The Move Face feature enables “pushing” and “pulling” existing faces of the model-the first thing that often jumps to mind when thinking of direct edits. It is also worth noting that despite directly modifying faces of the geometry, these direct editing commands are still history-based, producing features in the feature tree that can be suppressed, rolled back or parametrically edited-they just pay no mind to existing sketch dimensions and constraints in the model. The aim of this article is to demystify the time and place for each major feature. If you feel like you are relying on direct edits as a crutch, then it is likely that the proper solution is to put in the time to restructure the model with better design intent.įor users coming from traditional sketch-based features, direct editing can be a bit puzzling at first. However, it should be noted that using direct edits in this way will only make the model structure more fragile and difficult to understand for other users. In a pinch, direct edits can also be used to modify native SOLIDWORKS parts that suffer from poor structure or design intent.
Direct Editing Command Manager toolbar.Īnother great use case for direct edits is at the end of a feature tree to apply clearances to otherwise “nominal” dimensions.
