SolidWorks 2011 Parts Bible - Matt Lombard [212]
FIGURE 15.6
Placing three Standard Views
Pre-drawing a detail circle
You can draw the detail “circle” before you initiate the Detail View command. When you pre-draw a detail circle, you must ensure that you are sketching in the view and not on the sheet. To draw in the view, the view must be activated. You can activate a view by clicking in the view or by bringing a sketch cursor inside the boundary of the view. When you activate a view, the status bar in the lower-right corner of the SolidWorks window displays the message, Editing Drawing View, as shown in Figure 15.7.
FIGURE 15.7
Activated drawing views
The dotted border in the image to the left shows that the view is selected, and the status bar shows that it is activated. The image to the right with the solid corners indicates that the view has Locked Focus. You can lock focus on a drawing view by double-clicking it or by right-clicking and selecting Lock View Focus from the menu.
If a view is not activated or the focus is not locked on the view, then any sketch elements that you draw will be placed on the drawing sheet. While sketching in a drawing view, it is a good practice to watch the status bar.
The point of all of this is to sketch a closed loop in the view so that it can be used for a Detail View. The closed loop can be a circle, ellipse, spline, series of lines, or any other shape, as long as it is a closed loop. SolidWorks refers to a closed loop as a circle with the Detail View.
A setting controls how the circle displays, in particular whether it displays as drawn or as an actual circle. This setting is found in the Detail Circle PropertyManager. If the setting is grayed out, the Style option may be set per standard, and the standard you are using does not allow for non-circular detail circles. You could choose With Leader instead or change the drafting standard you are using. The different results are shown in Figure 15.8.
FIGURE 15.8
Drawing a closed loop with the Display Detail Circle as Circles option both on and off
Once you create the loop, you can click the Detail View toolbar button and place the view. The view is automatically scaled by the factor set at Tools⇒Options⇒Drawings⇒Detail View Scaling. By default, this scale is set to twice the parent view scale, but you can reset the default to whatever you like.
Drawing a detail circle in-line
A faster way to complete the Detail View is to simply click the Detail View toolbar button without pre-selecting or pre-drawing the loop. This activates the Circle sketch tool immediately, which activates the view as soon as you bring the cursor over the view, so that when you draw the circle, it is sure to be in the view rather than on the sheet.
Alternatively, you could swap the circle tool for an ellipse or spline; this works just as well, but offers more flexibility. Regardless of the sketch tool, when you close the loop, SolidWorks prompts you to place the view. The workflow for this in-line method is better than the old-school pre-drawn loop technique.
Editing a Detail View
You can edit a Detail View by dragging the circumference of the detail circle to a new diameter, dragging the center of the detail circle to a new location, or by selecting Edit Sketch from the detail circle right mouse button (RMB) menu. This method enables you to edit sketch relations or otherwise edit the sketch that you used for the detail. When you are done with the sketch, you can use the Confirmation Corner to click OK.
You can delete Detail Views by selecting and deleting the detail circle. Deleting the detail circle gives you the option to delete the resulting view as well as the original sketch. Also, deleting the Detail View gives you the option to delete the detail circle and the original sketch.
Working with Section Views
Section Views in SolidWorks offer many options, such as Default Section View,