If you want presentations to your patterns to be even more interesting when it comes time to approve your designs, an animation of your model and its movements is always spectacular. It is easy to produce this kind of animation in SolidWorks. But to increase the level of presentation, how about producing a progressive cut that comes alive so you can see the inside of your assembly?
Addition of a cutting part and movement constraints.
To do this kind of animation, the first step is to add an extra part to your assembly that will be used as a cutting tool. This part will be constrained so that it moves with the desired movement of the cut. In our example, we used a rectangular prism which is constrained to cut only half of the assembly. Also we added a distance constraint to have a cut along the length and a rotation constraint to make a rotating cut.
Before going to the next step, make sure that the part you inserted moves adequately according to the animation you want. In our case, the part is free to move along its length and it turns on the axis of rotation of the cylinder that is being cut.
Adding a cut feature in the assembly
Once your part is inserted, you need to add a cut feature to the assembly. It is also necessary to produce a sketch which will have its plane on the part which must move for the cut. This is what will make it possible to have a dynamic cut. Depending on how your sketch will be constrained, the cut will follow the desired progression. In our example, the sketch is built on the face of the rectangular prism and the constraints of its shape allow it to enlarge its cut at an angle. You can add a color to the feature so the cutout will be the chosen color.
Addition of movement keys in the study of movement
The next step is to produce the animation by adding movement keys to the cutting part. In SolidWorks jargon, movement keys are the capture steps for animation. The first key will therefore be the initial position of the part without any cuts.
The second key is positioned after a 2 second delay and the part is moved in the direction of the width.
The last key adds the rotational movement of the part to cut out the center. We add this key at 4 seconds.
Finally all you have to do is hide your cutting part and run and save the animation in the format you want.
