Favorite SolidWorks Trick

[cxcad]

As Adam Heard said on 973, "What's your favorite CAD trick?" or something to a similar effect. I actually don't have one, but I'm curious to learn yours.

[Bryce Paputa]

My favorite (Inventor) tool is the entire sheet metal system with it's flanges and flat patterns.

I also just learned about the (Inventor) offset tool, which is really helpful in certain situations like pocketing.

[cadandcookies]

Patterns. Pattern everything. Patterns in patterns. Patterns in patterns in patterns. Patterns of holes, patterns of everything. Favorite trick, favorite tool in Creo. One of the underclassmen asked me how I could CAD a drive train in 20 minutes: patterns.

Also center-rectangles and thin wall extrusions are great.

Generally, the newest thing I find that saves me time is my new favorite trick.

(I understand that these things might be old hat to a lot of people but we're all at various points in our educations :P)

In my personal opinion patterns are one of the most powerful model/geometry creation tools in Creo-- learning how (and when) to use them and the limitations is probably a small book of knowledge.

[Bryce Paputa]

I just found another great time saving thing. When doing sheet metal fillets (in inventor), you can select all of the corners in a specific feature by selecting choose by feature instead of choose by edge. Didn't know about this until today and it's going to save me a lot of time.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Probably not a "trick" but I like to use 3d sketches on Solidworks to create parts and structures very fast using the sheet metal tools. I also like that I can make my own "sheet metal" parts for other materials such as fiberglass angles and c channel.

[artdutra04]

In Solidworks if you want to select a bunch of sketch entities (like lines, circles, etc), if you click and draw a rectangle to the right it will only select things completely inside the rectangle selection and if you click and drag to the left it will select everything that is partially inside the rectangle selection.

[MrRiedemanJACC]

I know this is basic, but projecting geometry in Inventor and the similar tool in Solidworks for asemblies.

[Andy A.]

Design tables! Not only can you quickly toggle between various configurations of the same part but you have access to all the math tools of a spreadsheet and your critical dimensions in an easy to view area. You can really quickly and easily view and set relationships between dimensions across multiple sketches and features, and even drive a design with a quick and dirty GUI made in the spreadsheet.

It's particularly a useful technique for stuff like gussets and brackets that you may need to frequently adapt and/or have a lot of common configurations of. Instead of a starting a whole new part file you just create a configuration with a row of dimensions inside a excel file.

[asid61]

Patterns, as stated. The loft tools are pretty obscure but useful for designing weird looking dog shifter dogs.

The thing I love about Solidworks is that you can get by with less than 12 functions, but learning the other functions saves time. So it's good for anybody.