When working within the assembly environment in SOLIDWORKS, I often find myself hiding and showing components to look at different aspects of an assembly. In a large number of cases, I will un-hide the components and begin working again, only to find that I need to see that view again and must re-hide the components… which wastes time.
Snapshots in SOLIDWORKS provide a way of capturing locations within an assembly that I would like to get back to quickly. It lets you not only remember the assembly view but also remember which components were hidden at that moment. To take this feature even further, you can add comments to the snapshot; this may allow you to make note of areas you want reviewed or where you have continued work you would like to be completed.
Viewing Snapshots
Snapshots will reside on the display manager tab in a folder titled, “Snapshots.” Activating a snapshot is done by double clicking on it or right clicking and choosing select.
Creating Snapshots
There are three ways to create a snapshot.
1. Add Take Snapshot command to any Toolbar
2. Right click Snapshot folder and select Take Snapshot.
3. Alt+Spacebar
Snapshot Comments
Once a snapshot is created, we can add the comments by right clicking and selecting add comment. There is a limit to 140 characters. Viewing the comments are easy, just hover over the Snapshot and you will get a preview and the comment just below.
