Whether it’s for molded parts or for heat-treating, scaling a model to account for shrink is a really serious design concern. Today, we’ll take a look at how the scale tool in SOLIDWORKS can help you accomplish this in just a few simple clicks.

Sometimes you may need to scale your model for other things, for example 3D printing at half scale and doing a conversion from inch to metric and vice versa. You can easily leverage the scale feature to scale the model about the centroid (center of mass) of the model, the origin, or any coordinate system of your choosing. Just by entering a ratio into the scale feature, it will allow you to scale it up or down as needed. For example, the conversion scale ratio to go from inch to metric is 0.0394 and metric to inch is 25.40. That’s all you would need to enter in.

One other big advantage of the scale feature is the fact that you can scale the model in a non-uniform fashion. By deslecting the “Uniform scaling” option, you can enter in ratios for the scale vector of your choosing. This allows you to scale for any specific stretch direction of your choosing. You can also scale the model about the origin, which allows you to scale the whole model in relation to the origin rather than the center of mass, which can be a huge benefit for non-centered models.

Stream the webinar for more information or check out other Video Tech Tips for more tips and tricks.