Navigating an assembly in SOLIDWORKS can be a bit tricky and the larger the assembly gets, the more cumbersome it can be. You have to find the components that you want, understand how to rebuild, open times and hide and show just the components that you need. In today’s tech tip video, we’ll cover some fantastic tools that you can use to navigate and view the assembly much faster.

>> Click here to learn tips for navigating assemblies in SOLIDWORKS

Performance Evaluation & Assembly Visualization Tool

The Performance Evaluation helps to understand metrics on the assembly level, such as the amount of time it takes to open the assembly, how many graphics triangles each component is set to and exactly how many components and sub-assemblies exist inside the larger assembly.

There is a quick keyboard shortcut for showing and hiding files– the tab key. This will allow you to hide or show exactly the parts that you want to see on screen and do it without having to dive deep into the Feature Manager design tree.

>> Learn how SOLIDWORKS 2018 takes this shortcut one step further and uses the Alt Key to hide faces during mating.

Finally, the Assembly Visualization Tool is a powerful way to view your assemblies, as well as sort them in SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD. It allows you to easily set up view colors and sorting options. This is very similar to BOM management and even allows for grouping options on your own custom properties.

This is just a quick look into some of the many and easy to use tools that will help you navigate and view assemblies much faster in SOLIDWORKS.

Looking to maximize your use of the assembly modeling capabilities of SOLIDWORKS? Sign up for our SOLIDWORKS Assembly Modeling training!