Overlooked Tools in the Heads-Up View Toolbar

You know that toolbar in the middle of the top of the graphics area? We call that the Heads-Up View toolbar (or HUV for short). There are a lot of tools in there that tend to get lost, and you might benefit from a refresher on what they do.

First, did you know you can turn this off and it can be customized? To turn it off, go to Tools/Customize/Toolbars, and just click it off at the bottom of the list (listed as View(Heads-up)). And to customize it, just go over to the Commands tab and pull whatever command you want out of the list and onto the toolbar in the graphics area. Another oddity about the HUV is that it never shows labels on the icons, so if you don’t know what they are, you have to use the tooltips. It would be crazy bulky with text labels on it by default, anyway. No one wants to give up that much screen space.

I tend to be a hotkey user, so if there’s a hotkey for something, I’m probably not using that tool from any toolbar. Zoom to Fit is just F for me. That’s fast and easy. I don’t use the Zoom to Area, I’ve got a spaceball, and tend to use that. The Zoom Previous (Ctrl+Shift+Z) doesn’t work well with a spaceball, but if you’ve been zooming around via other means, this is a great tool. This is actually one of my favorite “forgotten” view tools.

Section View is one you have to get from the HUV. The only alternatives are from the View/Display menu or RMB on a plane. So the HUV is just a lot easier.

The View Orientation box is one I tend to get from the Spacebar hotkey. You actually get a better version of it from the Spacebar than from the HUV. The HUV version is on the left and the Spacebar version is on the right. The tools that are missing from the HUV version mostly right on the HUV itself, so this is kind of nit-picking, but the Spacebar version can be pinned in place and will stay available if you want it to do that.

The view tools here are really cool. One that you may not be familiar with is the Y-up/Z-up toggle. Solidworks has always been in the middle of the Y-up/Z-up controversy, and now you get to pick for yourself.

And then of course the View Cube is a fantastic piece of interface. But then all of the views are also available via hotkey – Front is Ctrl+1, Back is Ctrl+2, and so on. Isometric is Ctrl+7.

Normal To (Ctrl+8) is maybe an underused tool. Pick a planar face and click Normal To, and the view swings normal to that face

The Snaps show up in both the HUV and Spacebar versions. Snaps are custom views that are only available in the assembly (?!?!?). You can take a snap using the Take Snapshot tool on the assembly toolbar. You’d think these are just screen shots, but they aren’t. They are views saved with zoom state and everything. Similar to the New View. New View is of course available in the part environment as well as the assembly. So I guess you’d be excused for not using the Take Snapshot function, because the only thing is has is that cool camera icon.

And then of course you have the Viewport options. This is one of my favorites. You can show multiple viewports of whatever you have open. This isn’t showing multiple open documents, it’s viewports of the same open document. Viewports are great especially for 3D sketches, or anything where seeing the model in a 2D display isn’t quite enough. Viewports used to be available via splitters on the screen, but I guess that one is gone now.

The Link Views option is nice because the zoom state of each of the viewports remain linked. Nice touch.

Display Styles can be important to help you switch the model quickly to help visibility of hidden parts. Also, some people like the ability to see edges on the model, and some don’t. I like to see the edges. I think it’s an important part of the overall model display.

In addition to these settings are the Tangent Edges as Phantom option, which helps you understand tangency between faces very quickly. You can find this one at Tools/Options/Display, in the second section down. You can tell immediately the difference between tangent and non tangent edges.

And then there’s the Show Open Edges of Surfaces in Different Color option, also in Tools/Options/Display, but further down. (Hint – use the Search box in the Options dialog – HUGE time saver). This quickly identifies open edges for you. Very often it’s hard to find this information any other way. I think they have started using this setting as a default. Anyone who uses surfacing regularly understands the importance of this option.

And then is possibly the most important list of the HUV, the Hide All Types. It’s that creepy eye, right? The Hide All Types in combination with the Display Pane are huge when it comes to hiding and showing all kinds of entities and information in the graphics window.

Of course if it’s really important, you write a hotkey to it, right? You don’t mess around with a big menu. But for those things that you don’t have on your hotkey list, the Hide All Types is just the thing.

Most of these are self-explanatory and have been around for a long time, so most of you should already know them, but there are also some new ones. One of my favorites is the Hide/Show Primary Planes. It automatically toggles the visibility of the first 3 default planes. This is particularly effective in assemblies when you need to mate planes together.

I also use the Temporary Axes toggle a fair bit. Temp Axes are created automatically for any cylindrical face.

I also use the toggle for Sketch visibility a lot, but it works differently from the Primary Planes toggle. Sketch visibility will turn off all sketches, but turning it back on only shows the sketches that individually are set to be shown. I can’t imagine turning on all the sketches at once. Consistency in the way features work is important, but in this case, I’m glad this doesn’t work like the Primary Planes.

View Grid I think gets a bad rap. Initially I think people reacted badly against the grid in Solidworks sketches because of the perception that it makes you look like an Autocad amateur if you use the grid. The grid is a valid tool for approximations and quick drawings. I don’t know. I think it’s useful.

When you’re writing equations, Dimension Name display is very important, and it’s something you want to toggle quickly, not with a set of right click, left click, menu this and that.

I think Bounding Boxes are cool. They’re great for space claim sort of work in particular in large assemblies. Very useful visualization tool. Of course along with Center of Mass. Tools like this wave been important for Solidworks to add.

So how did you do? Did you remember some old tools that you think you might get new use from?