solidworks - viewing mates

I believe every 3d software user had at least several experience with assembly. It's easy to create, but sometimes it will take a significantly long time just to edit, when you decide to change the assembly structure, or when one of the component need to be replaced. The main cause is not in editing, but in finding the exact mate between two components that we need to edit. It might as well become a long painful journey for your tired eyes.

There are several possible solution for this,


The first possible method is to use the Show Mates function that is part of context menu in assemblies when selecting a part. A very nice tool as it allows the use to see only the part (or parts) selected and the mates attached to that part. The View Mates window will appear and display a list of mates for the selected component(s). A nice feature is that it displays an icon that indicates mates that are in the path to ground. These mates hold the part in position relative to the origin of the assembly. They are shown first on the list, with a horizontal bar separating them from other mates. Mates can also be edited from this head’s up user interface. To view the mates for more than one component, simply hold the CTRL key down, and click the components, and invoke the context “view Mates” item by either left-clicking or right clicking.

Another method is to view the mates in the “Mates” folder for each component. This was added several years ago and is quite handy. Simply drill into a part the FeatureManager Design tree in the assembly, and one of the first folders under the part level is the “Mates in XXXX”. Here you will see all the mates belonging to that part. Note this only appears at the assembly level when viewing a part and not in the Part interface. A similar method for viewing mates is to change your tree display to “View Mates and Dependencies” Right Click at the top of the FeatureManager Design tree and choose Tree Display -> “View Mates and Dependencies”. Not the tree show mates under the parts instead of features, and the features can be accessed in a folder below the mates, eseentially reversing the default look and feel of SolidWorks. To reverse this behavior, go back to the Tree Display options and set it back to “View Features”

And the last, but might be best is by CTRL click two components and show the Property Manager. All mates for both components are listed, with the common mates in boldface at the top of the list.

Your assembly editing trouble ends when you can find the exact thing to edit. Good luck trying