SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Chapter 23: Dimensioning and Tolerancing ................................................................................

FIGURE 23.2

The default placement of dimensions into all views

To move a dimension to another view, you can Shift+drag it from one view to the other (make sure

that the dimension is appropriate in the destination view). To copy a dimension, you can Ctrl+drag

it. If you cannot place the dimension in the view that you have dragged it to, then the cursor will

indicate this with a special cursor symbol.

If you approach this task by placing dimensions on a per-feature or per-view basis, it does not

change the number of dimensions that you will have to move; it just means that you will insert

fewer dimensions several times. Keep in mind that if you choose this method, there is a significant

amount of cleanup and checking that you must do. The convenience of having the dimensions put

into the views for you, and the ability to actually change the model from the drawing are quite use-

ful, but you may not save very much time or effort by doing things this way.

Using reference dimensions

One alternative to automatically inserting all model dimensions is to manually place reference
dimensions. You create reference dimensions by using the regular Smart Dimension tool. At first,
this appears to be simply re-creating work that you have already done, and this is somewhat true,
but there is more to the story.

These dimensions are not duplicates of the model items. In fact, the reference dimensions that you

manually place on the drawing are completely different from the dimensions that are used in the

model. The dimensions serve completely different purposes in the two settings, and could only be

the same through some odd coincidence.