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Lightweight Drawings

Lightweight drawings are analogous to lightweight assemblies. By default, most assembly drawings are opened as lightweight, so only a subset of model data is loaded in memory. The remaining model data is loaded as needed.

Performance of drawings of large assemblies is improved significantly with lightweight drawings. Lightweight drawings are efficient because the full model data is loaded only as it is needed.

To set assembly components to lightweight or resolved:

Right-click a component and select Set to Lightweight or Set to Resolved.

When a component is lightweight, a feather appears on the part icon in the FeatureManager design tree.

To set drawing views to lightweight or resolved:

Right-click a drawing view and select Set Resolved to Lightweight or Set Lightweight to Resolved.

A feather in the FeatureManager design tree also indicates lightweight views .

Detached drawings cannot be lightweight drawings.

With lightweight drawings, you can:

  • Create all types of drawing views

  • Attach annotations to models in views

  • Dimension models in views

  • Specify edge properties

  • Select edges and vertices

  • Set drawings of sub-assemblies to lightweight or resolved

If you print a lightweight drawing when it is out of synchronization with its model, the drawing prints with a watermark:

SolidWorks Lightweight drawing - Out-of-Date Print



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Web Help Content Version: SOLIDWORKS 2012 SP05

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