Layout of sales Drawings

[CJMays]

Hello,

 

I am into the process of leading a change initiative moving the design department from AutoCAD to SolidWorks (Yay!!) I have worked through how our part, assembly and drawing numbering will work as well as how we will manage revisions and part changes.

 

I have laid out the structure my guys will setup shop drawings including Assemblies, sub assemblies, weldments and parts. Now where I am stuck is on the following.

 

With AutoCAD we laid out sales drawing is a way that worked for the software however this method doesn't work well for SolidWorks. I was hoping that a few people would be willing to share generic examples of how your company lays out a sales drawing or perhaps your personal opinions on how you feel they should be laid out.

 

Short background on what we do. We manufacture building Canopies, Awnings, Drive-Thru order points, menu boards and digital menu boards. For the sales drawings I do not need to include every nut bolt and washer just a 10,000ft view of the product and the specific sizes with minor sectional details to call out attachment methods.

 

Thank you in advance for any help!

[shift1313]

Do you have an example of what you currently produce?

 

There are some glitches saving drawings to pdf I have run into. Hopefully you won't. Solidworks does offer a product called composer. You can open and work on visualizations without needing another license of solidworks. It has some great html fumctionality as well.

 

If you want to bare bones it does your license incluse photoview 360? What is your expected output? Psf, 3d pdf, jpeg etc?

[CJMays]

We are using SolidWorks Premium and have Photoview 360. My output media preference would be a .pdf file as our customers are used to viewing our drawings in that format.

 

Here is an example of a Generic building canopy

[shift1313]

Thanks for the image. I was more curious about what your current sales type drawings look like.

 

In a solidworks drawing you can insert images if the shaded view of images aren't enough. If you are using SW2015 or 16 you have something called a Model Break view(Insert>Model Break View when in a part or assembly) that you can do that i think would apply really well to your models. It allows you to take long models(typically structural members like tubing) and slice/shorten them for a view.

 

I don't really have any suggestions for you on layout. That kind of is what you need it to be. If you need a high quality image make sure you use Insert>Picture and place a rendered image of your product for a nice view. You can use a PNG file with layer information so that you don't have a background or use the image mask options when inserting it.

 

Solidworks shaded views probably won't give you what you need if the above image is what you would use. If you have specific questions on how to use the functionality i can help you out but im just not sure what answer you are looking for here, sorry.