SOLIDWORKS 2020 What’s New – Specifying the Up Axis for View Orientation

SOLIDWORKS 2020 includes a new button that will further allow you to customize your View Orientations in SOLIDWORKS parts and assemblies. This new Up Axis button allows you to specify the Y-axis or the Z-axis as the default Up View Orientation.

To find this new button, open a file in SOLIDWORKS 2020, go to your Heads-Up Toolbar and select the View Orientation button followed by the double arrows for More Options. You can also bring up More Options by hitting your space bar if you’ve kept the default customizations for keyboard shortcuts.

You will then notice the new Up Axis button which resembles your Reference Triad.

Selecting the drop-down arrow allows you to choose between applying the Y-axis or the Z-axis as the Up Axis for your View Orientations.

SOLIDWORKS will then give you a warning where you can choose “Yes” to accept the changes. The changes will be applied to any standard orthogonal, named and child views:

I’ve created a colorful cube and showed the reference Top, Front, and Right Planes to help show the outcome of changing the Up Axis for View Orientations.

In the image below where the Y-axis is the Up Axis, the Front View Orientation will show the cube’s red face.

The View Palette below was taken from a drawing of this part file. It shows the colored faces of the cube in the various View Orientations when the Y-axis is the Up Axis. Notice the red face is the Front View, as expected.

By following the steps to access the new Up-Axis button as described earlier in the blog, we can choose to Apply Z-up Views.

Once the Up Axis is switched to the Z-axis, the blue face now becomes the Front View when you select the Front View from the View Orientation on the Heads-Up Toolbar. This simply changed the View Orientation, not the axes that define the default Reference Planes.

The View Palette for a drawing of this cube will now look like this, where the blue face is now the Front View and the other faces change accordingly.

I hope this part of the What’s New series gives you a better understanding of the new features and functions of SOLIDWORKS 2020. Please check back to the CATI Blog as the CATI Application Engineers will continue to break down many of the new items in SOLIDWORKS 2020. All these articles will be stored in the category of “SOLIDWORKS What’s New.”

Design Innovation Month – October 2019

What is DI Month? We’re declaring October Design Innovation Month—again! It’s a month-long series of special events focused on what’s new in design and manufacturing technology. You’ll learn about enhancements in SOLIDWORKS 2020 that deliver new capabilities for improved performance, streamlined workflows, and a connected design ecosystem. Find out what’s new in 3D printing applications and 3D scanning to integrate into your design process. So, get ready to do things differently. It’s time to innovate!

Nicole Kelley
Support Engineer
Computer Aided Technology, LLC