SolidWorks Video Tip: Roll View

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DS SolidWorks Corporation today unveiled SolidWorks 2011, the latest release of the most popular 3D CAD software on the market. There are many new features to talk about, but today I’m going to hit …

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Submitted by Ricky Jordan on Monday, June 29, 2009View Comments

I’m sure all of us have had this happen before. You stroll around through the UI of your favorite software package and find a button that somehow you have missed seeing before. I have never claimed to know everything there is to know about SolidWorks, but I do know my way around a bit. After serving as Technical Editor for three books on SolidWorks, I somehow have overlooked this little viewing tool, so I thought I would share it.

The viewing tool I’m talking about is the Roll View option. It is available in the Right Mouse button menu in the graphics area. It allows you to roll the model about an axis pointing normal to the viewing plane. (The axis is coming out of your screen.) Here’s a short video showing it off.

Alright folks, fess up! If you have never noticed this viewing tool before, leave me a comment. I’ll bet I’m not the only one!

I’ve got some other stuff in the works and will be picking up a USB microphone this week so I can start posting videos with voice again to the site. My next “series” of posts will be about SolidWorks Routing. This is something I have wanted to do for the site for quite some time and I’m looking forward to sharing some tips with you that will hopefully simplify the mystique that seems to surround that product at times.

SolidWorks 2010 Beta testing is going well. As soon as the NDA is lifted I’ll have some videos ready to roll out that show off the new functionality.

Stay tuned…more to come!

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blaze222222

It seems to be a good viewing tool. but i have never seen it before. thanks for the information, i will try this tool. good job.....
fcsuper

I've not used that function either, though something similar is on my 3D mouse which I do use from time to time.
solidworm

i noticed a tool called Curvature Explorer in boundary feature, a few days ago. (RMB on the yellow preview surface->Curvature Explorer , a movable dot appears on the surface which shows the curvature of U and V isoparameters at that point.)
jcoeng

Nice post Ricky. I too have seen it there many times but never clicked on it. Gonna have to try it soon.
Diego

Ricky, what does roll view do in the drawing? It shows up in the right click menu, but doesn't seem to change the view.

Regards, Diego
John Kerr

Hello Ricki, with your 2010 beta reviews, have had a chance to look at compatibility with Windows 7, or at least have SW corporate feedback? - John
Brian

Hmmm...I never have really paid attention to the command in the menus; I have always just used the Alt-[L or R] Arrows or Alt-MMB to rotate the view parallel to the screen.
Rod_Uding

I have known the command was there, just never clicked on it or looked it up in the help file to see what it did. Will try it out today to see if helps out in rotating the model for making selections.

Looking forward to the post on Routing. We had the UI manager from SW in at the last SWUG meeting and he went over that with us before the meeting an did a presentation on it at the meeting.
Bob

Never noticed the option in the right-click menu, but I knew this was available by ALT-holding down whatever button on the mouse you use for rotating (here it's pressing the scrollwheel).

Works very nice in conjunction with the CTRL-click panning and SHIFT-click zooming.