arc from the end point, select both the line and the curve, and apply a tangent relation. Easy enough, right?

Let’s make it a bit easier with three steps.

Easily make a tangent curve after a line.

1. Draw a line, click to create an endpoint, and move your cursor away without exiting the line tool.
2. Move your cursor back to the endpoint without clicking.
3. SOLIDWORKS magically turns your next line into a curve that is already tangent to the original line.

Dimension an angled line from its origin.

Before I knew about this little trick, I would always use a vertical construction line to dimension an angled line. That would leave me with a construction line that had served its purpose and cluttered up my sketch.

What an unsightly construction line.

Little did I know that you can dimension an angled line from its own origin using the global coordinate system. Again, this can be done in three simple steps.

Use the global coordinate system to dimension an angle.

1. Select the Smart Dimension tool and click on the angled line you want to dimension.
2. Click on either endpoint of the line, and then click on the arrow corresponding to the direction you want to dimension your angled line against.
3. Click once more to create the dimension.

This trick will not only save you a bit of time but will also help keep your sketches free of construction lines.

Break Up with the Mate Property Manager

Think about the last assembly you made. How many times did you click that little paperclip in the corner to create a mate? Think of all the time you wasted opening the Mate Property Manager and selecting all your options there. The good news is that for simple mates, there is a better way: the Quick Mates Context Toolbar.

Let’s say you have a peg that goes into a hole on another part.

Made for each other.

Instead of opening the Mate Property Manager, let’s select our two mating faces and see what happens. Remember to use Shift + Click to select multiple faces or, better yet, use the button that you programmed to do that on your brand-new mouse.

The mighty Quick Mates Context Toolbar.

After selecting both faces, the Context Toolbar pops up. Since SOLIDWORKS (rightly) assumes that you want to mate these two faces, it gives you some options for all the mates that can be performed. Simply click Concentric and the mate is created and added to the feature tree.

A perfect mate created without the PropertyManager.

Some of the more complicated mate types, such as mechanical and dynamic mates, may not pop up in the Context Toolbar, but this tip will make creating simple mates a breeze.

Make Your Very Own Macro Button

I usually end up 3D printing my designs as a first prototype or even as a final part. To do that, however, the part needs to be saved as an STL or 3MF file type, something that the printing software can read.

The basic way to do this would be to click Save As, select the desired file extension, and make sure the saved file ends up where you want it on your computer. If you 3D print as much as I do, this can get a bit tedious. So here is my final, and favorite, tip: Write a macro program to save your part as an STL, or any other file format.

A macro is a simple scripted program that performs a specific task. You can read this primer on macros here. It is well worth your time to learn the basics because once you have created a simple code, you can add a button to SOLIDWORKS that will run your macro.

Add your own buttons to the main toolbar.

Clicking this Save as STL button will do exactly that and put the saved file exactly where I want it on my computer.

After doing the hard work of creating a macro, adding a button like this is quite easy.

Go back to your customization page by clicking the drop-down arrow next to the Settings gear. Once there, click Commands, and then find Macro in the list on the left. The option on the far right is for a New Macro Button. Click and drag this up to your top toolbar.

Right-click on the blank button that you just dragged up. A Customize Macro Button window like this will pop up:

Customize your new macro button.

Click the three dots next to the empty Macro field and find your program wherever it resides on your computer. You can even add an image to your button and set what your tooltip says when you hover over the button. Click OK, and assuming you wrote your program correctly, your new button will work like a charm.

And there you have it, my five favorite time-saving SOLIDWORKS tips. They may only save a few seconds each time you use them, but those few seconds can really add up over a long design session.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the ebook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

Zachary Wilson is a Mechanical Engineer, product designer and 3D printing enthusiast from the snowy mountains of Utah. With a love of engineering formed at a young age, Zac has always strived to bring the joy of creation to center stage. He is a firm believer that engineering should not only be accessible by all, but is something that everyone should be able to get excited about. His recent 3DEXPERIENCE World presentation, entitled “Make 3D Printing Make Sense” is a perfect example of that ideal.

Or you can get serious with these tips.

Tip 1: Use the Copy Settings Wizard

Let’s say you are already a SOLIDWORKS badass, and you have your toolbars and menus customized to the way you work. You may already have messed around with the mouse wheel (more on that later) and just when you have everything exactly the way you like it, your workstation goes south or maybe you change jobs. How much time had you spent getting everything just the way you like it?

Enter the Copy Settings Wizard. This tool gathers up all your system preferences and any customization you have done and saves it to a small file you can upload to the cloud, store on a jump drive or email to yourself. If you are a CAD Manager, you can set up everybody’s system to use the company’s templates, toolbars and tools by creating and deploying this file. The whole operation takes less than five minutes, but saves hours of clicking, searching and trying to remember, “How did I do that?”

You can access the Copy Settings Wizard from the Tools menu or the Help palette on the right side of the display.

Tip 2: Are You Feeling Lucky?

AutoCAD, Word, Excel, cloud files… All these have an Autosave function. SOLIDWORKS does not. The reason for this is that once you perform a Save, you can no longer Undo. A lot of designers like to experiment with different ideas, and they didn’t want an automatic save disrupting their flow. So, SOLIDWORKS has no autosave.

Instead, it has an “auto-nag.” Depending on the setting, you can have SOLIDWORKS prompt you to save your work. I call this the “Are you feeling lucky?” option. Don’t think your workstation is going to crash and lose all your work? No power outages in the near future? In one case, my TA was helping a student on a project and his knee accidentally hit the power button on the front of the workstation chassis.

As we all know, this stuff happens. You don’t want to lose half a day’s work. I ask my students: What’s your pain threshold? How much work are you willing to do over?

To access autosave, go the Tools menu and select Options. Highlight the Backup/Recovery category on the left panel.

I have my auto-nag set for every 30 minutes. You can also have it completely disabled and never be nagged again simply by unchecking the Show Reminder box.

I also have my backups set to 1. This means SOLIDWORKS will save one backup copy of my previous version after every save. It will overwrite that backup copy after every save. This ensures that my drive doesn’t get filled up with backup copies. I have the file I am actively working on, plus one backup of the previous saved version. That’s sufficient for me.

I also have my backups stored to a cloud location…just in case.

Tip 3: Normal Is Better

When you are working in a 3D environment, it is easy to get lost and disoriented. When I am creating a sketch, I want to work on the sketch so that my view is normal or perpendicular to the sketch.

Luckily, SOLIDWORKS has an option for that.

One of the first options I enable when I install a new version of SOLIDWORKS is to have the auto-rotate view normal to sketch plane. This means that when I start a new sketch or edit an existing sketch, SOLIDWORKS will automatically re-orient the view so that I am looking at the sketch as though I am drawing on a sheet of paper, i.e., normal to the view. This saves me mouse clicks and keeps me on task.

To get here, go to Tools → Options and highlight the Sketch category in the left panel.

Tip 4: Arrow Keys Are a Sharp Way to Navigate

Yes, the 3D View cube that SOLIDWORKS has is awesome, but arrow keys can be a quick and easy way to reorient your view of the model. If you set the arrow keys to 90 degrees, then you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to quickly switch from a top/bottom/left/right view without going near the cube.

To get here, go to Tools → Options and highlight the View category in the left panel.

Tip 5: Make Your Mouse Roar

Many users don’t know that if they hold down their right mouse button and move the mouse in the window, a mouse wheel will come up. The mouse wheel can hold up to 12 tools or shortcuts for your favorite operations. Not only that, it is also based on whether you are in an assembly, part, sketch or drawing. This means that, depending on which environment/mode you are in, the mouse wheel contains different tools.

To customize the mouse wheel, select Customize on the Standard toolbar below Options.

Select the Mouse Gestures tab.

You can define up to 12 gestures or shortcuts for each mouse wheel mode.

SOLIDWORKS provides you with their best guess of which tools you might use in each environment, but I prefer to customize it to the way I work. Luckily, SOLIDWORKS makes it easy for you to swap out the tools you prefer.

Simply search for the desired tool, and then drag and drop it into a slot to replace a tool that you won’t use.

Before you set up your mouse wheel, I suggest you spend a day paying attention to which tools you use as you work. I created a table with each environment. When I used a tool, I would write it down. Then, if I used it again, I would mark a line next to it as a counter. At the end of the day, it was easy for me to see which tools I used the most. Those were the tools I put on the mouse wheel.

I suggest that you spend some time going through the SOLIDWORKS options. Change the settings to your liking. Modify the mouse wheels to the way you work. Then, once you have your system really humming, use the Copy Wizard to capture the customization so you never again have to start customizing from scratch.

I know this will all take some time, but you will end up being more efficient and getting a higher throughput. If your employer sees you as more productive, this translates into higher pay and career success. If you are self-employed, less time completing tasks means you can bill more hours and make more money. Additionally, when it is easier and faster to do the work, that is less stress on you. You can meet your deadlines with a lot less sweat and tears.

Now, go forth and be productive!

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the ebook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

Elise Moss has worked for the past 30 years as a mechanical designer in Silicon Valley.  She has written articles for Autodesk’s Toplines magazine, SolidProfessor, engineering.com, AUGI’s PaperSpace, DigitalCAD.com, Tenlinks.com and EngineersRule.com. She is president of Moss Designs, creating custom applications and designs for corporate clients.  She has taught CAD classes at Laney College, DeAnza College, Silicon Valley College and Autodesk training centers.  Autodesk has named her as a Faculty of Distinction for the curriculum she has developed for Autodesk products, and she is a Certified Autodesk Instructor.  She holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from San Jose State University. 

Once I have a design modeled in SOLIDWORKS, if it has any moving parts, I like to create a motion study animation to show them off, especially when the design is a toy. It really brings the design to life. This motion study can be exported directly into Visualize using the SOLIDWORKS Visualize tab. I use the Export Advanced option to export all the model information, including all the parts, separate appearances, decals and motion study information.

If you have multiple motion studies on the go, you can select a specific one from a drop-down list when exporting. All of the information is then opened within Visualize, including the motion study animation time bars. The image below shows how my design would look, as if I had just rendered out my model and before I made any improvements. This way, you can really see how the changes we make can affect the outcome.

Activity Cube First Rendering in SOLIDWORKS Visualize.

Right now, the model is almost floating in a vast background of white, with harsh environment lighting, unrefined appearances and flat decals. The product has no context. So, let’s get to work!

The first thing to do is resize the render region. I prefer to use a 16:9 ratio as it is more commonly used for screens. I normally opt for this size for tutorial videos and blog posts, too. When you do this, you may find that your backplate remains the same size, so if you are using a backplate for your rendering, you need to check Fill Background. That isn’t necessary in this case as I will be importing models to create my own background.

From here on, I changed the environment. For this specific rendering, I kept the current environment, the 3 Point Faded. Instead of changing it, I rotated it to change the direction of the lighting. I like the layout of lights for this environment, but the brightness is quite harsh, so I like to lower the lights slightly to a warmer indoor room lighting. For this specific design, I wanted the environment to feel like a children’s bedroom to help bring context to the product and render.

Before I start working on the appearance of the model, I suggest changing the background type to Color and choosing something darker than your model. This can make it easier to see any appearance changes afterwards, especially if you have lightly colored or white model parts. Of course, keep the background light if you have a darker model.

