Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts
Draw a line in your sketch and dimension it to approximately the size of something that is
recognizable in the image, and then move the image by clicking and dragging it to lay the
dimensioned sketch entity as close over the object in the image as possible.You can rotate and mirror images, as well, using the Sketch Picture PropertyManager. Images are
opaque, and you cannot see the model through them, but at the same time, you also cannot see
the images through the model. They are like flat pieces of paper that are pasted to the model or
hanging in space.You can add transparency to images, either by selecting a color or by using the built-in transparency
in the image file. When you select a color to be transparent, you will also need to increase both the
Matching Tolerance and the Transparency value sliders, which are by default set to their minimum
values.Caution
If a sketch picture has had user defined transparency applied to it, and you double-click the picture,
SolidWorks automatically bumps you into the eyedropper mode, which selects a color to be transparent.
A single extra click in this mode can make a mess of your Sketch Picture transparency settings by changing
the selected transparency color. n
Sketch pictures cannot be shown on a drawing associatively. The only way to do this is to capture
an image of the sketch picture that is being shown in the model, and put this image in the drawing.
PhotoWorks does not use sketch pictures, either, and PhotoWorks Decals are a separate item
altogether.Tip
Although the most common use for the sketch picture is as a tracing guide, you can use it for a wide variety of
other purposes. For example, any sort of logo, decal, or display that is on a flat surface can be shown as a
sketch picture. n
Best Practice
Best practice for using sketch pictures is to put them into a separate sketch near or at the top of the
FeatureManager. Even though you can have sketch entities in a Sketch Picture sketch, I recommend keeping
them in separate sketches. This is because when you use the sketch entities for an extrude or a loft guide curve,
this sketch will be consumed under that feature, meaning the image becomes buried somewhere in your model
rather than being easily accessible at the top of the FeatureManager. n
Three views
When building a model from images, it is often helpful to have three or more images from
orthogonal views, similar to re-creating a part from a 2D drawing. If you have a left and a right
view, it may be a good idea to put them on planes that are slightly separated so that the images are
not exactly on top of one another, which makes them both hard to see. Putting them on slightly
offset planes means that one will be clearly visible from one direction and the other visible from
the other direction.