1. Solidworks Drawings Thread Callout
2. Hole Thread Callout Solidworks Drawing

For mechanical engineers and designers, holes are one of the most frequently used features in engineering design. They are often used to mount with other components or to support shafts. In model-based definition (MBD) implementations, I am often asked how to dimension and tolerance internal or external diameters in 3D in a way that is similar to 2D drawings, such as the bearing housing in Figure 1. Let’s walk through this situation and see what tools are available in SOLIDWORKS MBD to help us out.

Note: Creating a callout in a drawing manually for this Advanced Hole feature could be very complicated and time-consuming. When the feature was first released, there was no way to auto-populate a detailed callout of the hole, but now users can use the Hole Callout in drawings to automatically create the complex callouts required to manufacture. If you look at the call-out for the right hand hole, it says the diameter is 2 mm and L is 0.8 mm. The only thing that L could be is Length, but there is no clear indication if it is a hole or a boss that extends above the surface. I have seen many similar drawings and the note at the upper right tells it: 'For Reference Only'.

Figure 1. 2D drawing of a simplified bearing housing.

First, it’s pretty straightforward to define diameters in SOLIDWORKS MBD. Just remember to use the size dimension, rather than the location dimension. This distinction complies with the ASME Y14.5-2009 geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) standard, whereby diameters are defined as features of size and can be quickly inspected with a functional gauge pin. With just a few clicks, we can easily drop several callouts, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Initial diameter callouts.

But it comes with several problems:

1. Most of the callout leader lines and arrows are obscured by the model, so it’s not very easy to tell which diameter is associated with which hole, except for the selected Φ.754±.005 in green cross-highlighting its corresponding feature. This cross highlighting indication is required in ASME Y14.41-2012 as “Visual Response,” which works well for an individual query in SOLIDWORKS MBD, but lacks a clear overview of all the annotation anchors and doesn’t work on paper printouts.
2. In the 2D drawing layout in Figure 1, a section view is nicely integrated with annotations to present both its complex internal contour and attached callouts. If we cut a section view in 3D, as shown in Figure 3, some annotations are floating because the model body part they are attached to is cut out, which makes it more misleading and confusing.

Figure 3. Floating annotations in a section view.

So how can we adjust leader styles and reorient these diameter callouts to achieve the same result in 3D as in the 2D drawing in Figure 1? Let’s again pick this highlighted Φ.754±.005 callout as an example. First, to host the to-be-reoriented annotation in an appropriate Annotation View, let’s make sure the Right Annotation View is activated as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Activate the Right annotation view.

Then the following several quick clicks in Figure 5 will give us the expected style.

1. Select Φ.754±.005 and click on the Leaders tab on its property manager;
2. Switch from Diameter leader style to Linear leader style;
3. Under Linear leader style, click on the Parallel To Axis button, which means the annotation plane is now parallel, not perpendicular, to the hole axis. To be more precise, they are actually coplanar in this case.

Figure 5. Three clicks to reorient a diameter callout Parallel To Axis.

Repeat this adjustment to other diameters and we will get much closer results in Figure 6.

Figure 6. All diameter callouts reoriented in a section view.

A quick note here: If we didn’t activate an appropriate host Annotation View before these adjustments, we may get placements similar to the highlighted one in Figure 7, depending on which Annotation View or orientation is active, but we can still manually reassign these callouts to a desirable Annotation View in two ways:

• Right mouse click on a callout and click Select Annotation View from its context menu as shown in Figures 7 and 8. You may notice the annotation orientations are previewed instantly and dynamically as your mouse cursor moves through each option in the pop-up list in Figure 8.

Figure 7. Select Annotation View command in the context menu.

Figure 8. Pick an Annotation View from the pop-up list.

• One shortcut here is to press the tilde key (˜) above the tab key on a keyboard while an annotation is selected. Then this Annotation View list will pop up for selection. This shortcut is not only faster, but can also preview annotation view results on the fly in a command to facilitate better decision before a placement. On a side note, the tilde key was chosen in this software behavior design rather than the tab key because the tab key is already used in overall design to cycle through various controls on the Property Manager, which is a standard Windows operating system behavior.

