Assembly Visualization – the search for the missing file properties

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Releasing your drawings to the machine shop with missing information makes a machinist angrier than a baby boomer looking at a teenager that doesn’t have his pants pulled up all the way.

As we all know, looking through a large assembly, checking file properties can be a tedious task. (At least that is the excuse I always use.) I’ve found Assembly Visualization can be a great tool to quickly skim through your assembly’s components looking for missing information.

Here’s how I could use it to find any parts in my assembly without material specified:

1. Start the Visualization tool (it is either on your assembly or evaluate toolbar by default)

2. Right mouse button click on any of the headers (except “File Name”) and choose “Add Column”, or find any column with a little black arrow pointing to the right.

3. Click on that arrow and choose “More…”

4. Choose the property you want to examine. (Check it out, you could work with formula too!)

5. Now you can sort by this property by clicking on its heading and your parts with missing information will come to the top.

This makes it easy to fix missing definitions quickly and make that floor supervisor happy!

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Jeff Sweeney is an Application Engineer at 3DVision Technologies, a SolidWorks Value Added Reseller with locations across Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky.  He is a regular contributor to 3DVision Technologies' Blog where you will find new ideas to improve your productivity with SolidWorks