SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Part V: Creating Drawings

FIGURE 21.5

Activated drawing views

The dotted border in the image to the left shows that the view is selected, and the status bar shows

that it is activated. The image to the right with the solid corners indicates that the view has Locked

Focus. You can lock focus on a drawing view by double-clicking it or by right-clicking and select-

ing Lock View Focus from the menu.

If a view is not activated or the focus is not locked on the view, then any sketch elements that you

draw will be placed on the drawing sheet. While sketching in a drawing view, it is a good practice

to watch the status bar.

The point of all of this is to sketch a closed loop in the view so that it can be used for a Detail View.

The closed loop can be a circle, ellipse, spline, series of lines, or any other shape, as long as it is a

closed loop. SolidWorks refers to a closed loop as a circle with the Detail View.

A setting controls how the circle displays, in particular whether it displays as drawn or as an actual

circle. This setting is found in the Detail Circle PropertyManager. If the setting is grayed out, the

Style option may be set per standard, and the standard you are using does not allow for non-circu-

lar detail circles. You could choose With Leader instead or change the drafting standard you are

using. The different results are shown in Figure 21.6.

FIGURE 21.6

Drawing a closed loop with the Display Detail Circle as Circles option both on and off

Display Detail Circles

as Circles turned on

Display Detail Circles

as Circles turned off