Appearances and decals are so important when it comes to revamping your renderings, and you have so many options here. Don’t underestimate the power of decal; decals add realism and detail to designs. An example of this is a coffee cup rendering I created many years ago—so far back that I rendered the image with PhotoView 360. The top face of the drinks and the ice cream texture were created using simple decal image files, but this added detail with the appearance of texture and a more convincing finish to my tableware set. This was all before I realized that I could also add bump mapping to a surface to create a new appearance.

Crystal Tableware Rendering in SOLIDWORKS PhotoView 360.

When it comes to adding appearances, it’s a good thing to mix up the colors, materials and textures. You will notice that there are many more appearances to use under the SOLIDWORKS Visualize cloud library; it is definitely worth checking out all the available appearances.

Back to my Activity Cube model and looking at appearances. When adding a wood appearance to my model, I try to avoid having the wood grain go in the same direction on any two parts and avoid the wood grain running perfectly straight. Sometimes when you are rendering an image, it is tempting to make everything look perfect. I am guilty of this, too. So, it is a good thing to try and add some imperfections or inconsistencies to your model.

One way to achieve this is to add textures using a bump map. Bump mapping images can be black and white or, more commonly, RGB value images (usually blueish or purple in appearance) and create textured surfaces by capturing light within the rendering. I utilize this feature for all of my decals. Without a texture, your decals can appear flat and bring down the overall success of your rendering.

For this design, I have decal artwork applied to each side of the activity cube with the toy being predominately wooden; the artwork would be screen printed onto wooden panels. To achieve this finish within Visualize, I added the Brushed Normal bump map to a white paint appearance under the texture tab. Then, with the clock decal selected, for example, I can apply the custom appearance to the decal under its own appearance tab.

Activity Cube Bump Mapping in SOLIDWORKS Visualize.

You can see the changes I’ve made have started to take shape on my model, but we still have a way to go. We have a lot of dead space around the model, unrefined lighting on the keyboard keys and some easy-to-apply camera tricks.

Activity Cube Second Rendering in SOLIDWORKS Visualize.

For the keys, adding an emissive appearance to create lit-up keys was too harsh and unrealistic. Instead, I changed each key to a plastic appearance to give them color, then created a duplicate outer shell around each key, applying a clear plastic appearance with the ‘Square Bowls’ bump map for texture.  To create realistic lighting, I used the Environments tab and created five new area lights, one per key with the light shape on point. These lights were very small and were placed just behind the clear plastic layer. The light colors were also changed to match the corresponding key.

By adding the light colors, I can use the lights within the animation by adding keyframes to each area light. The lights could then be turned off and on using the brightness controls. I use brightness to control the on and off animation of the lights rather than enabling or disabling the lights so that the light progressively turns on and off between marked keyframes. It’s important to have a light enabled to see it within the render window but also to have the light visible if you want the light shape noticeable within the rendering.

Visualize Lights in SOLIDWORKS Visualize.

Activity Cube Third Rendering in SOLIDWORKS Visualize.

Now to fill in the dead space around the model. For this, I modeled a room which includes a wall, floor and skirting/base boards in SOLIDWORKS. I can then add these models into Visualize and move them around the render window so that the activity cube sits onto the carpet. I added appearances to the background parts including carpet, a painted wall and boards that complement the toy design.

But we don’t stop here. As mentioned earlier, we need to give the toy context for the final rendering. I have a file on my PC of what I call my rendering extras. These files are parts I’ve modeled as accessories for my renderings. These include rugs, shelving, books, toys and even windows. I model these parts to scale, but I can always scale up models within Visualize if the scale looks off.

Adding Background Models in SOLIDWORKS Visualize.

Activity Cube Fourth Rendering in SOLIDWORKS Visualize.

For this design, I added a set of building blocks and a floor book storage bin with some children’s books added in. At this point, the rendering is almost complete, but not quite. We could leave it like this, or we could select the Camera tab and enable depth of field. You will see between the images below the difference this can make. You will also notice that cropping the render window down makes the image look slightly less staged and more natural. The depth of field also adds some focus on the details of the activity cube, while blurring out some of the background.

Activity Cube Fifth Rendering in SOLIDWORKS Visualize.

Activity Cube Final Rendering in SOLIDWORKS Visualize.

The final step is rendering the animation into a movie. We already have the motion study data within Visualize that we exported from SOLIDWORKS. From here I added in some extra keyframes with the keyboard lights just to include some more fun visual elements. Visualize allows you to choose how many frames you want to render per second. For this animation, I changed it from the default 30 frames per second to 45. I usually like to do this when I have fast-moving parts or if I want to edit the rendering afterwards to slow down sections.

You can see the final results in this animation.

Activity Cube Animation in SOLIDWORKS Visualize.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the ebook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

Jade Wilson is a product designer, SOLIDWORKS blog contributor, CSWP and SOLIDWORKS champion from the U.K. In 2015, she became a Queen Elizabeth Scholar for her degree, specializing in ceramics and digital design. She is a self-taught SOLIDWORKS user with 10 years of experience and has been using it to inform and create her designs since university to become a freelance product designer with her own company. She has her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in design and specializes in the design and production of ceramics, homeware accessories and wooden toys. She has worked with a range of companies, including the BBC, Bigjigs, Great Little Trading Company and Granby Workshop. In addition, she has exhibited her own work and held workshops across the U.K. and Europe, as well as working in several U.K. universities as a technician and guest tutor. She now creates fun and informative tutorials and blogs for SOLIDWORKS as a blog contributor, sharing her knowledge and ideas with others.

Here’s everything you need to know about 3D Pattern Shape Creator.

What Can You Do With It?

Here are some examples of geometry created using 3D Pattern Shape Creator. You will clearly notice the common themes of intricacy and complexity. The results will leave even the most experienced SOLIDWORKS Experts speechless. Even a veteran Elite Application Engineer will be absolutely blown away by not just the geometry but the ease of use. What would otherwise take several painfully tedious days—or even weeks—can be easily done in a matter of minutes.

What’s It All About?

3D Pattern Shape Creator is a tool that enables you to explore and create next level patterns and shapes. But let’s go beyond the official marketing terminology to explore what that really means. To find the answer, we’ll break down both those words to take a deeper look at how you can explore and create amazing shapes with 3D Pattern Shape Creator.

1. Explore

In terms of 3D Pattern Shape Creator, when we say “explore” we are referring to its functionality, which enables you to easily play with the shapes in a way that has more of a free-form or experimental feel. 3D Pattern Shape Creators offers an environment where you can be free from the constraints, limitations and inhibition of parameters you are probably used to dealing with when it comes to traditional parametric modeling applications such as SOLIDWORKS.

In this environment, you don’t have to define shapes directly. In 3D Pattern Shape Creator, you have the flexibility (read: the ability) to define shapes indirectly in various ways. This means you can quickly create some incredibly complex shapes—which brings us to the second term: create.

2. Create

With 3D Pattern Shape Creator, the impossible becomes possible. This isn’t hyperbole. Shapes that are impossible to create using traditional modeling practices with a tool like SOLIWDORKS are easy to create with 3D Pattern Shape Creator.

3D Pattern Shape Creator not only offers additional features and functions, it also offers a completely different method for geometry creation. There’s a lot of familiar terms and tools, such as split, thicken or extrude but you can also extend the functionality to some new tools like Voronoi and user operators, all within a completely different interface.

As you can see in the image above, on one hand there is the traditional graphical user interface such as you are accustomed to with SOLIDWORKS or other 3DEXPERIENCE applications. But on the other hand, there is an additional graphical interface, like a block diagram, for visual scripting. This graphical interface is the engine that drives all the magic. The best way to work is with a combination of the two—using both the graphical and scripting interfaces.

How Does it Work?

Using the graphical visual scripting interface, you can easily explore and create these complex shapes and patterns. It is simple to drag and drop commands to the interface and connect them, creating a web of elegance but not complexity. Everything you do in the scripting interface instantly generates in the graphical modeling interface, in real time. This gives you the ability to play with the geometry and continually tweak it to get exactly what you want.

What Is a Voronoi Diagram?

Any article about 3D Pattern Shape Creator must explain Voronoi diagrams. Named after Russian mathematician Georgy Voronoy, the Voronoi diagram it is the keystone of the 2D Pattern Shape Creator. It is a most useful feature and enables the ease of use.

When we said that using 3D Pattern Shape Creator enables you to create things that are perhaps impossible or just extremely painful or tedious, we said it with the Voronoi function in mind. The Voronoi function allows you to easily break up the shape and define the instances for the pattern. Easily breaking up the geometry in an algorithmic or organic way in this manner is just not practical or possible in an application like SOLIDWORKS.

What Is 3D Pattern Shape Creator and How Do I Get It?

3D Pattern Shape Creator is a piece of the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. It seems that nowadays, all roads of exciting new technology from Dassault Systèmes lead to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. If you haven’t already, I recommend you do yourself a favor and look at all the amazing technology available there.

How best to get this functionality? Since it’s on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, we need to explain roles. With the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, you will need to shift your mindset to roles rather than applications. 3D Pattern Shape Creator is a role that gives you access to the application to generate complex variable patterns.

What App Do I Need?

The app needed to create these shapes is xGenerative Design, affectionately known by its trigram XGG. This is actually the only app that comes with the 3D Pattern Shape Creator role. For the purposes of this article and when talking to a reseller, you can use these names interchangeably for they mean pretty much the same thing.

Introducing xGenerative Desisgn (XGG)

When it comes to creating these amazing shapes, xGenerative Design is what you want. To get it, you need to have the 3D Pattern Shape Creator role on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. All the images in this article were taken using xGenerative Design. The “X” in the name means it is browser based. Because it’s not installed on the local computer, it also means that you can use it on your phone or tablet. It works on any modern browser, such as Chrome or Edge.

It’s a little mind-blowing. Imagine easily creating all these crazy shapes while comfortably sitting on the beach or flying on a plane—not tethered to your workstation. That’s the true power of the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform: design anything, on any device.

For Complex Shapes and Patterns, What Options are There?

When you want to create complex shapes, you have a few choices available in the Dassault Systèmes portfolio, so let’s recap these options:

1. SOLIDWORKS Desktop - SOLIDWORKS Surfacing: B-rep modeling

Nothing new here. Of course, you can continue to use surface modeling just like we’ve done since 1995 and still model complex shapes with SOLIDWORKS Surfacing.

2. 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, xShape: sub-d modeling

Introduced a few years ago on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, with x-Shape you can leverage sub-divisional modeling. Think of it like working with clay. You can push or pull to form the shape you want.

3. xGenerative Design from 3D Pattern Shape Creator

Above are three choices for creating complex shapes and patterns. The last one is truly amazing and offers a mind-blowing combination of power and ease—not just making the impossible possible but also making the impractical, practical.

Don’t believe it? Take a look at the perforated sheet metal plate in the image below.

This is a model created in SOLIDWORKS which has over 40,000 holes cut in it. Each hole is positioned to match a pixel from an image to create the shape. The gradient was created by varying the size of the holes. Try as you might, you will not be able to do this with SOLIDWORKS. But with xGenerative Design, it’s not just possible, it’s easy!

Learn more about 3DEXPERIENCE with the ebook Developing Better Products in the Cloud.

