Instant3D

Instant3D was introduced in SolidWorks 2008. Now, what does it do for you? It makes it easier for you to quickly create and modify model geometry by using drag handles and rulers. How do you turn it on? Click on the Instant3D icon in the “Features” toolbar.

You may have recently heard of something called “Synchronous Technology” from Siemens PLM. Sounded interesting, after all I am a geek. I saw their taped webcast. Some of the functionality they were showing looked familiar; it was what we can do with Instant3D. Here is some of this functionality in Instant3D.

Notice how with Instant3D I can select the end face of Extrude2 and drag it to the other side of Extrude1 and the boss becomes a cut. Also notice that I did not have to repair the fillet. This is the good news about Instant3D; you can quickly make drastic changes to your model without having to worry about how your model was created.

When you drag to resize the feature, if your cursor is over the ruler, it will snap to the increment marks on the ruler. The increments are controlled by your “System Options -> Spin Box Increments”.

There are pros and cons for any new feature. Now is the time to talk about the cons, or things you have to be careful of if you use the feature. In the video, you saw where I selected the end face and then dragged the blue arrow. This makes it too easy to accidently resize a feature. It happened to me at the worst time. I was beta testing the new CSWP exam. On the base extrude for the first feature, I accidently changed the extrusion depth and did not notice my mistake. This accident cost me the correct answer to the first six or seven question on the exam. My cost was the embarrassment of not passing the exam. If you make the same mistake, it will cost you scrap parts.

There is a SolidWorks System Options setting will help prevent most of these accidents, but not the one I made. Uncheck “System Options -> Sketch -> Override dimensions on Drag/Move”. This will prevent you from accidently moving a face that is controlled by a sketch dimension. In my example the sides of the rectangular boss are controlled by sketch dimension. With this option checked, I could select one of the side faces and drag the arrow and it would change the sketch dimension. With this option unchecked, I can still change the dimension, but it requires a deliberate action. I click on the face, all of the dimension associated with the feature that the face belongs to will appear on the screen. You will see a blue dot at the end of the dimension arrow head. You can change the dimension value by dragging this blue dot around. You can also just click once on the dimension text and key in a new value.

If you use Instant3D, I suggest that you uncheck “System Options -> Sketch -> Override dimensions on Drag/Move” to prevent most of the accidental mistakes. I also suggest that you submit an enhancement to SolidWorks to make this option to prevent you from using the blue arrow to change the extrusion depth.