Do you sometimes feel as though you are living in an alternate reality? Well, if you know me, that doesn’t seem so strange. Using the “ALT” key in SolidWorks can bring you great joy and help you achieve SolidWorks bliss.
The first cool use of the ALT key is in the realm of large scale design. If you have an assembly open, and it’s quite large, SolidWorks will try to reduce your graphics overhead by “decimating” the graphics. It will turn you really nice detailed models into chunky, block looking objects. This is usually for the greater good, but if you need to run an animation, fly through or need to see all the details of your SolidWorks model, this may be a hindrance. To remedy this, invoke the view command of your choice, like the Rotate option and then hold the left ALT key down (yes, it has to be the LEFT ALT key). With the left ALT key still held down, rotate and notice the full graphics are available! Check out the video below…
The other ALT key is set to make use of smart mating in assemblies. If you have the parts you already want to mate in the assembly, hold down the RIGHT ALT key (yes, the right ALT key) and drag the face you want to mate on top of another face you want to mate. All the rules of smart mating here apply, where are in the SolidWorks help system online, which you can click here to get to. Here is a video on smart mating using the Right ALT key!
