Notes from Matt's Presentation

Since Matt mentioned it I now feel obligated to post some of my notes from his presentation at last week’s user group meeting. I started to just scan the page I took the notes on but I can’t let just anyone see my ‘creative’ doodles until I get the copy write on them. I hope you all are not expecting much…

1. You can create planes within a 3D sketch. This is how you get the feature count down when competing in a modeling contest. This means you can create the geometry for multiple cuts / extrudes from different planes. Of course all the cuts or extrudes must go in the same direction. The example Matt demonstrated would have been 4 or 5 separate features (the way I model parts) compressed to one.
2. Turn on the View ports when sketching in 3D. Add the 4-viewport button to a toolbar. With the 4 view ports you can start a line in one view, click the endpoint in another view and etc. This a great visual aid when doing 3D sketches for routing.
3. To constrain a point or endpoint, dimension from the 3 standard planes.
4. Create a plane parallel to the screen view. Rotate the view to where you want it. Start a 3D sketch; draw 3 points at random on the screen. Constrain them to be coincident (3 points right on top of each other). Break the relations and then move the 3 points apart. Exit the sketch and create a plane using the 3 points. This works because when you move a point it only moves in x-y relative to the screen view, cool stuff.
5. I was able to ask my question: If 3 points can define a circle and 3 points can define a plane, why can’t a circle define a plane? This is possible in the real world but not straight up in SolidWorks. I would think it would be an option on the reference plane creation dialogue box. But Matt explained that you can do it with 3D Sketches. You simply start a 3D sketch, place 3 points on the circular edge where you want the plane and then use the 3-point plane creation.
6. Matt also talked about the difference between the old ‘layout sketch’ and the new SolidWorks feature, Layout Sketch.
7. We also discussed the mistake that we’ve all made when working within an assembly. Forget to change to edit part mode and just start sketching on a face and expect the resulting feature to be placed on the part at the part level. And if there was anyway to ‘move’ this feature to the part level. That’s all I can say about that!
   

There was much more covered in the meeting these are the things that made an impression on me. I might have gotten more out of it but my sinuses decided to go into convulsions in the middle of the meeting and I was struggling to maintain control with an over used handkerchief I just happened to have in my back pocket. What did you remember and will you share it by leaving a comment?