Let’s go on a journey through levels of sophistication of data management to demonstrate why the most modern methods are the easiest and most reliable.

Flat Files

Let’s say that the year is 1985. Each part or assembly you design is represented by a single drawing. Each individual file uses the part number as the file name. That is all pretty straightforward, and typical of legacy 2D documentation practice.

Now you need to do revisions, so you just add a revision level to the file name. For example, you might have 123456A.dwg where 123456 is the part number. This gives you an automatic archiving method, as long as you remember to follow the rules for new revisions correctly. The rules are simple and easy to follow.

Associative Files – External References

The year is now 2000, and you are using SOLIDWORKS. One complication as far as file management goes is that drawings and assemblies use external references—meaning they pull data from other files. In order to pull that data, the referenced file name and path must be the same as the file name and path stored in the referencing file. This means that you can no longer change names or locations of files referenced by other files (parts and assemblies)—which means that you can’t put the revisions in the file name.

The SOLIDWORKS Help file actually publishes a list of locations where the software looks for files. You should read this help file. You will likely find some of the places it looks for referenced files surprising. The next-to-last place it looks is the place where it was last saved, which is where most people would assume the software would start looking. This help file should be required reading for all users, and especially CAD administrators.

Unique File Names and Search Paths

The Windows operating system does not allow files in the same folder to have the same name. This leads to the first rule of SOLIDWORKS file management: Use unique file names for every document. It sounds like a simple reality that technical SOLIDWORKS users would just accept, but many people try to ignore it or work around it.

One way to handle the growing list of rules, so that all the correct files stay in the correct location with the correct file name, is to keep the latest revision as just the file name/part number while all the old revisions have the revision after the file name. The current revision would be 123456.sldprt (let’s say this is revision C) and the old revision file would be 123456B.sldprt. This works, and guarantees the latest version is easy to spot. Again, it relies on consistently following the rules.

Alternatively, you could have separate folders where the folder name has the revision in the folder name, but the file name for the SOLIDWORKS document itself doesn’t change. This second method tempts fate somewhat because, as you saw from the help file, SOLIDWORKS looks in a lot of unexpected places for the file name. Leaving the file name of a different revision the same means the old versions can easily be substituted, but it also means that old versions of assemblies which use old versions of parts can be very difficult to put back together with all of the right versions.

These are all reasons why CAD admins often enforce the “unique file names” rule even when manually managing files. It is just too easy to come up with the wrong version when several versions are named using the same file name.

It’s Just Too Dangerous to Not Follow the Rules

Because of the rules mentioned, it is possible for all of this to work manually. You must have a thorough functional understanding of the rules that the software plays by, and you must execute those rules perfectly every time.

But following a list of complex rules exactly every time is not something that users are very good at. It is, however, what software and computers are good at. The correct file management procedure can be programmed into software and essentially enforced to ensure all of the links remain the same throughout revision changes.

To further complicate an already complex issue, multiple people working on individual files can run into read/write permission problems. Figuring all of this out in real time while following a complex set of rules is now beyond the capabilities of manual file management.

All of this has been laid out here not to teach you all the technical details of file management in a program with complex external references, nor is it to point out how monstrously tedious manual file management is. This explanation of how SOLIDWORKS finds referenced files is mentioned to convince you of the need for automation to do it correctly without spending more time managing files than doing design, modeling and documentation work.

PDM Automates Following the Rules

Following the rules correctly every time is what your traditional file management or PDM software is all about. If you are using SOLIDWORKS or any 3D modeler without automated file management, your process is one accident away from destroying your projects’ design data.

To some, PDM seems like an unnecessary over-complication of the CAD process, but to those who understand how complicated the process already is, PDM frees up the user’s time and mental resources to focus on the design rather than wrangling files.

Enter the Database World

PDM untangles the mess of files created by CAD.

But what if the tangle of files was never created in the first place? What if all of the data for CAD files were saved as fields in a database instead of files?

Databases have a lot of advantages. The data is segmented into small pieces to make it faster to work on, find and access. The smaller data chunks are easier to reuse. Databases can also be worked on simultaneously by multiple users and large amounts of data can be searched quickly. Databases are inherently good at linking things and linked data is what is happening all day long in parts, assemblies and drawings.

The more you look at this scheme of storing CAD data in databases, the more attractive it becomes. Links between features that we used to avoid, such as in-context relationships, suddenly become intuitive and easy as pie. The links are all internal to items in the database which don’t move around or change names the way files on a hard drive or on a network do, so they don’t have any of the problems associated with in-context links.

Above all, with CAD data in a database, the entire PDM issue becomes far less complex. The database keeps track of everything and the links between things. PDM becomes an inherent part of the CAD model.

In essence, the database approach brings us much closer to the “single source of truth” holy grail that all data managers seek. There are never document ownership conflicts and the model is always up to date.

Databases Used in Many Applications

Databases are used to manage all types of data for many different applications such as blogs, websites, customer management, tech support, sales information, marketing data and more. It is not as though pushing CAD into a database is an unnatural application. There is a lot of cumulative database experience out there beyond CAD and applying it to CAD simplifies a great number of things.

Implementation of a database is more complex than the implementation of a Windows file folder system, but luckily, most of the complexity is handled behind the scenes. Databases are most efficient when used at scale, so they are at their best in centralized installations.

Of course, this strongly suggests CAD on the cloud or a SaaS situation. When your data is installed on a cloud server, the most efficient place to run your application is also going to be a cloud server, so the application and the data are in some proximity to one another to avoid latency. It is a very efficient concept.

To further increase the efficiency, this system would be developed as an entire platform with CAD, engineering and other product development applications to ensure compatibility and homogeneity. Such a platform would also make training easier.

The Future Has Arrived

How long before we can have a cloud-based product design platform and make our file management a thing of the past? These solutions exist right now. Dassault Systèmes offers the 3DEXPERIENCE platform of applications, which have been developed to work together using a common interface. PTC’s Onshape also makes use of similar concepts. The infrastructure for the platform is offered as a service, and you have access to as much of the platform as you need at any time. These platforms solve many of the infrastructure and organizational challenges that have been imposed on CAD users since the 1990s.

If you have been wondering what’s next in the development of CAD, the future is already here. We can remove the most challenging infrastructure barriers. And with cloud-based applications available individually and through subscription, the smallest engineering and design organizations can take advantage of the same tools that previously only the biggest enterprises, with their unlimited IT budget, had access to.

Learn more about 3DEXPERIENCE with the ebook Developing Better Products in the Cloud.

When designing a new toy, I first use a vector drawing software to roughly outline and sketch out a design. Some people like to do a paper sketch, but I have always jumped straight into digital software. Not only does this make it easy to play around very quickly with different shapes, colors and views but I can also translate these ideas into other file types or software such as SOLIDWORKS. Depending on the client I am designing for, I may use either CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator for the vector drawings. Within these applications, I can create custom decals, play with different color palettes, think about overall dimensions of the toy and map out the design from different views before moving into 3D software.

Decal artwork with Corel Draw.

Another feature of using a vector software is to create DXF files. I can create complex shapes within the vector software to then bring into SOLIDWORKS using the Insert DXF option. This brings in the DXF file as a sketch, which can be used with SOLIDWORKS 3D features. A gingerbread-themed train set that I designed for a SOLIDWORKS tutorial was primarily designed in Corel Draw to create the decal artwork for the toy, as well as the outlines of the train set accessories. Vectors are simply drawings created with digital software that can be translated into 3D software and used for generating laser cutting files. Complex shapes or parts that need to slot together like puzzle pieces can be laser cut using these file types.

After I have a mapped-out concept design, I move into SOLIDWORKS and start modeling.

In SOLIDWORKS, I usually prefer to design using a multibody part. This is so that I can play with a design quickly within the part file. Once I have a finished design, I use Save Bodies to export all the separate solid bodies and bring them into an assembly. At this point, I can add any smart fastenings and create exploded views for drawing sheets. One SOLIDWORKS tip I would give at this point is that when you export solid bodies from a multi-body part, open the individual saved part files and from there, add any hole wizard features or decals. If these are applied at the solid body level, the information will get lost when the bodies are saved as parts.

Train station assembly in SOLIDWORKS.

A feature I would be lost without in SOLIDWORKS as a toy designer is Configurations. There are many occasions where configurations are necessary. For example, instead of having to model multiple designs that have slight dimension or feature changes, I use configurations instead. Display states can also be used in the same way within SOLIDWORKS. Display states can be linked to the configurations, allowing you to apply different appearances or colors to designs. That makes it easy to show the toy buyer variations of a design and make amendments to features and dimensions quickly, while also giving the buyer options to choose from.

Any decals I create are designed within the vector software and are exported as PNGs or JPEGs depending on the decal application needed. The artwork you see applied to the train model image was applied as a decal in SOLIDWORKS. During the manufacture of a toy, the decals would be applied by screen printing or heat press. Simpler artwork is sometimes hand painted. SOLIDWORKS offers a range of masking options when applying decals, which allow you to add artwork or sticker-like designs onto the toy parts without covering up an appearance. This matters when it comes to rendering or creating visuals of the design. I can ensure my decals fit the SOLIDWORKS models perfectly by either importing my custom DXF sketches from the vector software or by exporting out a sketched profile or face from SOLIDWORKS and working within that DXF in my vector software to create the decal artwork.

Train with decals in SOLIDWORKS.

Once I have a design modeled in 3D, it is time to create the technical drawing sheets for the factories to manufacture a sample of the toy. These drawings must be crystal clear and include every dimension needed to create the design. Before a toy goes into full production, we go through several samples, but the number of samples needs to be kept to a minimum to reduce costs and speed up production time.

This all depends on communication with the factories, so the drawing sheets need to include a bill of materials consisting of a full breakdown of all separate components (parts only) and also a breakdown of the assembled components (top level only). You are essentially giving the factories the assembly instructions of this new toy. The drawing sheets also need to include exploded views of the toy, the part materials, the required finish and quantities needed. Pantone names for paint colors are also added at this stage. Decal artwork is added to the file separately as a PDF from the vector software.

You can include a lot of information within the drawing sheet, and even add custom properties to each individual part file. Within these, I like to add the Pantone colors, which are used by the factories to select paint colors. So, when you are within the SOLIDWORKS drawing sheet, you can add extra columns to a bill of materials, change the column titles to my custom property and all of my toy parts will automatically update with their corresponding Pantone color.

Drawing BOM in SOLIDWORKS.

Sometimes there are necessary uses for a motion study for the toy industry. I use motion studies for many different toy designs. These don’t necessarily need to be created, but when I create tutorials for SOLIDWORKS I like to show the full potential of the software. If I’m being honest, this is possibly my favorite part because it is where I can bring something I have thought of, designed and modeled to life on the screen.

But on occasion, there is a demand for a motion study, such as showing a toy buyer or the toy manufacturers how a toy needs to move or work. This is also a way to test how well a design works.

This was especially useful for a design I recently created for a SOLIDWORKS tutorial, which involved a toy ironing board. The board needed to collapse flat to the floor but also stand at two different heights for a child. I used a motion study to demonstrate this, as well as to test that the design, the dimensions and all the parts worked together and that there were no interference or collisions detected. Another use of creating a motion study is to show off how a toy works. Once I have a motion study created, I can export it directly into SOLIDWORKS Visualize and render the animation into a video.

