A View From All Angles

Most SolidWorks users are content, when modeling or assembling components, to work in a single view. Most certainly because SolidWorks makes it very easy to navigate  using standard views, convenient mouse button commands and other efficient techniques. But for some users, especially ones that come from other CAD products like Alias and Rhino, their work methodology is to work in multiple views of the same model or assembly at once.

This methodology stipulates that the design sets up a top, front, side and isometric view. This way the user can quickly move from one view to another to quickly navigate and modify their model. For instance, the design draws a rectangle in the top view to initiate creation of a box. He moves his mouse cursor down to the front view (just below the top view) and drags the box up to make it a solid model.

Fortunately, SolidWorks has the capability to let designers work this way, if they choose to do so.

To do this, you will notice that there is a small drop-down menu in the lower-left of your SolidWorks window. This is where you control your view states; whether you choose a single, two or four view layout, as well as their own customizable views. You can easily switch between multiple views to a single view and vise-versa. The user also has an additional control located on this drop-down menu to control how multiple views behave when zooming and panning. If the “Linked Views” is selected, any movement in one of the 3 orthographical views will cause the other two views to move, or zoom.

Multiple windows can be a very useful way to work that maximizes efficiency and accommodates different work styles for a wide range of users.

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