- Once you've created a dimension inside of a SolidWorks
drawing using either Smart Dimension
or one of the other dimension annotation tools,
you might want to edit it, change the way it looks
or maybe add some other information that might be helpful
for manufacturers.
So to bring up the dimension property manager
you simply click on any dimension and the property manager
over on the left will update to show you all
of the dimensions properties.
Now, starting on the first tab for value
we have the tolerance and precision options
which we're going to look at in another video.
Then moving down, we have the primary value.
This actually gives us the information
about where this dimension is coming from.
This is drawing view one, and this is RD2,
that's just the dimensions call out in this location
and it has a specific value.
If for some reason and I don't suggest this,
you wanted to override what that value was,
maybe you're making a print,
that's not to scale, but just a quick alteration
for someone you can simply click
on this and override that value right here,
and that will be present on the screen over here.
Again, I don't suggest doing this
because we're trying to create 3D geometry
that's accurate, you may be sending this part out
to a CNC fabricator who's using this model
to create CNC code,
and if you're overriding the values here
for your dimensions
something's not going to add up for that individual.
One other thing that we can do
as we move down is start modifying the dimension.
So we have options for adding parentheses,
adding a loop around
for it being called out as an inspection dimension,
we can also for dual dimensions, add those notes as well,
we can center the dimension in between the leaders,
we can also offset the text if we'd like to,
toggling these buttons on and off,
we can also add symbols if we'd like,
and control whether or not the dimension is all uppercase
which is very important
if you want to follow specific standards.
You can also appear at a note,
maybe you want to label this dimension as A for example,
just simply type in the dimension texts
and it'll pop up over here.
Another thing that you can do is click on the dimension
if you go up to the right,
we get the dimension fly out window,
and here you can go a step further
and add notes on top to the left, below or to the right.
So if you wanted to have another callout on this side
maybe a number value of some sort,
I mean, maybe on top,
a special note for your quality department,
John check this.
Whatever you want to do to modify,
you can do inside of here or over on the left.
And in another video we talk about the leaders
and how we can adjust those.
And then the last one the other tab
mostly has to do with units and the text font,
again, I wouldn't adjust these by dimension here,
you do it if you'd like to,
if you want to show another dimension or a dual dimension,
you can turn that on down here in the first tab
and show your metric or ISO units versus your antsy
or inch measurements.
When you're done, just click the green check mark,
it'll accept all of those changes,
and if you ever want to clear them out
you can simply go back in and undo any of that work.
You can see here how all that text was added,
and I can simply just take everything out
except the area where it says dimension.
If you cut in on this text
it'll actually give you a warning first saying
that you're disabling the dimension
and then it'll break what's displayed over here.
And if that ever happens, just go back in
and replace the text that you had altered,
you might see the DIM note
or the MOD-DIAM note or a couple other callouts
that SolidWorks uses to present the dimension.