Visualize train animation with SOLIDWORKS.

Renderings of a toy design are so powerful they are used for so many different stages of toy design. I use SOLIDWORKS Visualize to create my renderings to get a final visual of a toy. This is the best marketing tool I could use to present a design to a toy manufacturing client. The toy manufacturers can use these to show a toy buyer to get a green light for production, or get feedback from the buyers such as comments on colors, design tweaks and even negotiate on what can be achieved within a set price range.

Once the toy buyer is happy with the design, the next step is to send the design to a toy factory or manufacturer. Along with the technical drawing files, renderings would also be sent alongside this to give the manufacturer as much information as possible to fully achieve the desired finished product. The rendering can show the compete look which includes showing the true colors, materials, finished assembly of a toy decal placement and a wide range of views around a toy.

Rendering of a train set created with SOLIDWORKS.

Another use of the rendering is as the product listing image for selling the toy online. You will see this on some toy company websites, their catalogs and on Amazon or eBay listings. For most people, these images can be so life-like that they may not even notice that the image is a rendering. This allows a company to start selling a toy before they have the finished product. This practice has proved to be very useful when manufacturing has been delayed and final product images are needed for packaging, catalogs or online sales.

A final note on the advantages of using CAD for toy design is the use of 3D printing: once you have your modeled parts, you can save the parts you want to test out as STL files and 3D print them. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. A hobbyist printer does the job for most of these tests, especially when you are dealing with wooden toys which are usually quite simple in construction. You can use the printed parts to test out how parts fit together or how a design might work.

An example for this would be a balancing or stacking toy design. For this, you can print out multiples of a part that need to stack or balance on top of one another and play around with the prints. Of course, you could also use a motion study within SOLIDWORKS to test out how a design stacks, and apply gravity and contacts to the study to get a rough idea of whether your design works. But 3D printing the design allows you to physically feel, play with and test out the toy. This is important to do as you are testing the toy from the point of view of a child whose motor skills or dexterity will not be as precise as your computer software.

3D printing tests can save you both time and money as a toy design company. By pre-testing a design, you can avoid those costly mistakes before manufacturing and not waste your time waiting on toy samples from the factories, which can often take weeks to arrive. There is nothing worse than a toy sample arriving on your desk with avoidable errors.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

Jade Wilson is a product designer, SOLIDWORKS blog contributor, CSWP and SOLIDWORKS champion from the U.K. In 2015, she became a Queen Elizabeth Scholar for her degree specializing in ceramics and digital design. She is a self-taught SOLIDWORKS user with 10 years of experience and has been using it to inform and create her designs since university to becoming a freelance product designer with her own company. She has her bachelor's and master's degree in design and specializes in the design and production of ceramics, homeware accessories and wooden toys. She has worked with a range of companies, including the BBC, Bigjigs, Great Little Trading Company and Granby Workshop. In addition, she has exhibited her own work and held workshops across the U.K. and Europe as well as working in several U.K. universities as a technician and guest tutor. She now creates fun and informative tutorials and blogs for SOLIDWORKS as a blog contributor, sharing her knowledge and ideas with others.

It also reveals a little about how we learned the program. Regardless of whether you are self-taught or have been through formal training, when you are learning SOLIDWORKS you start with sketches, with tools from the Sketch toolbar and with tools from the Feature toolbar, and you produce solid models.

This is how the process continues for many. You never need to look for different tools, and you certainly never need to look at the Surfaces toolbar. You only have to Google “SOLIDWORKS surfacing” to be told that it is there to produce models that are not possible with solid modeling tools. All the examples shown are made of organic shapes and smooth curves.

However, hiding in plain sight are a range of surface features which can greatly assist with your day-to-day solid modeling. To use these surface features when solid modelling, let’s reflect back on the original intent that SOLIDWORKS first had for surfaces, and that is reference geometry.

We’ll run through a few of these surface features and see how they can be incorporated within our daily solid modeling.

Cut with Surface

There is a little bit of irony that the Cut with Surface feature is to be found on the Surface toolbar. If you customize your toolbars and look for Cut with Surface, you will find that it is listed under Features and not Surfaces. Either way, it is a simple and efficient tool. It does exactly as the name indicates, and uses a surface to cut the solid.

SOLIDWORKS also uses planes to cut away a solid. It is often easier to select a plane when the plane is parallel to the side you want to remove material from.

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

However, there is more often a need to use the Cut with Surface tool in conjunction with the Offset Surface feature.

Offset Surface

The Offset Surface tool is used to recreate a surface with a zero distant offset or to create another surface at a distance away from the selected surface.

Figure 3.

That surface can be used in numerous different ways. A common use is when you need to scribe a part with the shape of another part. In this case, we have an oval shaped sink which sits on a countertop. We will cut the shape out of the countertop.

As it is in an assembly, we can use Edit Part on the countertop and use Offset Surface, to recreate the selected surface of the sink the required distance from it. That distance could be a zero offset. If you do change to a zero dimension, you will see the command change from Offset Surface to Copy Surface.

We can now use Cut with Surface to create the cut.

Figure 4.

What do we do with the Surface now that we no longer have a need for it? We could simply hide it but it will be better to delete it. When using this combination of solid and surface bodies, SOLIDWORKS will assist by creating different folders in the feature tree for both the surface and solid bodies.

Delete/Keep Bodies

There is a Delete/Keep Bodies tool which is another feature that hides by default on another toolbar – in this case, the Direct Edit toolbar. This too can be used to remove the surface. However, you may prefer to access this tool by selecting the body from inside the Surface Bodies folder and using the Delete key on the keyboard. This will automatically launch the Delete/Keep Bodies command with the body shown selected. Hit the Enter key to confirm.

Figure 5.

The use of Offset Surface is only limited by your unfamiliarity with it. Once you start using it, it becomes one of those go-to commands. If you work regularly in large assemblies and need to reference parts from different sub-assemblies, you will appreciate working within the part. As shown above, the ability to recreate a surface from one part in an assembly to form another part allows you to work within the part. The surface might be used as a reference to create a sketch or to create a new part from the surface.

Delete Face

Delete Face is a versatile tool because of the options it has, which change what the tool can be used to achieve.

Delete Face with the option to Delete is a way to change a solid body into a surface body. By deleting a face of a solid body, you lose the solid body and are left with surface body, and you will enter the realm of surface modeling. But that is for another article. Let’s concentrate on how we can use this tool with a solid body.

The Delete Face with the option of Patch is one of those miracle commands. With a single command, you replace the need to use three or four other commands to achieve the same result. It is especially useful if you are working with imported data or bodies that don’t have features.

For example, a drawer slide provided by the component supplier is not the correct part. You wanted a simple drawer slide, not a self-closing version. You could chase the supplier for the correct part—or have the part you need in a minute.

Using Delete Face > Delete and Patch, you can select all of the faces that are not required and it will delete those faces and patch the surfaces to retain the part as a solid body.

Figure 6.
  

Figure 7.

How about a sheet metal part with the wrong radius, or with holes that are not required?

Figure 8.

Figure 9.

The Delete Face using the Delete and Patch option is a timesaving feature with its ability to remove multiple faces and replace them with a single feature

Looking at the final option of Delete Face > Delete and Fill, it is similar to Delete and Patch but is used to replace multiple faces with a single face. Many models have tangential faces of the same radius which will display an edge. This might be common where you have mirrored a part to be symmetrical. While this might not be an issue in the model, it is normally not how you would like the faces to be displayed. With Delete and Fill, you can replace those faces with a single face.

Figure 10.

Figure 11.

Surface tools can be used to assist with solid modeling. However, Delete Face > Delete and Fill has a hidden trick useful for imported models, which often suffer from translation issues. It’s not unusual for a model to have surface issues when it is created in one program, saved to a neutral format and then brought into SOLIDWORKS. It is also not unusual to have what looks like a solid model be a surface model. Plenty of models do not show any gaps and appear to be a solid body.

Figure 12.

Use Delete Face > Delete and Fill to remedy the situation. Selecting any face to fill not only replaces the face but in the background, the model is checked to make sure it is sealed and automatically made into a solid model.

Figure 13.

How you model in SOLIDWORKS should constantly evolve. This can take place over many years as new commands or options appear and the SOLIDWORKS interface evolves with each year’s release. And one of the greatest changes in modeling techniques in the last few years has been the surface features used with solid modeling, as mentioned in this article.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

Michael Lord has spent his working life in Product Development & Engineering at TRAKKA Pty Limited, an Australian manufacturer of Motorhomes (RV) & Special Purpose Vehicles. He is also a Group Leader - Sydney SOLIDWORKS User & representative on the SWUGN Committee (Pacific Region). Further thoughts on the use of SOLIDWORKS can be found at michaellord.me.

Figure 1. Starting sketch of a machined part based on the overall footprint of the part.

Things get a little more complicated when we’re asked to create models which will be injection molded. For today’s example, we’ll be working with a design that has no flat faces: a plastic kitchen ladle (or spoon).

Figure 2. Selecting a starting sketch is more difficult when there are no flat faces.

You might feel a little perplexed regarding where to begin on a model like this.

We’ll show you how to use tools such as Projected Curve, Trim Surface and Thicken Cut to perform a variety of surfacing commands on complex 3D models—and how the shape can be created by utilizing simple 2D sketches.

Start With an Image

When creating models of swoopy or lofty parts, it is helpful to have an image of the model (or something similar). I took some pictures of a spoon I had in my kitchen and used photo editing software to remove the background.

For more info on working with images, see the article “Using Photos in the Design Process.”

After cropping the images to create a new model in SOLIDWORKS and scaling the images to the correct size, they are positioned on the top and front planes.

Figure 3. Add top image and side image to a new SOLIDWORKS model.

Create Two New 2D Sketches

The 2D sketch is created on the top plane of the model. We’ll make a spline with four points and manipulate the spline to match the outer curve of the spoon.

Figure 4. Spline on top plane matching the curve of the spoon.

We’ll create another 2D sketch on the front plane and repeat the same steps to trace a new spline over the side view image of the spoon.

Figure 5. A spline traced over image of side view.

Once this is finished, we exit the sketch. We now have two 2D sketches, one on the top plane and one on the front plane.

Using Projected Curve

Whenever we have two 2D sketches, we can project these two sketches together to create a 3D curve. This technique is commonly used to generate a 3D guideline for a sweep or loft. We’ll do this with Curves > Project Curve from the menu.

Figure 6. Curves > Project Curve.

We choose the option for “Sketch on sketch” and then select the two spline sketches previously created.

Fiure 7. Creating a 3D projected curve.

The two 2D sketches are projected together, generating a 3D curve which will be used as a guide curve for a lofted surface.

Creating a Centered Guide Curve for the Loft

Since the model is going to be mirrored, the second guide curve is going to be created at the center of the model.  Once again, we’ll use the image to create a guide curve on the front plane.

When working with splines, it can be helpful to show curvature combs (shown in the image below). To view these curvature combs, click the right mouse button on the spline and choose “Show Curvature Combs.”

Figure 8. Centered guide curve showing curvature combs.

We’ll extrude this sketch into a surface body using the Extruded Surface command.

