SolidWorks 2011 Parts Bible - Matt Lombard [218]
FIGURE 15.27
Rotating a drawing view to align an edge
Another option for view alignment is to align it relative to another view; this involves stacking one view on top of another or placing them side by side. You can do this by selecting the second pair of options in the menu shown in Figure 15.27, Horizontal to Another View and Vertical to Another View. These are grayed out in the figure, but preselecting a linear edge before selecting this option in the menus will activate them.
Situations may arise where a view is locked into a particular relationship to another view, and you need to disassociate the views. The Break Alignment option, which is grayed out in the menu in Figure 15.27, serves that purpose.
Using Display Options in Views
Some important display options and settings are not listed in the Tools⇒Options menu; they are only available through the menus, and in particular the View menu. You can effectively deal with most items in the View menu by assigning a hotkey that can be toggled on or off. For example, Axes and Temporary Axes are things you often want to be visible when you're sketching something, but not visible when printing a drawing. You can easily assign the display for Axes and Temporary Axes to hotkeys, making them ready at your fingertips. You can assign hotkeys by choosing Tools⇒Customize⇒Keyboard.
Using Display States
You can use Display States in drawing views, but unless you are only hiding and showing parts with the Display States (that is, you are not changing colors or display styles with Display States), they only have an effect when a drawing view is set to Shaded Display style. You can control Display States for drawing views in the View PropertyManager. The Drawing View Properties dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 15.28.
FIGURE 15.28
The View PropertyManager
One of the limitations of the Display States functionality in drawing views is that when wireframe display is used, the drawing edges appear in black rather than using the color settings to show wireframe in the same color as shaded. The necessary color settings are found in two places, and you need to set both. The System Options setting is on the Colors page and is called Use Specified color for shaded with edges mode. The second setting is in the part Document Properties (not assembly), again on the Colors page, and is called Apply Same Color to Wireframe, HLR (Hidden Lines Removed), and Shaded.
Using Display styles
The 2D drawing world is becoming less and less black-and-white, and SolidWorks has the capability to apply shaded views to drawings. This is probably most useful in isometric, perspective, or pictorial views on the drawings. The shading and color may be distracting for dimensioned and detailed views, but it can also be indispensable when you need to show what a part actually looks like in 3D. Not everyone can read engineering prints, and even for those who can, nothing communicates quite like a couple of shaded isometric views.
The more standard 2D drawing display modes are Wireframe, HLR, and HLV (Hidden Lines Visible), which work in the same way as they do in the model environment. Unless you override it on a per part basis, the Display mode is set for all the components in the view.
Selecting a Component Line Font
Individual components within an assembly can be shown in different fonts, similar to the display in the Alternate Position View. You can access this function by right-clicking the component to access the RMB menu and selecting Component Line Font. Figure 15.29 shows the Component Line Font dialog box, along with a drawing view in which a couple of part line fonts have been changed. The part can only be changed in the view where it was selected, or it can be changed across the board in all views in the active drawing where it appears. This is useful if you want to emphasize or de-emphasize certain parts in