With all the above hands-on experiments, hopefully we have a better understanding of the relationship between callouts and annotation views. A natural question to ask now is if we do start with an activated Section Annotation View like the view on the left in Figure 1, can we get those diameter annotation orientations (parallel to axis) right away without the above adjustments? The answer is yes, as shown in Figure 9. With this Section View A-A activated, we can directly drop a hole callout parallel to the hole axis using the Size Dimension command.

Figure 9. Direct hole callout parallel to axis when a Section Annotation View is activated.

Now, comparing Figure 1 and Figure 6, you may notice that we still have some work to do. For example, the text orientation perpendicular to dimension lines takes substantial space to avoid overlapping, which isn’t very efficient for layout and printing. Also, there are two identical Φ.754±.005 callouts, which would be better if combined to save screen or paper space. Third, all the tolerances are .005 in., but in reality, sometimes we may want to loosen some to save manufacturing and inspection costs. Or we may need tighter tolerances on critical features. For example, holes to hold bearings or shafts in this case.

To begin, aligning texts with dimension lines is really easy. Just hold the Ctrl key to multi-select all the diameter callouts and then switch to the Leaders tab on the Property Manager. Scroll down to the bottom, check the Custom Text Position box and click on the first button, Solid Leader, Aligned Text, as shown in Figure 10, and we are all set here. By the way, when these callouts come pretty close to each other, accurately selecting one may become a bit harder. An easier way is to click on dimension witness lines or leader arrows, rather than the texts.

Figure 10. Aligned text with dimension lines for multi-selected annotations.

Next, hold the Ctrl key to multi-select these two identical Φ.754±.005 callouts, and then right click to display its context menu. Here the command Combine Dimension (Figure 11) can give us the expected 2x result, and this combined annotation can cross highlight both features. Of course, this works for more instances in a combination too. Also, to be eligible for a combination, all instances must be identical. When necessary, we can break a combination into individual pieces. Just right click and select Break Combined Dimension as shown in Figure 12.

Figure 11. Combine identical dimensions.

Figure 12. Cross highlight on both features and Break Combined Dimension.

Lastly, we can loosen several tolerances to possibly save manufacturing and inspection costs. Again we can hold the Ctrl key to multi-select the highlighted three callouts and modify their tolerances to 0.010 in. together.

Figure 13. Modify tolerances for multiple callouts together.

Another handy tool is Style. Let’s try the opposite by actually tightening these three tolerances from 0.010 in. to 0.003 in. because these holes are supporting the bearings or shaft. We can modify one first, or just pick an existing desirable annotation style, and add it as a style (Figure 14), and then apply it to other annotations (Figure 15). We can also save this style as a file and load it later, so that we can reuse it not only in this session, but also in other sessions or on other computers. This reuse of styles can save quite a few mouse clicks and typing, while maintaining better consistency.

Figure 14. Add an annotation style.

Figure 15. Apply an annotation style to multiple callouts.

Now Figure 16 presents a section view with desired diameter callouts similar to Figure 1 after following tips and tricks:

• Reorient diameter callouts to parallel to axis
• Change annotation views using the context menu or tilde key
• Adjust custom text positions with multi-selection
• Combine and break dimensions
• Modify tolerances together with multi-selection
• Add and load a style to multiple annotations

Figure 16. 3D section view with diameter callouts parallel to axis and cross highlighting from a combined annotation to two hole features.

About the Author

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS MBD product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise (MBE) and smart manufacturing.

One frequent comment I hear about model-based definition (MBD) is that the graphics views are crowded with 3D annotations. In this article, let’s walk through two examples of MBD and see how you can reduce the number of annotations.

The first example is a lathe collet chuck as shown in Figure 1. Typically, a collet holds tightly to a part being machined by a lathe cutter while the part is turning at several thousand rounds per minute (RPM).

Figure 1. A lathe (top), a chuck (lower left) and a collet (lower right).

Figure 2 shows a collet with 3D annotations in SOLIDWORKS MBD. As you can see, the gaps are all of the same width and tolerance, but the repetitive instances make the display crowded.

Figure 2. A collet with crowded repetitive 3D annotations.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could group all the instances and call them out together with one annotation? Here is one function that can help with this process.

