In sketches, you can select items that belong to a path: In parts and assemblies, you can select faces behind the current face.

It lets you select something behind or within the object that you are clicking.

The Select Other feature is so useful that SOLIDWORKS decided it deserved one of the best spots in the right-click shortcut menu. Use Select Other to select a single line in a path That also means you can’t select the individual lines without the next trick… 4. Now the sketch elements behave like a single unit. This video by Innova Systems shows the process nicely: You can also click Tools > Sketch Tools > Make Path.Īs always, you can use the search bar to find the button that is hidden somewhere is the button jungle called the UI. In older versions, the Make Path button was located directly in the right mouse click menu. The elements don’t even have to be tangent! You can create any weird shape of connected elements and turn that into a path.Īl you need to do then is select the sketch items, right-click and select Sketch Tools > Make Path. They can form a closed shape or they can be open-ended. To create a path, you first need at least two connected sketch elements. You could also link one end of a line to the path with a coincident relation. In the image below I have used the tangent relation to bond the two ‘cams’ together. Pretty neat, right? You probably already remember a project where you needed this. You just need to create a sketch, turn it into a path and then you can drag the endpoint, like this: This allows you to model real-world items like ropes, chains and cams. Sketch paths in SOLIDWORKSĪ sketch path is a combination of sketch elements. So you want your models to move like they would in reality. Solving engineering problems is pretty damn hard.īecause usually, finding out which problem you need to solve is the hardest problem of them all. Use Select Other to select a single line in a path.

I’ll show you how: using a sketch path and a cam mate. “How does this chain drive move the product carriers?”

“Can I just mate this follower along with this cam?”

Solid cam 2019