CHAPTER
Getting More from
Your Sketches
IN THIS CHAPTER
Editing sketch relations
Copying and moving sketch
entities
Using sketch pictures
Using sketch text
Using colors and line styles
with sketches
Using other sketch tools
Editing and copying tutorial
Controlling pictures, text,
colors, and styles tutorial
Using metadata tutorial
Sketching calculator tutorial
P
revious chapters have described the basic tools for sketching. This
chapter takes you to the next level, teaching you about more
advanced sketch tools, how to edit and manipulate sketches, and how
to work with sketch text, sketch pictures, and sketch colors. At the end of
this chapter, with a little practice to reinforce the tools and techniques, you
should feel like you have mastered the topic of SolidWorks sketching and
can handle almost any problem that is thrown at you.
Editing Sketch Relations
Delete is not an edit option. In time, you will find that this is good advice,
even if you don’t agree with it now. There are times to use the Delete
command, but you should use it only when it is necessary. In my own work,
I sometimes go to extreme lengths to avoid deleting sketch entities, often just
to stay in practice, but also because deleting sketch entities, or even features
in a part, increases the likelihood that sketch or mate relationships will be
broken.
The main reason to not use Delete in a sketch is that when you are editing a
sketch that has other features that are dependent on it, the dependent features
may lose their references, or go dangling. Because of this, even when you can
use the Delete command instead of making edits, it is still a good practice to
edit instead. Deleting relations is not as critical as deleting sketch entities,
unless the relations are referenced by equations or design tables.