SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Part III: Working with Assemblies

Figure 12.17 shows this arrangement using the Bible Bike assembly. If you are a SolidWorks

veteran, this works very differently from the way View Mates worked in the past, but I hope you

will agree with me that this is a big help in mate visualization.

If you Ctrl-select multiple components before starting the View Mates tool, SolidWorks no longer

puts the common mates in bold, it just lists them at the top of the dialog box.

FIGURE 12.17

Showing mates in the PropertyManager pane

Using Assembly Tools

SolidWorks is incredibly complex software, and there are many tools to do many small tasks. This

is true nowhere more than it is in assemblies. Users have such wide expectations of the software in

various areas, and everyone needs something different. Many tools exist to help you put together,

maintain, and evaluate efficient assemblies. The tools in this section are important tools that don’t

fit into the other categories.

Using Sensors

Sensors provide an alert if a monitored value goes outside of a specified range. Sensors can be used
in parts or in assemblies. The types of values that you can monitor with Sensors are dimensional
values, mass, volume or surface area, interference detection between select components, and
Simulation data (stress analysis values).