Balloons

Adding Balloons

You can manually add balloons if you do not select Auto Balloon in the Create Inspection Project PropertyManager.

To add balloons:

  1. Click Add/Edit Balloons (SOLIDWORKS Inspection toolbar).
  2. Specify options in the Ballooning Settings PropertyManager and click .

Moving Balloons

To move balloons:

Do one of the following:
  • To move one balloon, drag the balloon.
  • To move all balloons, click Select Balloons (SOLIDWORKS Inspection toolbar).
  • To move a balloon that is attached to a characteristic without moving its characteristic, press Alt and drag the balloon.

Removing Balloons

You can remove all balloons from a document.

To remove balloons:

  1. Click Remove Balloons .
  2. Confirm that you want to delete all inspection balloons.

Refreshing Balloons

You can refresh balloons if your drawing changed since the last time you ballooned it. When you refresh balloons, items such as the characteristic and value also update.

To refresh balloons:

  1. Click Update Inspection Project .
    New inspection characteristics are highlighted in green. Inspection characteristics that are no longer in the document are highlighted in red.
  2. In the Bill of Characteristics, right-click a characteristic and accept or reject each change individually or accept all annotation changes.

Ballooning Settings PropertyManager

You can modify inspection balloons that SOLIDWORKS Inspection adds to a SOLIDWORKS file in the Ballooning Settings PropertyManager.

To open the Ballooning Settings PropertyManager, click Add/Edit Balloons (SOLIDWORKS Inspection toolbar).

General

To create a separate, ballooned inspection drawing from a SOLIDWORKS drawing, you can save the drawing as a PDF, eDrawings file, or other format. You can share the file independent of SOLIDWORKS.

Attach balloon to characteristic Attaches the balloon to each item extracted from the drawing (characteristic).. When you move the balloon, the dimension characteristic moves with it.
Rotate to match characteristic Rotates the balloon to match the angle of the characteristic.
Active Layer Adds a balloon to the active layer in the drawing.
Use Specific Layer Adds a balloon to a specified layer in the drawing.

Select Use Specific Layer if you want to turn the layer view on or off in SOLIDWORKS to show or hide inspection balloons.

Regular Format

Prefix Specifies a prefix for regular characteristics.
Fit Specifies the number of digits that fit in a regular characteristic balloon.
Shape Specifies the balloon shape for regular characteristics.

Key Characteristic Format

Key characteristics are characteristics whose variation has a significant impact on the quality of the part.

Prefix  
Fit Specifies the number of digits that fit in a key characteristic balloon.
Shape Specifies the balloon shape for key characteristics.

Offsets

You can change default locations individually for each type of characteristic. Offsets are from the upper left corner of the attribute to the upper left corner of the balloon. Offsets can be positive or negative numbers.

Specifies whether to balloon the type of characteristic in the document. When cleared, the characteristic still appears in the inspection report.
X Specifies the X coordinate to change the default location of the balloons.

A negative value for X represents an offset to the left of the attribute identified. A positive value for X represents an offset to the right of the attribute identified.
Y Specifies the Y coordinate to change the default location of the balloons.

A negative value for Y represents an offset to the bottom of the attribute identified. A positive value for Y represents an offset to the top of the attribute identified.

Balloon Sequence PropertyManager

You can use the Balloon Sequence tool to define the balloon numbering sequence in multisheet drawings.

To display this PropertyManager:

Click Balloon Sequence (SOLIDWORKS Inspection toolbar).

Sequence Name Specifies the different balloon sequences to define.
Starting Value Specifies the starting numeric value (whole numbers only) of each balloon sequence.
Add Adds a row to the balloon sequence table.
Delete Removes a selected row from the balloon sequence table.