- [Instructor] Now that we're done talking
about dimensions generally, let's focus in
on the Smart Dimension feature.
As I mentioned in the previous video,
Smart Dimension lives in a few different locations.
Typically you're either going to be on the View layout
or Annotation tab when you're working in your drawing
so you'll most likely find it right here.
You can go ahead and click on Smart Dimension,
you'll see that it changes the Property Manager on the left,
and if you look at my cursor, I now have
the Smart Dimension icon down in the bottom right.
If I want to start adding dimensions, I simply start
selecting entities inside of the sketch.
So right now I'm going to select this corner right here
and this corner in the bottom right of this view
and you'll see that I automatically get a height dimension
between those two items.
And because I selected those two points,
there's really not too many variations as I move around
as to what that dimension can be.
So I'm going to click again to add the dimension
and if I want I can go up to the palate
and make adjustments or make adjustments over here
on the left.
If I click on this line entity right here,
it gives me the same effect as selecting those two points.
I get the length across this line but you can see
that it's got the whole line selected
and it's parallel to it.
If I click on a threaded hole that I've used
Hole Wizard to create, it'll actually give me
the dimension of that thread column, right there.
If I zoom down to the bottom right,
I can also add radius and distance between center point
dimensions, so if I click on this outside radius
I can have that dimension, click again to place it.
I can also click two radii and now get the distance
between their centers, which I've already got
that dimension there.
So I'm going to hit escape.
If I zoom back out, I can also pick between hole centers.
So if I choose this hole and this other hole here
and then start moving around, I can get the dimension
between them horizontally, the dimension between
them vertically, the cord length dimension between the two.
It gives me a lot of variability as I move around.
So you see the Smart Dimension basically uses
whatever entities you selected and tries
to make a best guess as to what dimension
you're trying to place.
After all, there's only so many kinds of dimensions
that we use inside of SOLIDWORKS, so typically
you're probably going to have the Smart Dimension feature on
and you're going to use that to add most
of your dimensions unless you need an explicit variation.