SolidWorks 2011 Parts Bible - Matt Lombard [94]
Performance
Sketch Text can dramatically slow down the performance of your SolidWorks part. If you write an entire paragraph of text in a sketch and use that text to extrude a solid feature, you are likely to notice that the part runs much more slowly. One way to avoid this is to suppress the feature and only turn it on when needed.
Using Colors and Line Styles with Sketches
Custom colors and line styles are usually associated with drawings, not sketches; in fact, they are most valuable when used for drawings. In sketches, this functionality is little known or used, but is still of value in certain situations.
Working in Color Display mode
In drawings, you can use the Color Display Mode button to switch sketch entities on the drawing between displaying the assigned line or layer color and displaying the sketch status color. It has exactly the same effect in part and assembly sketches.
When you select the button, the sketch state colors are used. When the button is not selected, any custom colors that you have applied to the sketch entities appear. If the button is not selected and you have not applied colors to the entities, then the default sketch state colors are used.
You can use sketch colors for emphasis, to make selected sketch entities stand out, or to make sketches with various functions immediately distinguishable. Color Display mode only has an effect on an active sketch. Once a sketch is closed, it returns to the gray default color for inactive sketch entities.
Assigning line color
Line color enables you to assign color to entities in an active sketch. The Color Display Mode tool determines whether the assigned color or the default sketch status colors are used.
Using the Edit Sketch Or Curve Color tool
You can use the Edit Sketch Or Curve Color tool to assign color to an inactive sketch or to a sketch block. The color that you assign to sketches in this way displays only when the sketch is inactive, instead of the default gray color. The sketches also follow the toggle state of the Color Display Mode button. For example, if the Color Display Mode button is selected, then inactive sketches display as gray. When the Color Display Mode button is unselected, then inactive sketches display in any color that you have assigned by using the Edit Color tool.
When you use this tool to color a sketch block, the block displays the color inside the active sketch. You cannot use the Line Color tool mentioned earlier to assign color to a block.
Assigning line thickness and line style
The Line Thickness and Line Style tools function independently from the Color Display Mode button, but they are still used only when the sketch is active. As soon as a sketch that contains entities with edited thickness and style is closed, the display goes back to the normal line weight and font.
To assign a thickness or a style, you can select the sketch entities to be changed, click the button, and then select the thickness or style. Although a single sketch entity may have only a single thickness or style, you can use multiple thicknesses or styles within a single sketch. Figure 6.13 shows a sketch with the thickness and style edited.
Cross-Reference
Line thickness and line styles are covered in more detail in the discussion of drawings in Chapter 18.
FIGURE 6.13
A sketch with edited line thickness and line style
Using Other Sketch Tools
SolidWorks has a lot of functionality that overlaps between multiple topics. The following tools could appear in other sections of the book, but I include them here because they will help you work with and control 2D sketches in SolidWorks. Almost everybody who opens the SolidWorks software at one time or another has to use a sketch, so these tools could be applied by a wide swath of users.
Working with RapidSketch
As the name suggests,