SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Part VII: Working with Specialized Functionality

FIGURE 31.10

Corner treatment options

To access the toolbar with the Corner Treatment options, you can click the pink dot at the inter-

section of the path segments. Default corner treatment settings are made in the Structural Member

PropertyManager, but they may need to be adjusted individually.

Two situations do not require corner treatments. The first situation is when a line intersects

another line at some location other than an endpoint in the same Structural Member feature; for

example, a support meeting the main member in the middle. In this situation, the member that

ends in the middle of the other member is trimmed to a butt joint. The second situation is when

an intersecting member is created by a later Structural Member feature. You deal with this situation

by using the Trim/Extend function, which I describe later in this chapter.

Note
You may encounter a situation where it seems like a good idea to create collinear sketch segments. In a typical
extrusion, the faces created from collinear lines are simply merged together as one. However, in a weldment,
this does not work when it is done in a single feature. In order to create Structural Members on collinear
sketch lines, you must either extend one line to encompass the length of both lines or do the work in two sepa-
rate Structural Member features. n

Arc segments

When arc sketch segments are part of the selection for a Structural Member, a Merge arc segment

bodies option displays after the selection box in the Selections panel. This means that any tangent

arc segment will be joined to the entities to which it is tangent, but any non-tangent entities will

create separate bodies.

A tangent arc is illustrated in the curved leg brace shown in Figure 31.11, along with the Merge arc

segment bodies option in the PropertyManager.

If the Merge arc segment bodies option is not selected, then a separate body is created for arc seg-

ments. The Merge arc segment bodies option applies to the whole feature, and cannot be set selec-

tively for individual arc segments within the selected sketch entities; it is either selected for all or

deselected for all. If some arc segment bodies should be merged and others should not, then you

should create separate Structural Member features.

It is also a curious limitation that only one arc may be selected if the selected path segments are

disjointed. For example, the two arcs for two J shapes that do not touch could not be selected in

the same Structural Member feature. The obvious work-around is to create two separate groups.