How does SolidMap move YOU to the next level?

SolidMap represents significant personal benefits to users of SolidWorks.  The three most significant personal benefits are:

• Less time to understand a model before you can edit it

• More efficient method for pinpointing  and fixing rebuild errors

• Easier to share models with colleagues

These benefits are manifested through the graphical representation of relationships that are created during the modeling process.  As you know, during the process of creating part models, or assembly models, relationships are built between features and sketches within a part; between features and sketches across part files and between parts in the context of an assembly.  A large portion of your time is spent attempting to understand these relationships as the model complexity increases.

 In order to add more features to a part, or, in order to edit existing features you need to understand these relationships first.  For example, it may not be possible to edit a feature directly to implement a design change.  The feature that you are trying to edit may be dependent upon (or, driven by) other features which means that you cannot directly edit that feature.  You need to find the feature, or features that are driving the feature that you are trying to edit so that you can change those driving features appropriately, or so that you can break the relationships with those driving relationships.

 Another example is when the feature that you are trying to edit is driving other features.  You need to understand what will be affected by a change to the feature that is being edited.  Oftentimes we just change the feature that needs to be edited and then we have to fix all of the “broken” features one by one.  IF you knew what was going to “break” as a result of the edit, you may be able to formulate a different way to implement the change.

 Of course, this problem is amplified tremendously when you are trying to edit a model that was designed by someone else, or even by yourself a long time ago.  Sometimes, you resort to rebuilding the model from scratch due to the fact that it will take less time than actually trying to understand how it was built the first time.

 What if you had a tool that could graphically display these relationships to you interactively while you are designing?

 Here is what SolidMap does for you:

• Graphically displays file-to-file relationships that are created between part files (and/or subassembly files) in an assembly

• Graphically displays mate relationships that exist between part files (and/or subassembly files) in an assembly

• Graphically displays file-to-file in-context relationships that exist between files

• Graphically displays parent/child relationships that exist between features in a part file

• Graphically displays interdependencies that exist between features and/or sketches in a part file

File-to-file relationships in assembly

SolidWorks will show you a list of referenced files in an assembly.  You must launch SolidWorks Explorer to view “where used” relationships in the assembly file.  SolidMap automatically creates a graphical map of either the reference file relationships, or the where used relationships, or both.  This enables you to interactively open and close files right from the SolidMap view.  In addition, you can automatically reorient the map so that reference files and where used files are displayed from a different file other than the one that you initiated the map from.  So, in an assembly, I may choose to show the referenced files in an assembly so that I can determine which part I want to work on.  I can launch that part from the SolidMap view.  I can then reorient the SolidMap view so that the part is at the “root” of the map, and I can choose to display all of the files where that part is used so that I can determine what else may be affected as a result of a change to the part.

This screen shows referenced relationships that exist in an assembly file

Mate relationships in a file

SolidWorks shows the mates that exist in an assembly in two different places on the feature manager.  You can see them in the mate group, or you can see the mates that are associated with a particular part in the mates folder under that part in the feature manager.

SolidMap reads this mate information and will create a map showing the mates that exist between parts and will also show the entities within each part that the mate is specifically associated with.  When I select entities in the SolidMap view the corresponding entity in the SolidWorks graphics window highlights.

This screen shows the mate relationships that exist in an assembly with the detail shown on the mates that exist between the crank-knob, and the crank-arm

 File-to-file in-context relationships that exist between files

SolidWorks stores reference file and where used information inside of part files as well as if the part file is sharing information with other part files due to an in-context relationship, or due to equations that share values between files.  SolidMap shows these graphically in the same way that assembly reference and where used relationships are displayed.  By viewing these relationships graphically in SolidMap, I can quickly identify driving or driven parts and features that are associated with the part that I am investigating.

 Parent/child relationships that exist between features in a part file

SolidWorks displays a tree view of the parent and child relationships that exist between features in a part.  SolidMap reads this information and displays those relationships on a graphical map.  The map can be manipulated to focus on any feature that you are interested in investigating.  In addition, you have the option to display parents of the feature, children of the feature, or parents and children of the feature.  This helps a great deal in determining where edits need to be made in order to implement design changes.

This screen shows the parent and children relations that are associated with Cut-Extrude3

Sketch relations that exist between features and/or sketches in a part file

SolidWorks stores sketch relations that are associated with each sketch in the feature manager.  In addition, SolidWorks remembers relationships between parameters that exist in each feature.  Some of these relationships are between entities within the sketch, and some are between an entity in the sketch that you are investigating and an entity that is a different sketch.  SolidMap displays the “external” relationships on a graphical map in order to enable you to more quickly understand those “external” feature interdependencies.  SolidMap will display the feature that you are investigating and links to any other feature that depends upon the feature you are investigating.  All of these relationships are displayed at once on the map.  You have options to filter out as much information as would like in order to facilitate understanding the relationships.

This screen shows the external feature interdependencies that exist from the sketch that was used to create Cut-Extrude3