SolidWorks 2010 Bible

CHAPTER

Editing and

Evaluation

IN THIS CHAPTER

Using Rollback to look at the

results of the design tree

Reordering features in

the design tree

Reordering all features

as a folder

Selecting items using the

Flyout FeatureManager

Summarizing best practice

suggestions for modeling

parts

Applying evaluation

techniques to plastic parts

and complex shapes

Editing and evaluation

techniques tutorial

W

hen you use CAD programs, you typically create a part once, but
edit it many times. Design for change is at the core of most of the
modeling work that you will do in SolidWorks, and deletion is
not an editing option.

The initial stages of modeling are the most crucial. This is when you set up
parametric relations between the features and sketches that form the founda-
tion for an assembly or complex part. For this reason, editing often quickly
turns into repair. Granted, some changes are simply unavoidable, but a thor-
ough knowledge of editing — and repairing — can help you to understand
the how, what, and why of modeling best practice.

This chapter starts with some very basic concepts of editing, which you may
have picked up if you have been reading this book from the beginning.
Because this is the last chapter in Part II, and the last that deals strictly with
part modeling, it also contains a summary of part modeling best practice
techniques and a set of model evaluation tools that can help you evaluate the
manufacturability and aesthetic properties of parts. I have included these
evaluation tools in a chapter on editing because the create-evaluate-edit-eval-
uate cycle is one of the most familiar in modeling and design practice.

Using Rollback

Rolling back a model simply means looking at the results of the design tree up
to a certain point in the model history. In SolidWorks, you can actually
change history — that is, you can change the order in which operations are
completed. The order in which you create features is recorded, and if you
change this order, you get a different geometric result.