Views in Solidworks As a new Solidworks user it is amazing that your head doesn’t explode when faced with the ridiculous amount of different ways you can do even the most simple task. So when the boss is breathing over your shoulder just go ahead and use view buttons defaulted up high on your screen, but when he is gone, get a cup of coffee and lets go over a couple of ways you can work with changing your views.
Standard views
Just to clarify what we are talking about.
Pick what view option is visible
Right click on the view icons and this huge menu pops right at you, take a moment and check/un-check a couple, you might find you can clean up some space on your screen by removing some you never used anyways.
Normal To…
This one is kinda cool, click a face=>right click=>Normal To icon, woopti-doo and there it goes……..right click again=>Normal To icon and you get 180.
Orientation with Normal To….
Hold down Ctrl while picking 2 planar faces (2nd can not be parallel to 1st one) => Right click=Normal To icon.
Short Cuts
You got it, right there like a piano on your keyboard.
Axis Icon
Have you tried to click on that little colorful “I show you what’s up, down, left and right” also called “reference triad” what is a boring CAD name in my opinion. 1.Select an axis……………..See the view normal to the screen. 2.Select an axis that is normal to the screen……….Change the view direction 180 degrees. 3.Shift+select…………………….Rotate 90 degrees about axis. 4.Ctrl+shift+select……………….Rotate 90 degrees in the opposite direction 5.Alt+select……….Rotate about the axis by the Arrow Keys increment specified in Tool=>Options=>System Options=>View 6.Ctrl+Alt+select………………Rotate in the opposite direction.
It’s about knowing what options are available, then pick one until you are comfortable with it, and then as most of the “real good” Solidworks users, you start mixing it up, play around with the different ways to find what works best for your work flow.