{"id":19635,"date":"2018-03-23T08:19:02","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T12:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/?p=19635"},"modified":"2018-03-23T08:19:02","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T12:19:02","slug":"the-fastest-way-to-add-smart-dimensions-in-solidworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/2018\/03\/the-fastest-way-to-add-smart-dimensions-in-solidworks.html","title":{"rendered":"The fastest way to add Smart Dimensions in SOLIDWORKS"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing SOLIDWORKS users use every day is the Smart Dimension tool during sketching. Beginners often start the command by selecting it at the Sketch toolbar of the CommandManager. But this needs quite some mouse travel to select it. So experienced users often use a shortcut key or mouse gestures to start it. But there are even faster ways to add Smart Dimensions to your sketch. In this tech blog I want to clarify two methods, which are quite unknown to most of the SOLIDWORKS users I meet.<\/p>\n

Smart Dimension with lightning speed \u2013 Method 1:<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The first method is only available if the right options are activated in the SOLIDWORKS Options menu. So, with SOLIDWORKS opened, go to Tools \u2013 Options and select the following two options for Sketch<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\"Smart<\/p>\n

A bit of clarification of these two options:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Enable on screen numeric input on entity creation
    \n<\/strong><\/h4>\n

    With this option enabled, numeric input fields will display during the creation of sketch entities. This is a very helpful option, because you don\u2019t need to exit a sketch entity tool to dimension it with Smart Dimension.
    \n\"Smart<\/p>\n

    The downside could be that a dimension is added to everything you sketch. So that brings me to the second option.<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Create dimension only when value is entered
    \n<\/strong><\/h4>\n

    When this option is selected, the sketch entity will only be dimensioned if you enter a value and press Enter<\/strong> or Tab<\/strong>. This is great, because during \u201cfreehand sketching\u201d you don\u2019t want dimensions for every line. Also the risk for over defined sketches is high in this case.<\/p>\n

    In short: When you use the option Enable on screen numeric input on entity creation<\/strong>, I advise you to also select the option Create dimension only when value is entered<\/strong>. So the program will only add dimensions when a value is entered. And probably this will save you a lot of frustration.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Smart Dimension with lightning speed \u2013 Method 2:<\/strong><\/h1>\n

    SOLIDWORKS 2016 introduced a new way of adding dimensions in a sketch. From this version you can preselect sketch entities and then use the Smart Dimension<\/strong> tool to add dimensions to the entities. But quite some people found this setting annoying, because in some cases the dimension was placed at a previously selected and unwanted location. So this setting has been undone in SOLIDWORKS 2018, which brings back the SOLIDWORKS 2015 behaviour for Smart Dimension.<\/p>\n

    To compensate this, another setting was added. Starting from SOLIDWORKS 2018 you can dimension entities with the Auto Insert Dimension<\/strong> tool on the context toolbar.<\/p>\n

    In the image below, the two vertical lines are pre-selected with the Ctrl-key. Then, on the context toolbar, Auto Insert Dimension \"Smart<\/strong> \u00a0is selected.<\/p>\n

    \"Smart<\/p>\n

    The Modify dialog box appears, so you can type a dimension. And after pressing Enter<\/strong>, the dimension is applied to the selected entities.<\/p>\n

    The entities supported by this tool on the context toolbar are:<\/p>\n