Figure 9. Extruded Surface command found on the Surfaces toolbar.

Extruding the spline into a surface will give us additional control during the lofting and help with mirroring this model smoothly across the center plane.

Figure 10. Creating a surface extrude from the centered sketch.

Creating Six Loft Profiles

Next, we create a series of loft profiles using 2D sketches. Having a 3D guide curve in place makes it very easy to lay out six loft profiles.  

Figure 11. Creating six loft profiles for the design, each a 2D sketch.

Creating a Surface Loft

Now that we have the six profiles, we can select the Lofted Surface command from the Surfaces toolbar.

Figure 12. Lofted Surface command on the Surfaces toolbar.

The six 2D sketches are selected in order as the loft profiles. Then we select the projected curve and the edge of the extruded surface (along with the center of the model) as the two guide curves.

Figure 13. Selection of profiles and guide curves for the lofted surface.

After selecting the second guide curve (which is the edge of the extruded surface) we will use the option of Tangency to Face as shown in the image above. This will enforce a condition where the entire loft will remain tangent to the extruded centerline surface and this will help ensure a smooth centerline transition when the model is mirrored.

Figure 14. The loft completed and mirrored.

The loft is now complete and after mirroring this lofted body, the model looks pretty good. We have successfully created a complex set of guide curves and a series of loft profile sketches, all using simple 2D sketches. Now, let’s add some final touches.

Using Trim Surface

Another tool commonly used in surface modeling is the Trim Surface command. Trim Surface is very similar to the Cut Extrude command that is used when working with solid geometry. We will use a 2D Sketch and the Trim Surface command to remove bits from the surface model.

Figure 15. The Trim Surface command.

We will round off the rear of the spoon and add a hole. Both features can be created with a single 2D sketch on the top plane and a Trim Surface command.

Figure 16. Sketch used for final trim on rear of handle.

Now we launch the Trim Surface command.

Figure 17. Use Trim Surface command to remove these areas.

We choose the option “Remove selections” and specify that that we want to remove the surface regions shown. When finished, we see the areas we specified are removed from the surface model.

Thicken to a Solid

Our surface model is looking pretty good, but it is still not a solid model. We can turn it into one with the Thicken command found on the Surfacing toolbar.

Figure 18. The Thicken command in the Surfaces toolbar.

We will thicken the model by adding 2mm of solid material to the inner direction of the surface model.

Figure 19. Thicken Surface to 2 mm.

The model is no longer a surface body. It has been transformed into a solid body.

Figure 20. The model is now a solid.

Using Trim Surface to Create an Indent Cut

To finish off the spoon, we’ll create some esthetically pleasing geometry—an indent along the length of the handle. We start by making a surface that is a copy of the top faces of the model with the Offset Surface command.  

Figure 21. The Offset Surface command on the Surfaces toolbar.

We will choose to offset the top two surfaces of the model by 0.00 mm.

Figure 22. Offset top two surfaces by 0.00 mm.

We create a 2D sketch on the top plane of the model representing the shape for the indent geometry.

Figure 23. Sketch for the indent geometry.

We use this geometry to trim the newly created surface offset, removing the outer geometry from the surface.

Figure 24. Trimming away outside area of offset surface.

Now we can take the newly trimmed surface and use it to perform a Surface Thicken Cut, found on the Surfaces toolbar.

Figure 25. Thickened Cut on the Surfaces toolbar.

Figure 26. Creating a thicken cut at 0.5mm in both directions.

We’ll do a thicken cut in both directions (the middle option) which made a cutting shape of 1mm thickness.  This is useful in surface modeling as it will help to avoid the slivers of material that end up around the edges of the cut if the cutting shape was flush with the top of the spoon handle.

Figure 27. Final model.

After adding a few fillets, we have a completed model—and are ready to create prototypes and share the design with the customer.

Conclusion

A design with no flat faces will often present a surface modeling challenge. But this doesn’t mean you have to make complicated 3D sketches. In this example, we saw simple 2D sketch geometry was used to create projected curves, loft profiles and trims. This geometry can be easily changed without breaking the feature tree. And the result will be a nice, swoopy, lofty model that will impress both your boss and your customers.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

Toby Schnaars (AKA: TooTallToby) has been a SOLIDWORKS user, instructor and enthusiast for the past 20 years.  He has fielded over 10,000 tech support cases and has instructed over 200 SOLIDWORKS training classes.  He has earned the ranks of both Certified SOLIDWORKS Expert and Elite Applications Engineer (CSWE + ELITE AE). 

Toby regularly posts videos of SOLIDWORKS tips and tricks on his YouTube channel TooTallToby. 

1. Mechanical engineers who are responsible for integrating electrical systems that they did not design and who are facing challenges and unexpected issues they could not have anticipated—and who also might be wondering what is going wrong in their designs.
2. Electrical/electromagnetic engineers who do not understand the landscape of the type of problems that can be solved with off-the-shelf software such as CST Studio Suite in Dassault Systèmes' SIMULIA.

If you fall into one of these two groups, then you understand the long history of companies and governments adding new criteria, considerations and regulations to the projects that you work on—all of which need to be designed and optimized for.

Often times, it takes a new line of thinking to ensure the quality and safety of people in industries that are challenging the status quo. A perfect example is the mainstream development of electric vehicles for automotive and commercial trucks. Replacing internal combustion engines (ICEs) will have new challenges and new requirements for the safety of passengers and for proper operation at all times. Without a century of history to guide the teams designing these tools, engineers will need to work from first principles.

Imagine you were driving along when suddenly you cannot control your acceleration, and your vehicle races off. Would that scare you?

That scenario is not probable, but as we move to more electronics control in our vehicles, things such as incompatible signals, frequencies and electric currencies could potentially trigger strange events. Engineers having a strong understanding of the possible events that could occur is important for public safety, especially the safety of the people driving these new vehicles.

With massive changes happening in automotive technologies, smart devices and all sorts of other digital devices that impact our day-to-day lives, now is the time for engineers to understand these phenomena, even if they don’t think it applies to them.

Hear that, mechanical engineers? You may need to address electrical concerns as well.

Switching to the topic of electromagnetics, if I asked a five-year-old what a magnet is, they may mention something that sticks to a refrigerator. That is, of course, correct.

Magnetism and the movement of charges and electrons are all tightly integrated. Atomic particles, protons and electrons, have charges to them. Like charges repel, while opposite charges attract. The attraction between two particles of opposite charge is what we recognize as that magnet sticking to the refrigerator. The charges of the refrigerator door due to the alignment of its particle structure, and the charges on the magnet, are attracting each other.

With the refrigerator example, it may not be immediately apparent that magnets and electricity are related because both the magnet and refrigerator are stationary. If you take a magnet and spin it, you will create an electric field. Further, placing a conductor inside the field creates a flow of electricity through the conductor.  Alternatively, if you run electricity through a conductor, a magnetic field is created around the conductor. If you run electricity through a conductor coiled around a ferromagnetic material, such as iron, you will create an electromagnet. The reason for coiling the wire is to focus the magnetic field in a particular direction. If you want to pick something straight up with a magnet, it makes sense to have the magnetic field acting in the vertical direction.  

Thanks to the relationship between magnetism and electricity, spinning a magnet creates an electric field, which a conductor in the electric field will then create a flow of electricity. All along the length of that flow of electricity, a magnetic field is created. Electricity is the distribution of a magnetic field and a magnetic field is the sign that electricity is present. It’s like the classic chicken or egg question, but with physics.

Today, thanks to the discovery of electricity and the invention of digital devices, we are surrounded by electric and magnetic fields. The overhead power lines that deliver electricity to our communities emit powerful magnetic fields as they push electricity to us.

Your computer and printer, cellphone and TV, washer and dryer, electric stove and microwave, your lights, and alarm clock, and soon your vehicle, are all devices that carry electricity and emit electromagnetic fields. When you plug them in, they complete a circuit and depending on the orientation and design of the circuitry inside, as well as the amount of power each device consumes, they create a different size electric field around them. This is increased in complexity by the electromagnetic wave spectrum. When we consider a field in physics, it is thought of as a fixed area of space. However, when that field begins to move, it becomes a wave. The electromagnetic spectrum is filled with waves, including the visible light we see.

(Image source: Wikipedia, "Electromagnetism.”)

Radio waves, microwaves, visible light, X -rays, and gamma rays are being emitted all around us. This is due to more than a century of mass commercialization of electricity and the last 30 years of digital devices. There isn’t a huge amount of study on the effect of exposure to electromagnetic fields. While we understand exposure to super potent fields and waves is bad, it is not as clear what level of electromagnetic exposure people can have without negative health consequences. The study of this is called bio-electric compatibility.

Electromagnetic Compatibility

Electromagnetic compatibility is not limited to interactions with biology. It can also interact with other electronic devices, interrupting signals, exciting natural frequencies to create buzzing noises or otherwise disrupting normal operating conditions. Traditionally, this has been a trial-and-error process when it comes to companies integrating components together into a system.

Today, tools exist to better understand the interactions these components have on each other due to the electromagnetic fields and waves that different components produce.

The methods for hand calculations are better suited for solving algebraic equations than they are for differential equations. Since computers can use numerical techniques to solve differential equations, they are well suited to analyze electromagnetic fields. Software offers engineers powerful methods for visualizing these otherwise invisible fields.

While physical validations through the trial-and-error process are still useful and present in the industry, there are significant drawbacks including but not limited to the fact that physical tests tend to be a go or no-go determination. Either things work, or they do not. Not much insight is gathered.

Secondly, you have to pull together a full physical prototype to have any understanding at all. There is not a strong first pass analysis method since fields are three dimensional and highly influenced by geometry.

This is starting to change. Tools such as the CST Studio Suite offer prediction and visualization capabilities for electromagnetics and allow engineers to efficiently design, analyze and optimize electrical systems while ensuring signal integrity, optimal antenna design and more.

There is a new paradigm emerging in tools for understanding electromagnetic compatibility: signal integrity and biocompatibility, where the traditional methods of trial-and-error have become too costly or slow. More than 90 percent of the innovation in vehicles is related to digital and electronic devices, a trend indicative of where the world of product design is headed in general with the push towards smart devices.

Without a better understanding of electromagnetic fields, staying a leader in your industry will be nearly impossible. It is worth taking the time to review the knowledge, ramifications and especially the tools available that can impact your work.

About the Author

Brandon Donnelly is an engineer. For ten years, he was a simulation specialist and then moved progressively towards helping customers better understand the technologies available. Today, he ensures that those in the truck industry don’t overlook opportunities where CAE tools can help.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

An organization can have many different types of software, such as CAD, data management, electrical, publishing and more. The first decision a company has to make is to determine who will administrate each of these applications. Will one person administrate them all? Or will there be one person or group that will handle each piece of software.

The decision you make will likely be influenced by the availability of manpower. But keep in mind that it can be hard to find someone that has the knowledge to administer all these different applications. A person that specializes in electrical may not have the skills to administrate CAD. Also, the workload to administer all these systems may be too great for a single person and can result in burnout, applications not being administrated correctly and/or your administrator exiting your organization.

