Reorienting "Normal To" view 1

[cinnamongirl]

I've reoriented my standard views in both my part and assembly templates, however when I switch from the Right view to the "Normal To" view (when they are both facing the same direction) the view turns 90 degrees (side goes to the top). How can I reorient the "Normal To" view so that it stays consistent with the standard views?

 

[Eltron]

Normal To is always Normal To a selected face or plane regardless of the view.

Dan

http://www.eltronresearch.com

Dan's Blog

 

[cinnamongirl]

Yes, I understand that, but there must be a way to reorient the bottom/top of the "Normal To" view.

 

[Eltron]

Hit Normal To again.

Dan

http://www.eltronresearch.com

Dan's Blog

 

[SnowCrash]

'Normal' 'normal' switches to the back side of the selected surface.
It seems like you get the other planes vertical or horizontal when you select 'normal' To do what you want may require defining a view specifically.

--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2011 SP 4.0
HP Pavillion Elite HPE
W7 Pro, Nvidia Quaddro FX580

 

[ShaggyPE]

Preselect two perpendicular planes and then select "normal to." The first plane (face) you select will be the one that you will be normal to... the second will be the equivalent of the top plane.

-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Pretty good with SolidWorks

 

[cinnamongirl]

Thanks, that works, it gives me exactly what I was looking for, I just wish you could assign the bottom /top. On a front-facing surface I get a "Normal To" view equivalent to the "Front" view. However on a right-facing surface the part turns 90 degrees counterclockwise, and the opposite on a left-facing surface.

 

[DiegoLGraves]

After you are normal to the view you need, space bar again, click the second icon "Update Standard Views" and select the name of the view you need. Or, just create a new view.

Regards, Diego

 

[maxh3]

Preselect two perpendicular planes and then select "normal to." The first plane (face) you select will be the one that you will be normal to... the second will be the equivalent of the top plane.

Excellent!!! Thank you; no more craning my neck while sketching!

 

[mjcole]

Tools > Sketch Tools > Modify
Allows you to modify the default orientations of
Front +X, +Y as H & V directions
Right -Z, +X as H & V directions
Top +X, =Z as H & V directions

You can save each orientation by overwriting the defaults or saving your own _T for Top )B for Bottom _R for right etc.

he modify dialog is old as (insert word here) and needs to be updated to allow modify when external references are present. Right now you have to delete ant coincident or collinear relation and Modify orientation and re apply your constraints. The only way to overcome this is by using Instant3D and use the Rotate handles but that is too much to describe here.

When sketching on the top plane the orientation has always been reversed.but no one at SolidWorks cares enough to fix that problem. At least not yet.

Michael

 

[Enginerd9]

There's a really easy way to reassign view orientations. Choose the view you want, hit the space bar, then select the view name you want it to be. There's a pin at the top of the pop up window which will allow you to "reset all views" relative to the reassignment. Done. You might have to play with it a bit to make sure you've reassigned them effectively and it all makes sense, but it's the quickest and easiest way to do this without getting all mixed up in a bunch of programing nonsense. (I find that people who use ProE or Unigraphics, etc. tend to default to the convoluted process of programming something, even when there's a much easier and more efficient way.)

Anyhoo. I don't know if that's what you were asking for.

 

[cinnamongirl]

I'm still trying to find a better answer.

I tried "Tools > Sketch Tools > Modify". It changes the orientation of the sketch within the plane, I'm only trying to change the orientation of the view on the screen. I thought I could get by for now but then I noticed the Horizontal and Vertical relations are reversed; vertical lines show a horizontal relation icon and vice versa.

 

[ShaggyPE]

If you are truly to re-orient the model relative to the original planes... you could do some move/rotate body commands. However that will open up a can of worms in your upper assemblies if you are mating to the primary planes.

-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Pretty good with SolidWorks

 

[cinnamongirl]

Still trying to find a clean solution to my problem.

Here's how it all started. At first all my part and assembly files had the Z axis going in the wrong direction, my boss suggested I change it so that the Z axis would go up/down as most of us would expect. So I did the "Space bar - 'Update Standard Views'" thing and got the XYZ axis to line up how I wanted (X left to right, Y front to back, Z top to bottom).

The problem was when I picked a surface (let's say the right-facing side of a cube) and hit "Normal To", it would turn the view on its side rather than match the "Right" view even though both are supposed to be the same. Yes, I could hold the Alt key and turn the view 90° with the arrow keys, but it gets old after a while and the sketch relations get screwed (SW still thinks a vertical line is vertical when it's horizontal on the screen).

May be someone has other ideas or can suggest a better way to realign the XYZ axis without messing up the "Normal To" views.

 

[mechfeeney]

Depending on how many features you have in your model, perhaps it would be practical to 'Right Click-->Edit Plane' on each of the features. The features that I am refering to are those that reference a plane. A fillet for example wouldn't require any changes. As you alter each plane chronologically down the list of features it may render some of the "later" features corrupt until you have appropriately changed their planes too.

Let me know if this helps. Good Luck.

 

[mechfeeney]

Effectively you are applying a coordinate transform to the part by rotating all of your individual features. The key to this process is making sure you update the new planes appropriately (one incorrectly referenced altered plane may cause the whole model to become corrupt). The nice thing about this method is that it's not very time consuming, it doesn't alter imbedded SW defaults, and it's just a 3 click maneuver for each feature.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

At first all my part and assembly files had the Z axis going in the wrong direction

Not necessarily wrong, just not what you were expecting.

...so that the Z axis would go up/down as most of us would expect

"most" may be a bit of an assumption.


See if this document helps.

https://forum.solidworks.com/commun.../06/global-coordinate-system--which-way-is-up

 

[cinnamongirl]

Thanks for the correction, for years I used another 3D design program (Alias Studio) and always assumed the Z-up coordinate system was the standard (and apparently it is in the industry this project I'm currently working on).

The instructions on the link are exactly the steps I followed, but like I mentioned, the "Normal To" views don't line up with the corresponding Right/Left views. Only the Front-facing surfaces maintain the same orientation (and it turns the back-facing views upside down when clicking "Normal To").

It becomes really annoying when dealing with vertical/horizontal sketch relations since both icons look the same on a sketch.

Perhaps SolidWorks did this for a reason, if not I hope they come up with a solution in a future version.

 

[cinnamongirl]

I am now starting to have co-workers ask me why some of my sketches turn sideways when selecting "Normal To". If someone has other suggestions please post them here. For now it seems like the best way to avoid this is by keeping the original axis orientation.

 

[mechfeeney]

How about you post an example file with the part oriented incorrectly and with the default axes (that is...without any of these internally modified axis options)? Unless the part is derived from 3D sketches...i'm confident that manually changing the sketch planes works very well.