A quick way to find under defined sketches!

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Making sketches fully defined is good practice, it makes changes more predictable. SolidWorks has an option to always use fully defined sketches.

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I’m sure I am like a lot of SolidWorks users who prefer the freedom of creating sketches without having to always fully define them… this allows for more flexibility when you are designing and trialling ideas.

Once you decide on an idea you may want to go back and define those sketches… but how do you find them? Well you could open up all sketches in turn, or check the sketch name for a (-) symbol: this means the sketch is under-defined.

However there are a couple of other quick ways to find all under defined sketches:

Method 1 – SolidWorks Design Checker:

If you have SolidWorks Professional then you can add in the Design Checker. This tool allows you to build checks for parts, assemblies and drawings to check many different criteria from fonts and spelling to mate errors. One of the checks that this tool allows you to add is the Fully Defined Sketch Check.

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Simply add this to your standards file and then run this check on the active document. The Design Checker provides a list in the task pane that highlights all sketches that are under defined.

Method 2 – Go To

Use the “Go To” option to quickly find those under defined sketches.

Right click on the feature manager and select “Go to” click start from the top. Type (-) and hit “Find Next.” Keep clicking Find Next to find all the under defined sketches.

Now you have found them… go and fully define them

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SOLIDWORKS

SOLIDWORKS

Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. offers complete 3D software tools that let you create, simulate, publish, and manage your data. SolidWorks products are easy to learn and use, and work together to help you design products better, faster, and more cost-effectively. The SolidWorks focus on ease-of-use allows more engineers, designers and other technology professionals than ever before to take advantage of 3D in bringing their designs to life.
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@SOLIDWORKS