While it may not be possible to have an individual for each application, a compromise may be to have one administrator that handles a number of similar products. For instance, if your data management software and your electrical software both use the same database backbone (i.e., Microsoft SQL), then your electrical person may be able administrate both of those pieces of software. If you do mainly mechanical design, your CAD administrator may be the best person to also administrate your data management software. Generally, some additional training is required.

What should be avoided is having an administrator who lacks solid knowledge of the software they will be administrating. Having someone assigned to administrate software they have little knowledge of will lead to frustration, a long learning curve and perhaps the loss of the administrator. Further, it is likely that software which is foreign to an administrator will not be configured or supported optimally.

This is not to say that that your electrical expert cannot bridge the gap and also be able to administrate CAD successfully. This depends on the innate ability of the potential administrator to learn a new discipline. You will need to provide time for your administrator to develop these skills. Yes, experience is good, but a learn-it-on-go approach can lead to bad practices. Most software sellers or resellers offer training. On the whole, you should strive to ensure your administrator is an expert in the software they will support.

An honest appraisal of a potential administrator's ability to learn needs to happen. Some people learn better than others. The user with the most experience is not always the best candidate to administrate your applications. Generally, it's the people who are more comfortable with change that make the best administrators.

Each piece of software has a periphery of related software, systems and processes. While your administrator may not need to be an expert in each one of these areas, they should have a good working understanding of those segments. As an example, while your data management administrator may not need to be an expert on networks, they should have a good understanding of how networks work. Your electrical and data management administrators will benefit from a general understanding of databases. Understanding of hardware can help your CAD administrator understand and evaluate performance. Carefully analyzing these peripheral items connected to your software will help you evaluate potential administrator candidates and help lay out a training path for the selected candidate.

An administrator will rarely work on their own. A successful administrator will need to work with team members, other teams, contractors and vendors. These include but are not limited to end users, IT, management and contractors. An administrator needs to know or be able to determine the people that they will support and who will support them.

The administrator needs to know of or learn the software vendor's contacts, such as tech support, training and sales, for all the software that they will support. The administrator will also need to know which methods are used to communicate with the vendor, where to locate sources of vendor information (knowledgebase articles, blogs, channels etc.) and how to access bug fixes and escalation procedures if and when they are required.

Because your administrator will need to interact with several different contacts, the administrator needs to have good communication skills. Since information can come from multiple sources, your administrator needs to have good organizational skills in order to document and prioritize this information. In a very real sense, a good administrator is a good project manager.

An administrator will often need to involve several disciplines in a project. For example, a project involving IT, software vendors and end-users in a software update will require an administrator with good leadership skills and the ability to delegate responsibility. The administrator must communicate effectively with various groups in order to coordinate their efforts.

Much of the information that your administrator requires is available online. Accessing this online material is often the fastest way to find a solution. An efficient administrator needs to be methodical in how they perform their research and organized on how they compile it. Being comfortable working online is a must.

Being proactive is key to preventing issues. An adept administrator will consistently scour sources to look for methods to improve the use of the software they are responsible for. Many software vendors offer webinars. Your administrator should make a point of attending the webinars that are relevant to the work of their users.

But what may be the most important attribute for a good administrator is a thorough knowledge of their company's structures and processes. This knowledge is important. This is learned knowledge, not an innate skill.

Often, the person with the most experience is picked to be an administrator. While experience is important, such a person may lack the soft skills covered previously in this article. Processes can be learned and contacts can be developed but soft skills are more difficult to acquire. Don’t let experience trump soft skills with your administrator candidate.

Also, those who are deeply familiar with your company's structures and processes may be resistant to changing those systems for which they have become the "go-to person." Or, change may be something that is outside their comfort level. An important part of being an adroit administrator is the drive to find new methods and tools to make a system more efficient. Along with that drive, this administrator needs to have the skills to ferret out these efficiencies. As noted earlier, these skills can rarely be learned.

This does not mean that the company CAD guru does not have something to offer. It may well be that this person possesses the skills I have already mentioned but even if they don’t, they can still be of great benefit to your administrator. The guru can be teamed up with your administrator to take advantage of their combined skills and knowledge.

Another partner that your administrator should have good working relations with is your IT department. There are many aspects of software that will require IT involvement. A competent administrator will know when to solicit IT’s help and provide the information that IT will need. There will also be others with whom your administrator will need to interact with. This is why communication and people skills are so important to an administrator.

To help make a quality administrator, an administrator needs the training to learn the tools they will be using. An administrator will also need the time to grow into their role. Investing in developing an administrator will pay large dividends.

In many companies, administering software is a sideline at best. Many companies believe their software vendor’s support team will be the de facto administrators and personal trainers. But as resellers freely admit, they generally will not administer software on a day-to-day basis.

Management and users should be careful not to overload administrators. A well-trained and experienced administrator is too valuable to lose. If your administrator feels overwhelmed, they may start looking for employment elsewhere. Splitting tasks between administrators or making assistants available can help lighten the load. An overload, once detected, is reason to consider a second administrator. Having a backup is good insurance in case one administrator is sick or leaves your organization.

For larger projects, such as server moves and software updates, you may want to consider contracting an organization.  Most resellers offer these services and have a great deal of experience with those projects. They will likely complete the task faster with less down time, and the end result will likely be better which also results in less down time and less frustration.

The benefits of a good administrator are plentiful and varied. Spend time choosing and developing your administrator and your engineers and designers will enjoy long lasting and far-reaching benefits.

About the Author

Joe Medeiros as an Elite Applications Consultant at TRIMECH, a premier SOLIDWORKS reseller servicing customers throughout North America, offers SOLIDWORKS customers expertise in implementing and using DASSAULT SOLIDWORKS solutions.

Joe has been involved in many aspects of the DASSAULT SOLIDWORKS product family since 1996 and as an award-winning blogger, he regularly writes about DASSAULT SOLIDWORKS solutions.

• Large number of faces that have appearances applied at face-level (the number of faces is important, not the number of appearances).
• Large number of bodies, especially surface bodies.

In the present article, we are presenting one more factor that impacts performance: unnecessary geometrical and topological complexity.

Table 1. Factors that contribute to system slow down.

As shown in Table 1, for each factor we cover:

• Diagnostic tools and techniques.
• Optimization techniques.
• Return on investment (time spent fixing the problem versus the initial performance impact).

A Dell Precision 5560 with an Intel Core i7-11850H CPU, 64 GB RAM and a NVME SSD was used to extract results.

3. Complex Geometry and/or Topology

Diagnostic Tools

A high degree of geometry complexity can impact performance in multiple areas:

• File size
• Part opening time (when the part opens in its own window)
• Assembly loading time (when the part is used as a component of an assembly)
• Graphics generation time
• Drawing view update time
• Slow viewport manipulation (zoom, pan, rotate)

To identify if a part is responsible for any of these slow-downs, different diagnostic tools are available.

File Size

There are many ways to get the file size reported, but the old technique of using the File Size from the Windows File Explorer is still the best.

Figure 2.

Part Opening Time

Sometimes we need to open the part file in its own window. The opening time is recorded as a file property when the file is saved. In order to find out how long it took for the file to open, you need to save it.

The open time can be found by hovering with the mouse over the part file in File Explorer and recording the Last Open Time value from the pop-up.

Figure 3.

Alternatively, a new column can be added to the File Explorer, listing the open time for all files in the folder. To add this column, follow these steps:

Right click on any column and select More.

Figure 4.

Check the SW Open Time box and click OK.

Figure 5.

The advantage of this tool is that the files can be sorted by the open time values.

Figure 6.

Assembly Open Time

To gauge how much a part takes to load as a component of an assembly, we can use one of these two tools:

• Performance Evaluation
• Assembly Visualization

Performance Evaluation – Details of the Open Document File

Figure 7.

The list contains all files that take longer than 0.1 second to load. Notice the Open File buttons, which allows for fast examination of the major culprits.

The Show These Files button gives you access to the whole list.

Figure 8.

From here you can open one or more documents simultaneously, save, copy or print the list.

Assembly Visualization – SW Open Time

Access the Assembly Visualization tool from the Evaluation tab in CommandManager or from the Tools menu.

By default, the three columns listed would be File Name, Quantity and Mass. You can change the reported value in the third column or add a new column by selecting the right arrow (Figure 9).

Figure 9.

Let’s replace the Mass values with SW-Open Time. Click More…

Figure 10.

From the Select another property dropdown, select SW-Open Time.

Figure 11.

The result is shown in Figure 12. Notice that in order to sort the part files based on this criterion, you need to select the column’s header.

Figure 12.

Both rollback bars from the top and bottom can be used for isolating components in the graphics area, for further examination.

Figure 13.

Graphics Generation Time

The impact of complex geometry on graphics computation can be computed by inserting the part as one component in a dummy assembly and then using the Assembly Rebuild report from inside the Performance Evaluation tool to read the Generation Graphics value.

Figure 14.

Bonus Material

For a detailed guide in the use of Performance Evaluation you can read this article: Powerful Time Saver: The Performance Evaluation Tool.

For a detailed guide in the use of Assembly Visualization you can read this article: The X-Ray Machine for SOLIDWORKS Assemblies.

Drawing Update Time

Create a dummy drawing of the part, containing all the drawing views that you usually use in an assembly drawing containing this part as a component.

For example, for the part used to extract the data from Figure 14, a drawing containing two model views, two projected views and a section view, takes 7.4 second to update.

Figure 15.

Simplification Methods

When used as components of large assemblies, parts imported from STEP files could have a lot of unnecessary details. For example, at the top-level assembly only the exterior of the part shown in Figure 16 is required. The inner faces will never be visible at that level.

Figure 16.

In the following case studies, the inner faces we attempt to remove are the 128 faces shown in red in Figure 17.

Figure 17. Faces to be removed are shown in red.

Should the optimization operation be successful, we would eliminate about 13,500 graphics triangles (Figure 18).

Figure 18. Care to count the graphics-triangles?

Your definition of an inner face may differ from the SOLIDWORKS’ definition. As long as a face has contact to the “outside air” it will most likely be identified by SOLIDWORKS as an outer (or external) face. That is why your input is required to perform quick simplification processes on such parts.

We will attempt to remove the inner faces of this pump using several tools and techniques:

• Surface modeling and direct editing tools.
• Defeature simplify.
• The Intersect tool.

3.1. Surface Modeling and Direct Editing Tools

In this case study, we will manually select the inner faces and delete them, using the Delete and Patch option of the Delete Face command.

Easy, right? Unfortunately, there are 128 faces to select and none of the automatic selection tools such as Select Tangent Faces would identify all of them. Holding the CTRL key and selecting them one by one would be tedious. That is why the technique we will cover next is so valuable. It works in cases where you have tens of thousands of inner faces. We will simply temporarily separate the inner faces into their own body, then isolate and select them in bulk in order to automatically create a selection set.

Step 1 (optional)

To make the selection easier, show two viewports on the screen.

Figure 19.

Step 2 (optional)

Unlink the two viewports, so they can be manipulated independently.

Figure 20.

Step 3 (optional)

Reorient the viewports to show the connections between the outer and inner faces.

Figure 21.

Step 4

Using the Delete Face command, delete the connecting faces.

Figure 22.

At this point you will have multiple surface bodies, one of which contains all inner faces.

Step 5

Using the Delete/Keep Bodies command, keep only the surface body containing the inner faces. Alternatively, just Isolate the same body.

