SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts

Round corners ...............................................................................................

The Round corners option refers to how SolidWorks handles fillets that go around sharp corners.

By default, this setting is off, which leaves fillets around sharp corners looking like mitered picture

frames. If you turn this setting on, the corner looks like a marble has rolled around it. Figure 7.35

shows the resulting geometry from both settings.

FIGURE 7.35

The Round corners option, both on and off

Round corners off Round corners on

Keep edge/Keep surface

The Keep edge/Keep surface toggle determines what SolidWorks should do if a fillet is too big to fit

in an area. The Keep Edge option keeps the edge where it is and tweaks the position (not the

radius) of the fillet to make it meet the edge. The Keep surface option keeps the surfaces of the fil-

let and the end face clean; however, to do this, it has to tweak the edge. There is often a tradeoff

when you try to place fillets into a space that is too small. Sometimes it is useful to try to visualize

what you think the result should look like. Figure 7.36 shows how the fillet would look in a per-

fect world, followed by how the fillet looks when cramped with the Keep edge option and how it

looks when cramped with the Keep surface option.

The Default option chooses the best option for a particular situation. As a result, it seems to use the

Keep edge option unless it does not work, in which case it changes to the Keep surface option.