SOLIDWORKS Inspection Course Overview

The SOLIDWORKS Inspection course is designed to introduce participants to the basics of using SOLIDWORKS Inspection automation software. This software is pivotal for creating ballooned drawings and inspection documents efficiently. Throughout the course, participants will gain hands-on experience with both the add-in and standalone versions of SOLIDWORKS Inspection.

SOLIDWORKS Inspection is a First Article Inspection (FAI) tool that streamlines and automates the process of generating ballooned inspection drawings and quality inspection reports, such as AS9102 and PPAP. It consists of a standalone application and a SOLIDWORKS add-in, allowing users to work with legacy data, whether they are SOLIDWORKS files, PDFs, or TIFFs.

The Professional version of SOLIDWORKS Inspection further enhances these capabilities by offering multiple methods for entering measured values directly into the project, thereby simplifying part inspection. Users can manually enter each characteristic value, use a digital caliper, or import results from a coordinate measuring machine (CMM).

Skills Learned:

Basics of SOLIDWORKS Inspection for creating ballooned drawings and inspection documents.
Working with both the add-in and standalone versions of SOLIDWORKS Inspection.
Simplifying the creation of quality inspection reports with automation tools.
Utilizing SOLIDWORKS Inspection Professional for advanced data entry and part inspection.

Course Duration

1.5 Days (7 hours/day)

Prerequisites

SOLIDWORKS Essentials Course

Mechanical Design experience

Experience with the Windows operating system

Course Examples

Auto Ballooning Drawings

Automatically & intelligently balloon drawings inside SOLIDWORKS

Version Comparisons

Compare versions of drawings for differences in dimensions & tolerances limiting unnecessary updates

Standalone Inspection

Work with SOLIDWORKS drawings, PDFs, or legacy image files like TIFF or JPG

CMM Import

Import CMM measurement data and rapidly generate pass/fail reports

First Article Inspection Reports

Import CMM measurement data and rapidly generate pass/fail reports

Optical Context Recognition (OCR)

Work with PDFs and legacy data and use the OCR to intelligently extract dimensions and tolerance to auto populate the bill of characteristics

Balloon 3D PDFs

Perform first article inspections on MBD 3D PDFs

SOLIDWORKS Inspection Course Syllabus

Lesson 1: Inspection Add-in

What is SOLIDWORKS Inspection?

Inspection Add-in

Inspection Project

Project Template

Case Study: Inspection Project

General Settings
Extraction Settings
Tolerance Settings

SOLIDWORKS Inspection Manager

Characteristics
Characteristic Properties
Balloon Settings
Reorder Balloons
Multiple Characteristic Instances
Multi-line Notes

Export Inspection Data
Design Revision
Manual Ballooning

Standalone Application

Working with 3D Document
Exercise 1: Balloon Characteristics
Exercise 2: Publish Reports and Export Project
Exercise 3: Extract and Export 3D Part

Lesson 2: Standalone Application

User Interface

Shortcut Keys

Case Study: Inspection Project
Inspection Project

Project Template
Project Properties
Save Options
Unit/Tolerance Options
Ballooning Options

Manual Extract

Characteristic Pane
Hide and Show Extracted Annotation
Auto Extract
GDT Builder

General Characteristic Tools

Validating Characteristics

Table Manager

Bill of Material
Specifications
Characteristics

Managing Characteristics

Reorder Balloons

Grids
Multiple Documents
Publishing Reports
Drawing Revisions
Exercise 4: Balloon Dimensions
Exercise 5: Balloon Notes
Exercise 6: Publish Ballooned Drawing and Inspection Report

Lesson 3: SOLIDWORKS Inspection Professional

Overview

Measurements Input
CMM Data Import

Loading the Inspection Professional Add-in
Case Study: Measurements Input
Measurements Input

Measurement Entries
Color Coded Characteristics
Multiple Measurements
Bonus Tolerance

Publishing Reports With Inspection Results
CMM Data Import
Case Study: Import CMM Data
Exercise 7: Measurements Input
Exercise 8: CMM Import