{"id":11878,"date":"2022-11-10T13:13:16","date_gmt":"2022-11-10T12:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.cadbooster.com\/?p=11878"},"modified":"2024-01-13T21:52:26","modified_gmt":"2024-01-13T20:52:26","slug":"automatic-ordinate-dimensions-for-solidworks-drawings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cadbooster.com\/nl\/automatic-ordinate-dimensions-for-solidworks-drawings\/","title":{"rendered":"Automatic ordinate dimensions\u00a0for SOLIDWORKS drawings"},"content":{"rendered":"

We just released an update for our drawing automation add-in Drew<\/a>. With three major new features and two dozen other improvements.<\/p>\n

1. Automatic ordinate dimensions<\/h3>\n

Big feature number one! After many requests, Drew can now add ordinate dimensions to all holes in a view.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Select a view<\/li>\n
  2. Click the Add Ordinate Dimensions button<\/li>\n
  3. BOOM<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"automatic<\/p>\n

    We’ll always start at the bottom left, but you can easily drag the origin to another edge<\/a> to change the zero point.<\/p>\n

    We will be gathering feedback and improving this functionality in the next few versions. Adding hole callouts is definitely on the list. Please let us know if there’s something you’d like to see.<\/p>\n

    2. A better AutoSave<\/h3>\n

    The built-in AutoSave functionality in SOLIDWORKS is crap, so we’re building our own. The two have nothing in common besides the name, but we couldn’t think of a better, more descriptive one \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

    We’re adding AutoSave at two points in the drawing creation process:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. After you start a new drawing, we can save it for you.<\/li>\n
    2. When you are adding body sheets, we can save the drawing after every five sheets.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      If that sounds scary to you, we can show you this popup:<\/p>\n

      \"a<\/p>\n

      If you like us to handle saving for you, you can pick your preferred options in your Blueprints (a blueprint is what we call our advanced drawing templates, see What Is A Blueprint?<\/a>).<\/p>\n

      2.1. Save a new drawing automatically<\/h4>\n

      SOLIDWORKS works best when your drawing has the same filename as the part or assembly. So we’re automating that for you.<\/p>\n

      After you start a new drawing, there are four options:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Do not save (aka no thanks. No hard feelings \ud83d\ude04)<\/li>\n
      2. Show popup with save buttons<\/li>\n
      3. Save next to model<\/strong> (so with the same filename as the model, in the same folder. We like this option best.)<\/li>\n
      4. Show Save As window (shows the normal Save window, where you can choose a folder and filename. Saves you one more click.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        \"automatically<\/p>\n

        2.2. Save your drawing after every five sheets<\/h4>\n

        In our experience, the only way to crash Drew and SOLIDWORKS reliably is to add body sheets for a complex model.<\/p>\n

        We know why it happens (when we request all visible edges in a drawing view), but SOLIDWORKS has still not fixed this. It also doesn’t happen often, but for some models, it consistently does.<\/p>\n

        To work around this issue, and to still let you create drawings for those complex models, we’re adding AutoSave after every five new body sheets. This should help you create those difficult drawings eventually.<\/p>\n

        The next step is asking SOLIDWORKS to fix this issue. We’ll be doing that again soon.<\/p>\n

        \"autosave<\/p>\n

        3. Smarter table anchors<\/h3>\n

        Don’t you hate it when this happens?<\/p>\n

        \"solidworks<\/p>\n

        Each sheet format has a table anchor for each available table type. To make sure your tables always end up in the same place, SOLIDWORKS uses these anchors:<\/p>\n

        \"all<\/p>\n

        But those anchors are only half of the equation. Each table template also contains a setting for which corner (top left, bottom right, etc) to attach to this table anchor. These two separate settings are not clear immediately to all users, so it causes a lot of confusion. We even wrote a whole blog post about it: How to set table anchors in SOLIDWORKS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

        To combat that confusion, we are making the table anchors smarter. To be specific: we ignore the setting in your table template and we always make sure the table ends up in the right orientation.<\/p>\n

        In the example below, we change the position of the table anchor, then let Drew add a bill of materials. As you can see, the table still shows up correctly.<\/p>\n

        \"smart<\/p>\n

        4. Onboarding improvements<\/h3>\n

        Great software has great defaults. So if you are new to a product, you want the product to help you make the right choices. To help you do that, we revamped our Welcome Wizard.<\/p>\n

        \"Drew<\/p>\n

        The wizard will now add these items to your new blueprints:<\/p>\n