Figure 23. Using Delete/Keep Bodies command.

Figure 24. Using Isolate.

The goal is to have only the faces we need to select visible.

Step 6

Press F5 to reveal the Entities Filter toolbar and activate the Face Filter. Alternatively, press X on your keyboard (the ON/OFF switch for the Face Filter).

Figure 25.

Step 7

Press CTRL + A. Because the Face Filter is active, SOLIDWORKS selects all visible faces in the model.

Figure 26.

Step 9

Right Click on the empty area and using the Selection Tools submenu of the right mouse button menu, create a new selection set.

Figure 27.

Step 10 (optional)

Rename the new selection set Inner Faces.

Figure 28.

Step 11

Delete the DeleteFace1 feature in the FeatureManager tree and all its children. The FaceID will not be changed for the faces collected in the selection set.

Figure 29.

Step 12

Select the Inner Faces selection set, and use the Delete Face command with the Delete and Patch option.

Figure 30.

The result is nothing short of miraculous. The inner faces are gone, and their neighbors have regenerated themselves.

Figure 31.

3.2. Case Study: Using Intersect to Fill Complex Cavities

The Intersect tool is ideal for filling cavities, as long as they are completely capped with faces of solid or surface bodies or planes.

When the openings are planar, the best tool for capping them is Planar Surface. We love it because it can use multiple contours in various locations of the part. Plus, it does not require sketches.

Step 1

Start the Planar Surface command and select the edges of all openings. Do not hesitate to use the Magnifying Glass “G”-shortcutto ensure you select the correct ones.

Figure 32.

Just in case you get an error like the one shown below in Figure 33, please report it to your VAR as a bug and complete the planar surfaces using multiple features (Figure 34).

Figure 33. There is nothing wrong with the selections. Shown here is a bug that can be easily circumvented by creating an extra Planar Surface feature to cap the opening.

Figure 34. Sometimes we need an extra step...

At this point, all the openings have been closed. It is worth noting that planes are excellent for closing multiple planar openings (Figure 35).

Figure 35.

Step 2

Start the Intersect command, select all solid and surface bodies existing in the part, choose Create both as the option and select the Intersect button.

Figure 36.

Step 3

Make sure the Merge result box is checked and complete the command. Optionally, check the Consume surfaces box in order to close the openings.

Figure 37.

And we are done!

Figure 38.

3.3. Case Study: Using Defeature Simplify in Parts

In assemblies, the Defeature tool has two flavors:

• Simplify – used for assemblies with a small number of components, where the main goal is removing small faces and cavities.
• Silhouette – used for large assemblies, where the main goal is drastically simplifying geometry complexity.

As you saw in the previous articles, the Defeature Silhouette tool is superb for quickly simplifying complex assemblies. Unfortunately, as of SOLIDWORKS 2022, we do not have access to this tool inside the part environment. However, a similar command called Defeature Simplify is available but in a stripped-down version of the same tool found inside an assembly.

As we will see, this tool is missing one small detail that makes using it very cumbersome.

Step 1

From the Tools menu, select the Defeature tool. Alternatively, use the Command Search.

Figure 39.

Figure 40. Using the Shortcut toolbar to access the command search.

Step 2

The first screen lets you select faces for preservation. Notice that the box is called Features to Keep, but that is misleading since we have only one Imported feature and we want to modify it by deleting the inner faces.

In this case, we would like to preserve all mounting holes. All of them are under 10 mm, so let’s use this option to select all holes between 0 and 10 mm, as shown in Figure 41.

Figure 41.

If needed, other small faces could be selected for preservation.

Step 3

Click Next (right arrow).

Figure 42.

Step 4

SOLIDWORKS splits the screen and shows on the right viewport a preview of how the defeatured part will look like. Looks like it could not close all the openings.

You could try to use the rudimentary sectioning tool built inside the command, but you will discover there is no triad to let you move to the section plane. To offset the section plane, you must input dimensions and pray that the moved plane intersects the part—often an exercise in frustration, as shown below.

Figure 43.

The Missing 5% of the Defeature Simplify Tool

Step 5 (wishful thinking)

Remove other items.

The end is in sight, but there is a chasm in the way—and we are denied a bridge across it.

We have an option to select other faces for removal. Let’s try to select all the faces tangential to the one we will select.

Figure 44.

You would expect all tangent faces to populate the Items to Remove box. Instead, you get more options—for removing faces, features or bodies. Select the face icon from Figure 45, and watch as everything goes wrong.

When hovering over the face icon, the caption reads Select Body.

Figure 45.

If you click on the icon, it is only the last face in the tangency chain that gets selected.

Figure 46.

Therefore, these faces cannot be automatically selected. Even if we try to use a selection set, the target pop-up from Figure 45 makes sure only one face from the selection set is retained.

Conclusion

For this specific case study, Defeature Simplify would work well if its workflow was slightly corrected. When multiple faces are selected, the target toolbar should evaluate all of them!

3.4. Case Study: Using Defeature Silhouette in Multibody Parts

The volume pump from the previous case studies will not work well with the Silhouette option of the Defeature tool, because we want to retain the complex outer faces.

Instead, we will use the Sectional Valve used in the previous articles, but this time imported as a multibody part.

Figure 47. We do not need 500 bodies for a simple space claim usage.

As we stated earlier, Defeature Silhouette is available only in the assembly environment—so, in order to use it, we need to insert our part in a dummy assembly.

Step 1

Insert the part into an empty assembly. A quick way to do that is using the Make Assembly from Part option.

Figure 48.

Figure 49.

Step 2

Start the Defeature tool.

Figure 50.

Step 3

Select the Simplify option.

Figure 51.

Step 4

From here, we will repeat the steps used in the previous articles, but instead of using the components selection box, we will use the bodies selection box. The following screenshots show various options for simplifying the bodies we want to retain for the space claim.

Figure 52.

Figure 53.

Figure 54.

Step 5

Select Next.

Figure 55.

Step 6

Use the option Save as a new document and select OK.

Figure 56.

After the new part file is created (right) the dummy assembly can be discarded.

Figure 57.

Further Optimization

To further optimize the part, it is worth roundtripping it through Parasolid to eliminate intersect, delete face and defeatured features.

Summary

With the continual enhancements in hardware and software, SOLIDWORKS can handle many parts with complex geometry with little impact on performance. But with enough parts, assembly or drawing performance will be affected, and therefore your productivity will take a hit. Different diagnostic tools can be used to pinpoint the parts that are affecting performance.

We covered multiple methods for simplifying complex geometry. These methods can be applied successively until the user regains performance.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

As an Elite AE and Senior Training and Process Consultant, working for TriMech Solutions, Alin Vargatu is a Problem Hunter and Solver.

He has presented 33 times at 3DEXPERIENCE World and SOLIDWORKS World, twice at SLUGME and tens of times at SWUG meetings in Canada and the United States. His blog and YouTube channel are well known in the SOLIDWORKS Community. In recognition for his activity in the SOLIDWORKS Community, at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, the SWUGN (SOLIDWORKS User Group Network) awarded the SOLIDWORKS AE of the Year title to Alin Vargatu.

But don’t worry. Even if you find your knowledge of SOLIDWORKS Simulation is of little use with computational fluid dynamics (aka CFD, aka SOLIDWORKS Flow), Flow is not a mysterious and magical software. It may be a relatively small and specialized application but there is information available on its use—like this article where Flow users have assembled their tips and tricks over years of using Flow.

Before diving into SOLIDWORKS Flow’s capabilities, it is important to understand its limitations. It is a multi-physics simulation software based on the Navier-Stokes equations. There is a technical reference in PDF format in the help files that goes through all of the underlying mathematics, if you are curious.

A Few Caveats

We should not confuse multi-physics with all-physics. SOLIDWORKS Flow does not solve electromagnetic problems (i.e., it does not deal with Maxwell’s equations). It is limited to fluid flow and heat transfer. It also does not handle phase change. There are no calculations for heat of fusion or heat of vaporization. Interestingly, it can manage cavitation. But, you can infer a phase change from the results.

For example, if the results of a simulation show water temperatures above the boiling point while at standard atmospheric pressure, you can infer that the liquid has turned to steam. It is up to the user running the simulation to understand such phenomena have occurred.

SOLIDWORKS Flow can run simulations at different pressures, including negative gauge pressure (vacuum). Perhaps not an absolute, inter-galactic outer-space or surface-of-the-moon vacuum, but a “medium” vacuum (0.1 Pa or larger) is manageable. This roughly equates to a mean free path of 10 cm for the gas molecules. There are exceptions and geometry does play a role, so be warned—and do read the help file and seek further advice in particular cases.

Figure 1. The General Settings window.

Figure 2. The Calculation Control options window.

Figure 3. The Engineering Database (SOLIDWORKS Flow specific).

Figure 4. The Flow feature tree.

Set it Up

SOLIDWORKS Flow can be broken down into three different phases: setup, run and post-processing.

Setup is generally regarded as the most important phase and you will do well to remember this: garbage in, garbage out. Setup can also be broken down into three areas: Settings, Input Data and Goals.

The Settings portion of the Setup phase includes the General Settings window (a flavor of the setup wizard, shown in Figure 1), the Calculation Control Options window (Figure 2), the mesh settings and the Engineering Database (Figure 3).

The Input Data area includes things such as boundary conditions, fans and heat sources. It is basically the feature tree of the SOLIDWORKS Flow tab (Figure 4).

Goals are always mentioned in training, but the “why” is normally omitted. Goals are specific parameter-driven calculations that the application stores for further use. They can be created and used as part of the input data, and they are also used extensively during post-processing. An example of goals for input data is creating a temperature surface goal on the tip of a thermocouple. A surface heat source (input data) can be set up as a function of the temperature surface goal during a transient analysis (very important that it be transient, as a steady state will never finish solving), thereby simulating a thermostat in the study.

Working backwards, input data is where things such as fluid sub-domain, fans, boundary conditions and heat sources are created. A volumetric heat source can have a constant temperature; that is to say, a given volume (solid body) can always remain the same temperature and serve as an input parameter into the system being studied. A surface heat source will not offer this option.

Don’t Mix It Up

Multiple fluid sub-domains are fine as long as the fluids do not come in contact with each other (like water traveling through a pipe and the pipe is in air). The sub-domain must be completely isolated in the model. There is a workaround that allows for multiple miscible fluids in the same domain: use a mass fraction or volume fraction—for example, X% propane and Y% methane in the same pipe. Just be sure to include all the fluids in the setup (General Settings window).

Since SOLIDWORKS 2018, it is also possible to have immiscible fluids (such as oil and water, or water and air) interacting. This is done with the “Free Surface” feature (also in General Settings).

Join the Fan Club

You can create a custom fan from SOLIDWORKS Flow’s fan feature and, using Microsoft Excel, you can enter points on the fan-curve.  This is very useful when fan manufacturers provide fan properties and data sheets.

Resist Contact

Be sure to insert a contact resistance if two solids of dissimilar materials are in contact with each other and heat transfer is important. This is normally reserved for high order, more accurate solutions after a design survives its preliminary simulation.

Figure 5. Right Click on Solid Materials.

