SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts

An equation that results in a negative dimension will flip the sense of the dimension every time it is

rebuilt. This may be a useful trick, but will probably serve as an annoyance for most modeling.

When you put a negative dimension in a Modify dialog box, the dimension changes sense (direc-

tion) and the negative sign disappears after one rebuild. If you put a negative dimension into a

Modify Configurations dialog box, it will also disappear, and change the direction of the dimension

for all configurations. When you enter a negative dimension into a design table, the negative is

retained (until the next time you open the design table), and the sense of the dimension is retained

only for the configs to which you assigned negative dimension values.

Note
This design table functionality is something that arouses my suspicion. I would not build a design intent sce-
nario based on negative dimensions in design tables. The functionality seems unintentional, unstable, or other-
wise subject to change. n

Negative dimensions can only be assigned to sketch dimensions, not to feature dimensions. You

cannot change the extrusion direction by making the blind depth negative.

Using the Modify Configurations dialog box

The Modify Configurations dialog box, shown in Figure 10.8, enables you to create and modify

configured features and dimensions in a more organized way than by using the simple manual

methods described earlier, but without getting involved in an Excel-based design table, described

later in this chapter. Do not confuse the Modify Configurations dialog box with the Modify dialog

box, which is used to change dimensions.

FIGURE 10.8

Using the Modify Configurations dialog box to configure a feature

You can access the Modify Configurations dialog box by right-clicking a dimension or feature you

want to drive via configurations and selecting Configure Dimension or Configure Feature.

With the Modify Configurations dialog box active, double-click a dimension to add it to the con-

figured features list. You can add configurations on the fly by typing in the appropriate box, and

change values or states of features by double-clicking and entering numbers or selecting the check

box in the appropriate column.