• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 943 0

sketches and solid geometry. You can also edit some additional feature types using Instant 3D, such as offset reference planes. It can neither create nor edit surface geometry or 3D sketches in some situations. To edit solid geometry, click a face, and an arrow appears. Drag the arrow, and SolidWorks automatically changes either the sketch or the feature end condition used to create that face. If a dimensioned sketch was used to create that face, SolidWorks will not allow you to use the Instant 3D arrow to move or resize the face. An option exists that enables Instant 3D changes to override sketch dimensions at Tools⇒Sketch Settings⇒Override Dims on Drag.

Caution

Be careful with the Override Dims on Drag option. If you accidentally drag a fully defined sketch, this setting enables Instant 3D to completely resize the sketch by dragging, even though the sketch is fully defined. For working conceptually, it can be a great aid, but for final production models, you may do better to leave this option off. The Override Dims on Drag option is off by default.

Instant 3D offers different editing options depending on how a sketch is selected.

• A sketch is selected from the graphics window. The pull arrow appears, enabling you to create an extruded boss or cut.

• A sketch is selected from the FeatureManager. If the sketch has relations to anything outside of the sketch, the sketch is highlighted with no special functionality available. If no external relations exist, a box with stretch handles enable scaling the sketch, and a set of axes with a wing enables you to move the sketch in X or Y or X and Y. Figure 7.8 shows this situation.

When Instant 3D is activated, double-clicking a sketch in either the FeatureManager or on a sketch element in the graphics window opens that sketch. While you are in a sketch, if you double-click with the Select cursor in blank space in the graphics window, you close the sketch. This only works for 2D sketches; 3D sketches can be opened, but not closed, this way.

FIGURE 7.8

Sketch scaling and moving options with Instant 3D.

Working with the Revolve feature

Like all other features, revolve features have some rules that you must observe when choosing sketches to create a revolve:

• Draw only half of the revolve profile. (Draw the section to one side of the centerline.)

• The profile must not cross the centerline.

• The profile must not touch the centerline at a single point. It can touch along a line, but not at a point. Revolving a sketch that touched the centerline at a single point would create a point of zero thickness in the part.

You can use any type of line or model edge for the centerline, not just the centerline/construction line type.

Understanding end conditions

There are five Revolve end conditions. Some of the following options are new in SolidWorks 2011:

• Blind

• Up to Vertex

• Up to Surface

• Offset from Surface

• Midplane

There is no equivalent for Up to Next or Up to Body with the Revolve feature. Figure 7.9 shows the new Revolve feature PropertyManager for SolidWorks 2011.

FIGURE 7.9

Using the Revolve PropertyManager in SolidWorks 2011

SolidWorks 2011 changes the way that you create two-direction revolves. The options in the end conditions list used to be One Direction, Two Directions, or Midplane. Starting in 2011 the end conditions for revolve are more similar to the end conditions for extrude, with the five options listed for revolve, and controls for separate directions.

Workflow

The workflow for the Revolve feature is exactly the same as for the Extrude feature.

Using contour selection

Like extrude features, revolve features can also use contour selection; and as with the extrude features, I recommend that you avoid using contours for production work.

Introducing loft and boundary

Loft and boundary are known as interpolated features. That means that you can create profiles for the feature at certain points, and the software will interpolate the shape between the profiles. You can use additional controls with loft, such