First, click on the Pattern Feature command on the SOLIDWORKS MBD command bar as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Click on the Pattern Feature command.

Second, select “Manual Patterns” on the property manager on the left of the display as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Select “Manual Patterns” to create a pattern.

Then select the features to be defined in this manual pattern. In this case, let’s group all the gaps, or the width features, in the Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) terms. Pick one face of a gap, and then select “Create Width Feature” on the context dialog as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Pick one face of a gap, and then select “Create Width Feature”.

Then click on the opposing face of the same gap to create a width feature as one instance in this pattern.

Figure 6. Select the opposing face of the same gap to create a width feature.

Then repeat the same operation for all the other gaps. Figure 7 shows all eight of the width features collected in one manual pattern.

Figure 7. Define all the width features in a manual pattern.

These width feature and pattern creation steps can be a bit tedious. It would be great if the software were able to recognize all the gaps and create all eight width features automatically. Furthermore, when you select an opposing face, you have to rotate the model to click the face. It would be very handy if you could just pick an edge to represent a face without rotating the model. Then the software could create a width feature from the opposing faces. Today, hole callouts and location dimensions support multiple edge selections to represent faces. This edge-face correlation needs to be expanded to width features.

Now with the setup in place, use the Size Dimension to call out this width feature pattern as shown in Figure 8. You have the option of calling out one width feature as selected, or the entire pattern. Please select the pattern to simplify the callouts.

Figure 8. Call out a width feature pattern with an 8x multiplier.

Figure 9 shows a before and after comparison. As you can see, the display is much more concise with the manual width feature pattern and the 8x multiplier. Furthermore, with all of the instances cross-highlighted, the interpretation is well facilitated visually.

Figure 9. A before and after comparison of 3D annotations.

In addition to the manual patterns avoiding repetitive callouts, SOLIDWORKS MBD can also combine multiple callouts into a compact parent feature callout. Let’s look into a base plate example as shown in Figure 10, which illustrates the overlapping callouts of multiple countersink holes and counter bore holes in the lower right corner.

Figure 10. Overlapping callouts of multiple features.

How can this view be cleaned up? A previous blog post shared several view management tools to help organize and present 3D annotations clearly, but in this article, we will try several different annotation techniques.

First of all, the reason that the annotations in the lower right corner of Figure 10look so busy is that the counter bore holes and countersink holes are complex features. Each of these features includes several child features that require individual specifications, such as the drill diameters, counterbore diameters, counterbore depths and countersink angles. Using SOLIDWORKS MBD, you can actually combine these child feature callouts into one single parent feature callout. Figure 11 shows a context menu command “Combine Callout Dimension,” which appears when you right-click on one of the child feature callouts.

Figure 11. Combine all the child feature callouts into a parent counterbore feature.

In the case of Figure 11, I clicked on a depth. Then the software automatically collected all the child feature callouts and presented one single compact callout as shown in Figure 12. It combined the drill diameters and tolerances, counterbore diameters and tolerances, overall hole depths and tolerances, and counterbore depths and tolerances. This compact presentation with a special counterbore designation saved multiple annotations, dimension lines and witness lines.

Figure 12. A compact counterbore hole callout.

Similarly, I right-click on the countersink angle callout and picked “Combine Callout Dimensions” as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13. Combine all the child feature callouts into a parent countersink feature.

Then a compact callout including a special countersink designation will be presented as shown in Figure 14. All the drill diameters and tolerances, countersink diameters and tolerances, countersink angles and tolerance are collected in one annotation.

Figure 14. A compact countersink hole callout

Figure 15 shows a before and after comparison. Clearly, the results are much cleaner now.

Figure 15. A before and after comparison of 3D annotations.

Solidworks Drawings Thread Callout

By the way, the base plate model is available for download at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Please feel free to try it out yourself. To learn more about how SOLIDWORKS MBD can help with your MBD initiatives, please visit its product page.

About the Author

Hole Thread Callout Solidworks Drawing

Oboe Wu is a SOLIDWORKS MBD product manager with 20 years of experience in engineering and software. He is an advocate of model-based enterprise and smart manufacturing.