Defining Drawing Sheet Zones in SOLIDWORKS

TATA Technologies - James Keller | October 6, 2015 | Comment

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In the video tutorial above, we’ll take a look at how to define drawing sheet zones for sheet formats and how to locate drawing views and annotations that reside in the drawing in SOLIDWORKS.

Drawing views can be particularly useful when:

• Users are working with a large drawing sheet with many views, especially when those views look similar. Drawing views can help to locate specific details;
• Users need to quickly find and refer details to parties not involved in the design process;
• Users need to keep a firm’s drawings within a specific standard. “Exploded views should always be located in the A-3 Zone”, for example.
  

Let’s review the key points of the tutorial.

Here’s how a user can define a drawing zone: right-click the desired sheet in the feature tree and select “Properties.” In the window that appears, select the “Zone Parameters” tab. There, users can set the distribution and space zones, with or without margins.

Clicking “Go to Drawing Sheet Properties” takes us to the document properties drawing sheet section, where we can select zone origin and letter layout, among other features.

After users define their zones, they can choose to show or hide them by selecting “View” and “Zone Lines.” We can add zone information to a note or balloon by double-clicking annotations to edit text. Users must place their cursor where they want the zone information to appear and click “Add Zone” under the “Text Format” option.

Users will notice the “Add Zone” window appear, where we can choose to insert the information listing the zone location. The zone’s information will update automatically when we move the note to another part of the drawing sheet.

We can also attach zone information to parent and child views of detail, section and auxiliary views.

To do this, users should select “Insert,” “Annotations,” “Location Label” and then select either a child or parent view reference to attach the label to. Cursor feedback will let users know which geometry is viable.

After users have selected and confirmed their settings, the new annotation is inserted and like before, if the details location changes, the zone information updates accordingly.

Users should remember that zone referencing works across drawing sheets as well.

To find more tutorial videos like the one shown above, visit myigetit.com.

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