Material Properties

Keep the material of the model current and material properties as complete as possible. If heat transfer (conduction) is involved, the density, specific heat and thermal conductivity of the material are required. If these properties are all up to date, then importing them into the simulation is as easy as right-clicking on “Solid Materials” and “Import Material from Model” (Figure 5). It will upload all unknown materials to the Engineering Database at the same time.

The SOLIDWORKS Flow Engineering Database is unique from the SOLIDWORKS material database. If “Solid Materials” does not appear, it is because “conduction” has not been enabled in the General Settings.

Understand Gravity

Gravity can be a function of time when running a transient analysis (Figure 6). This allows the solution of objects turning upside down (or pouring out).

Figure 6. Gravity as a function of time.

Making a Big Mesh of It

The Run phase is straightforward. There are a handful of options available to make sure the simulation is converging to a solution. You can monitor the goals that have been defined.

Check your mesh. You can get an accurate number of elements with a run without a solution. The solver will show the mesh count (once completed) and it will be easier to determine a rough solve time for future studies. For example, a 300,000 cell model took 52 minutes.

Look at the model with the mesh visible to see if the mesh should be refined anywhere.

Batch Run and Go

The “Batch Run” option, in conjunction with the Clone Project feature (which in layman’s terms means “copy simulation”), allows up to two simulations to be run either concurrently or multiple simulations to be run sequentially without user interaction. You can set the number of cores to process with, so you can continue to do other work during the simulation.

If multiple simulations need to be run after changing just one parameter, use the “parametric study” option to set up multiple values for the same parameter/variable. The number of variables translates to the number of simulations solved. If it takes three hours to run one simulation and you have five different values, it will take 15 hours. It is often best to set up a batch run or parametric study at the end of the day.

The post-processing phase is the most gratifying—because that is where all the pretty pictures are. Every screenshot you grab from the post-processing phase should tell a story about that particular result.

Red is Not Always to the Swift

It can be very confusing to see the same color in one screen shot represent different values in another screen shot. It is better to keep the colors consistent, with the gradient in every screenshot showing the same range of values. For example, screenshot A has a minimum temperature of 153°C in blue and a maximum temperature of 347°C in red. Screenshots B, C and D should have the same minimums and maximums.

When in Doubt…

Trust your gut when you are doing the post-processing. When in doubt, throw it out. It is better to ask for an extension than to present bad data.

Cut to the Plot

The Cut Plot feature has an extra field below the surface selection field for planes that may be hard to find the first time. Be careful when inspecting a cut across solid and fluid phases. Some properties are material-phase specific but will be indicated by the color gradient of fluid temperatures after the Cut Plot command.  

Use Isosurfaces in the post-processing to analyze an entire 3D volume of any given parameter. For example, use Isosurfaces to show the temperature of the volume of air surrounding a PCB board that is above 80°C.  

Use the flow trajectories feature in post-processing to create animations of the fluid flows. But keep in mind that the color of streamlines can represent temperature or pressure, not just velocity. It may be counterintuitive to see the little arrows moving fast and colored red and realize too late that you are seeing temperature , not velocity.

Get to the Point

There is a feature called “Point Parameters” in the Results section of the feature tree. If you create a sketch with a point, use Point Parameters to analyze any available parameter (temperature, velocity, pressure, etc.) at that point. This will allow you to repeat multiple design changes using that point as a reference. The same can be done across a line in a sketch using the XY Plot feature.

The Goal Plots feature is fabulous for exporting goal plots across iterations (if steady state) or time (if transient) to Microsoft Excel for further data mining and analysis. This feature alone makes creating goals a higher necessity than explained during those introductory courses. It is important to note that the goals need to be established prior to running the simulation if you intend to use this feature.

Under Pressure

Finally, the pressure field of a SOLIDWORKS Flow simulation can be exported to SOLIDWORKS Simulation for structural examination. However, this option must be enabled inside of SOLIDWORKS Flow. Do this in the Flow Simulation dropdown, Tools and then selecting “Export Results to Simulation.” This feature is in different locations depending on the SOLIDWORKS version being used.

In conclusion, SOLIDWORKS Flow is a virtual sandbox of possibilities for CFD simulation. With the introductory examples and lessons provided, the few resources available to apply the program practically, and a few common-sense rules (“garbage in, garbage out,” “when in doubt, throw it out”), your Flow simulations will be a success.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

Fortunately, I was able to make some adjustments to dramatically improve the situation. Here’s some advice so this does not happen to you.

The 4 Keys to SOLIDWORKS Hardware

When buying a workstation for SOLIDWORKS, keep these four things in mind: CPU, RAM, hard drive and the graphics card. There are quite a few articles delving into the nuances of each of these four hardware elements, but let’s provide some general guidance before we move on to the specific settings that can be adjusted to ensure maximum performance from your new workstation.

CPU

The CPU should be a professional grade Intel or AMD processor with SSE2 support. For regular SOLIDWORKS usage, you’ll want a clock speed of around 3.0 GHz or faster. For my new system, I went with an Intel Core i7 clocked at 3.1 GHz.

Generally speaking, in a program such as SOLIDWORKS which uses serial rather than parallel processing, a faster clock speed is more important than multiple cores. For example, if we were comparing two computers – one with a 16-core processor with a clock speed of 2.0 GHz and one with a single core processor with a clock speed of 3.0 GHz, the 3.0 GHz single-core system would perform significantly better on the SOLIDWORKS benchmark.

RAM

The RAM you select should be the fastest you can afford. Again, there are nuances regarding different types of RAM, and how the interaction between RAM and CPU can affect performance. But for SOLIDWORKS users, the amount of RAM you need will be based on the size of the assemblies you typically work with. Use this chart as a guide to make your RAM decision:

RAM suggestions based on typical number of assembly components.

Since I typically work with mid-sized assemblies, I went with 16GB of RAM: 2 sticks of 8GB DDR5, clocked at 4,800 MHz.

The Drive

Whenever you’re opening or saving files in SOLIDWORKS, you will (hopefully) be working from your local drive and therefore, the faster the read/write speeds are, the better.

You should definitely get a solid state drive—not a hard drive with spinning disks—to save and open your SOLIDWORKS files. There are a variety of options for solid state drives (SSDs), and they almost always have faster read/write speeds.

For my system, I went with a 1TB, gen 4 PCIe SSD for my main drive and a second 1TB, gen 4 PCIe SSD for my secondary drive.

Many users select a larger, cheaper hard drive as their secondary drive for their SOLIDWORKS files. But because spinning hard drives have read/write speeds which are 10x (or more) slower than solid state hard drives, SOLIDWORKS files will open and save much more slowly.

Graphics Card

Your graphics card must be a certified graphics card found on this webpage.

Beyond this, the more RAM, the more CUDA cores and the newer the architecture, the better. For my system, I went with an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 with 6GB dedicated video RAM.

Graphics card search on SOLIDWORKS’ hardware certification site.

As we can see in the above image, my graphics card is supported on several different system configurations and on several different versions of SOLIDWORKS. This makes me confident that the graphics card I’ve chosen will be a good fit for SOLIDWORKS. We can also see a recommended driver listed for each version of SOLDIWORKS, so I would download and install this suggested driver to ensure the greatest stability and performance with SOLIDWORKS.

Still Having Problems?

After taking care of the four key elements of hardware discussed above, some users may still run into problems.

SOLIDWORKS is running critically low on memory.

SOLIDWORKS may still feel sluggish when solving a complicated feature tree or when rotating the model. What can you do?

Check the BIOS

Start by examining the settings in your BIOS (basic input/output system) which is accessed when a computer is turned on.

On a Dell computer, the BIOS is accessed by pressing the F2 key several times while the computer is booting up. On most computers, you can access the BIOS during the boot sequence with F10 or F12.

There are two specific settings to adjust to tweak the performance.

BIOS settings for Switchable Graphics.

The first setting I look for is Switchable Graphics, but it may be called something different by different manufacturers. This setting allows your computer to switch between the high-end graphics card (NVIDIA) and the lower end graphics hardware typically found embedded on the motherboard. This ability to switch to the lower end graphics can be helpful with regards to reducing power consumption and extending the duration of your battery.

However, more often than not this switchable graphics setting causes performance degradation in SOLIDWORKS. If you’re using SOLIDWORKS and get stuck using the lower end graphics card, the result will be slow or sluggish behavior when zooming or rotating around 3D models.  

Switchable Graphics setting turned off.

For the common user, who doesn’t want to learn the intricacies of the switchable graphics functionality, you can disable (uncheck) the Switchable Graphics option. This will ensure that your workstation always uses the high-end graphics card.

BIOS Setting for Intel SpeedStep.

You can also adjust the “Intel SpeedStep” setting. This setting is found in the BIOS, usually in the section which manages performance. Similar to the switchable graphics functionality, this setting will allow your computer to manage the performance and power consumption of the CPU in order to maximize battery life and minimize power usage.

SpeedStep can result in sluggish performance due to the computer managing the CPU power consumption and throttling back the full capability of the CPU by lowering its computing speed.

Disable setting for SpeedStep.

Adjusting Virtual Memory Page File Size

The page file size (or virtual memory settings) is particularly valuable to users who commonly run into the following error message.

Warning dialog that available system memory is low.

Virtual memory is essentially a way of simulating RAM. If your computer runs out of physical RAM, you can shift some of the RAM data onto an empty section of your hard drive (this empty space is your page file). This allows your computer to continue running after you have exhausted all of your RAM.

Advanced system settings.

The setting for your virtual memory page file size can be accessed by doing a search in Windows for “Advanced System Properties.”

Click the tab for Advanced, then the first Settings button.

Once you enter the “Advanced System Properties,” click the tab for Advanced, then click the first Settings button to adjust your system performance.

Click the Advanced tab then Change.

On the “Performance Options” screen, we can see that our current “Total paging file size for all drives” is 4,000 MB, or 4 GB. This is a little low and is likely contributing to the SOLIDWORKS error message indicating that the system memory is running low. Let’s adjust this number.

Setting the virtual memory page file size.

Choose the option for Custom size and enter a minimum and maximum size for the paging file. After these values have been set, you will be asked to reboot.

There are various rules regarding how this file size should be set, but a workstation with 16 GB of RAM can have a page file of 12 GB. This will give a nice increase in virtual memory (from 4 GB to 12 GB) and will very likely alleviate the “system memory running low” problem.  

Conclusion

There are several things to consider when purchasing a new workstation to run SOLIDWORKS. When specifying the hardware for your new workstation, you will want to take care to choose the appropriate CPU, RAM, hard drive and graphics card. Once the new workstation arrives at your desk and has SOLIDWORKS loaded, you might still have performance issues, which can be addressed by adjusting some settings, including the settings in the BIOS for Switchable Graphics and SpeedStep, and the amount of virtual memory.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS with the eBook SOLIDWORKS 2022 Enhancements to Streamline and Accelerate Your Entire Product Development Process.

About the Author

Toby Schnaars (AKA: TooTallToby) has been a SOLIDWORKS user, instructor and enthusiast for the past 20 years.  He has fielded over 10,000 tech support cases and has instructed over 200 SOLIDWORKS training classes.  He has earned the ranks of both Certified SOLIDWORKS Expert and Elite Applications Engineer (CSWE + ELITE AE). 

Toby regularly posts videos of SOLIDWORKS tips and tricks on his YouTube channel TooTallToby.