A lot of people think that the POINT tool (you know, THIS thing * ) in SolidWorks may not be very usefull other than for the Sketch Driven Pattern command…
If SO, you are missing out on some cool things it can do !!

Now the first thing you need to know is that there are 2 different types of POINTS in SolidWorks.
There are the ones that you can make when you are IN a sketch and then the ones you can make when you are NOT in a sketch !
For this little known POINT functionality, we are talking about the one when you are OUTSIDE of a Sketch.
i.e. INSERT–REFERENCE GEOMERTY–POINT.

Pick ANY face on ANY model (planar or non planar), hit the Insert–Reference Geometry–Point tool and BAM! you get a POINT right at the “center” of the face !

By the way, while you are there, take a look at the “Reference Point” property manager at all the other cool stuff you can do with it !!
Arc Centers, Intersections, Projected Points, Spaced Along a Curve ! Oh my !!
I’m SURE you can find some uses for those…

Stay tuned for my next blog on points, where I’ll show you some little known things about the point tool INSIDE a sketch !

 SolidWorks 2010 introduced a great little productivity tool for placing dimensions in drawings: the Rapid Dimension widget – you know, that little blue and yellow ball that pops up when you are placing your dimensions
 

Well, it turns out that many people liked their level of productivity as it was, thank you very much, and wanted to eliminate the tool and toss it into the SolidWorks scrap yard. If you are one of those people, you need to install 2010 SP4.0 (rapidly).

You now have 2 options to rid the little widget from your screen:

1) press the ESC key to turn it off for the dimension you are currently trying to place. If you have a fancy mouse like mine (Logitech VX Revolution), you can program one of those extra keys you are not using to be the ESC key. (Very handy for all of SolidWorks world)

2) uncheck the new toggle switch in the property manager to turn it off altogether. This setting will ‘persist across sessions’, so says the Release Notes.

 So now you can decide how quickly your dimensions will be placed. Enjoy!

Creating a Weldment frame, a layout for a lofted feature or surface, or ANYthing that needs a 3D Sketch ??
Want to create that 3D Sketch in the EASIEST way, EVER ?!

Just make an EXTRUSION of the shape you need, then start a new 3D Sketch. Turn on your EDGE filter !! (”e” key for most people), and WINDOW SELECT the entire part, and CONVERT ENTITIES !!
E-A-S-Y !!

(you may want to go to Wireframe mode before window selecting, depending on your settings for TOOLS-OPTIONS-SYSTEM OPTIONS-DISPLAY/SELECTION-Selection of Hidden Edges)

You could THEN just HIDE the solid, or do a DELETE BODY on it.

Think how much easier this is to EDIT for changes !!

You can of course get A LOT more complicated than my example with multiple extrudes, extrudes up to surfaces, trimming with planes or surfaces first, etc….

Have FUN !!

I had a customer ask me the other day how they could get more control over the lighting in PhotoView 360. Obviously in its current form PV 360 doesn’t give us a lot of control of lighting and settings. You have the out of the box environments and that is about it. Here are a couple things that you can do to control some aspects of the lighting:

1. You can rotate the environment once it is loaded. This will affect the way the light is cast on the model. To do this, go to Settings, Environment Settings, and change the Environment Rotation. If you grab the arrows on the right you can drag to change the angle.

2. You can load a custom environment file. This is new for 2010. Go to File, Load Environment Image. The environment is not seen but can be reflected in the geometry and can add lighting to the geometry. There are only certain types of files that can add light to the geometry. A “jpg” has color information that can be reflected. An “hdr” file contains light and brightness information that can light up geometry. There are places where you can purchase HDR files. These files are very similar to the environments in PV 360. There are some you can play with under the SolidWorks textures. These are generally used by PhotoWorks and RealView. You can find them under your SolidWorks install directory (C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidWorks\data\Images\textures\background). It appears that you can load an HDR file through the environments to capture lighting effects and then load a background image to set the background. I haven’t played with that process a whole lot, but it seems to allow that.

3. Lastly, you can create geometry in your SolidWorks model that represents a light. Then in PV360 add a light material to the geometry. This object will now cast a light on the model. I create one single surface (not solid) to represent each light. This way, I can use the “hide element” to hide the light in PV360. If you use a solid, you will have to use the hide element for each face of the solid. Just create your lights far enough away from the model that they aren’t seen in the view you want to render. Here is an example model with surface objects as lights. These can be used in conjunction with an environment to highlight a specific area of the model. You could also build an assembly with these light objects and make a reusable studio.

Storage Chest with Lights

PV360 is getting some major enhancements in 2011. Hopefully we’ll have an easier way to create and control lighting effects. Until then, I hope these ideas help you to get the results that you want.