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‘features and settings’

Simplify SolidWorks: The Two-Handed Backslap to Make Your Features Behave in Configurations

29 May, 2009 by Josh Mings in CAD
3D Human CAD Models

You suppress one feature and everything underneath it gets suppressed. You cringe, a volcano erupts under the sea and five babies are born, slapped and all at once and named Llyod. Don’t you wish those ornery SolidWorks Features would just behave sometimes?

Well there just so happens to be, not one, but two single ways to make sure your features will always work for the configuration you need them in. What is it?? We could choke it up to ‘having a plan’ but that just won’t do. We need specifics and that’s what we’re about to drop on ya.

Now, if you use configurations, within the mayhem of part version creation and feature suppression, you’ll know creating features to work well with those configurations can be a fine art. Fortunately, there’s the FeatureManager and a nice little thing called history.

The history (stack of features) can cause some pain, but it can also allow you to manipulate and locate feature to work perfectly for what you need to show in each configuration. That’s a single thing, but not the two single things we need to focus on.

The two ways to set up features for making them more useful in configurations are…

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8 Fiery Guidelines to Ignite Feature-based Modeling in SolidWorks

26 May, 2009 by Josh Mings in CAD

Cover your hair. We are firing up the burners on the Feature furnace of SolidWorks about to drop some gas-drenched geometry into the flames.

There’s a slew of Features that thrive on 3D geometry alone, but I’m not gonna say, “You, go learn about Features!” eight times. Post like that are useless and annoying. This is to show you that modeling in SolidWorks isn’t all sketches. We’ll look at eight guideline and the reasons why they’re gonna make your 3D sizzle.
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12 SolidWorks Features You Don’t Need – And How to Turn Them Off

05 Nov, 2008 by Josh Mings in CAD

12-solidworks-featuresSolidWorks has a TON of useful features and ways to model the most amazing chunks of 3D your nimble fingers can sketch and extrude, but some features are a fiery heap of performance hindering options that just get in the way.

We’ve put together 12 features you can turn off right away to get better SolidWorks performance and a faster machine. Some of these options are useful, some never will be, but it always comes down to what kind of performance you expect out of that fancy workstation.

Do you need them?
Why would they be there if you didn’t need them, right? That’s why all of these options can be turned on or off. The features you use depend a lot on what functionality you need and your workflow. You may want to keep some on, but, far and away, these setting do nothing to get your modeling done faster. So, here the are – The 12 SolidWorks features you don’t need and how to turn them off.
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