Wednesday, October 29, 2008

How to add a Custom Property in Drawing mode

In SolidWorks drawing mode, Occasionally, users need to add a custom column. For example, you can add a material column to your Bill of Materials. Now, it is quite the procedure to do so. The column does not appear automatically. you need to specify a material for the part in question. Then, you need to enable the custom property so that the BOM can see that entry in the custom field back in drawing mode.


Tuesday, October 21, 2008

CATIA V5 - How to Constrain in Assembly

This a simple demo of how to apply constraints in Assembly design. Note that the Manipulation tool is used to verify the constraints relationships.


Monday, October 20, 2008

CATIA V5 - Apply transparent image to Surfaces

This demo shows how to use transparent image background in CATIA V5. The trick is to import the Photoshop (PSD) file and apply transparency at the image level before importing it into CATIA.

Friday, October 17, 2008

CATIA V5 - How to create an Exploded View

This is a demo that shows how to produce an exploded view in assembly design then bring it into the drafting workbench.



Tuesday, October 14, 2008

CATIA V5 - Creating Text for Part Design

Friday, October 10, 2008

CATIA V5 - Becoming an Administrator

Often, many users need to have more control over certain aspects of drafting settings. Most CAD systems allow you to change any of those settings as long as you're an administrator in Windows. However, the story with CATIA V5 is different. You need to go through a series of steps in order to make changes to areas such as drafting standards or come up with your own company standard. The video below shows how to do that in a simple and easy way. The best part here is that you don't need to be an Administrator in Windows. So, you don't have to beg your IT personnel for a special log in.



Monday, October 6, 2008

CATIA V5 - Creating shortcuts using Accelerators

Many of us miss having the "AutoCAD" like shortcuts in CATIA V5. If you were a proficient user of AutoCAD, you probably like to have something similar in V5. Here are the steps:

- Goto the Customize option throught the tools menu.
- Select the commands tab, then locate the tool that you are looking for.
- In this case, we select the Space Bar as an accelerator for the "Fit All in" tool that we frequently use to zoom all. This customization works in both 2D drawings and 3D parts and assembly modes. The demo video shows how to do it.