Things I wish I could do sketching in SolidWorks
After using TurboCAD almost daily for 21 years there are little things I wish SolidWorks could do as easy as TurboCAD to speed up the sketching process. I Like SolidWorks but I'm spoiled.
I'm hoping other people know how to do some of these things in SW so I can learn how to improve my modeling speed.
I'll work on a list and keep posting things as I encounter and/or remember them.
Layers - I use layers to deal with clutter so you can easily turn things off. I can create layers in a poor way by creating multiple sketches on the same plane and then turn them on or off but all the inactive layers will be grey and hard to sort out what you are looking at vs setting colors and line styles on layers.
When you are drawing a line there is this annoying thing of wanting to keep drawing lines chained together like a poly-line. If I just want a line I just want a line. I like the arc at the end of the line but at times would like to control the center point of the arc while drawing not just the current 2 choices. To do it you need to stop and select arc and draw an arc then go back to drawing a line.
I'm used to having all my drawing and snap icons available to turn on or off what I need on the fly. I may not want to snap to the center of a segment or I may want to snap to the center point of an arc.
The same thing with creating construction geometry. Once you start drawing a line you can't just click construction and switch to construction. You need to select it first or after you are done.
All these things mean extra clicks and time spent finding an icon. The trim icons are buried so it always takes at least 2 clicks. If you want to extend a line it's a pain to get to the icon and then it seems you have to get it all over again to extend another line plus you can't type in a value to extend it, you have to select the line and give it a dimension or edit it's value, but if it was created as a midpoint line you can't extend one end by entering a value.
At times it would be nice to turn off relationship creation while allowing snaps so you can create geometry which uses something as the reference for easy creation but isn't tied to it. Not every relationship should be permanent.
When creating parallel lines like for laying out an airfoil in TC I select parallel line, pick an existing line and move the cursor or type in an offset value (+ or -) and it's done. I keep on creating parallel lines until I select a different function. In SW you have to keep going back to offset and starting over. It does remember the last value you used.
In TC I can set a reference on an object (temporary or permanent), like a corner or center, grab that point and snap it to another object.
The difference is speed and ease of use. I still like the 3D capabilities of SW but it's taken me longer to model a wound wire ferrule than it did to build the tooling and make over 100 parts.
http://nc3397.blogspot.com/search/label/Wire%20Ferrules
This morning I finally got it to work and I'm delighted. Now on to finishing the wing rib.