How To Insert Image In Solidworks Drawing

Score with SOLIDWORKS: Part I – Sketch Pictures

You may be designing a part in SOLIDWORKS based on an existing product or even a sketch that someone has done. Within SOLIDWORKS you can insert a picture within a sketch to use it as a basis to draw around.

You can insert the following picture formats:

Bitmap (.bmp)
Graphics Interchange Format (.Gif)
Jpeg Image Files (jpg, Jpeg)
Tiff (.tif, .tiff)
WMF (.wmf)
Portable Network Graphics Files (.png)
Adobe Photoshop Files (.psd)

For this first part of our Score with SOLIDWORKS series we will be using a sketch picture to create a football mannequin training aid. This will then be used in subsequent blog entries to show you other hints and tips and useful information.

The original Image is as follows:

Mannequin

Using a sketch picture we can trace around this image, then build it into a 3D model using standard SOLIDWORKS features.

1. Start a new sketch

2. Go to Tools – Sketch Tools – Insert Sketch Picture and browse for the picture you want to put in.

3. Your picture will be inserted and the sketch Picture property manager will appear on the left hand side.

Sketch Picture

4. Once inserted you can move it around either using the coordinates in the property manager or by dragging the picture in the graphics area. You can also scale the picture using a combination of the drag handles, property manager and scale tool (see our previous What's New 2014 Webinar for further information on the scale tool).

5. You also have several transparency options which can be set within the property manager.

None – Use no Transparency Attributes
From File – if using a file that has transparency in it (for example a png) use this.
Full Image – Select to set the whole image transparent
User Define – Allows you to select a color from the image, define a tolerance level for that color, and apply a transparency level to the image.

Sketch Picture Property Manager

In our example we have inserted a PNG, so I am using the from file option as it already had an alpha channel defined.

6. Once you click OK, the picture is inserted, we can now sketch on top of it and start building our features! I primarily used weldment features to turn our 2D sketch image into a fully 3D SOLIDWORKS part.

TIP: If you don't want to see the sketch picture anymore you can either suppress the picture or hide the whole Sketch.

It is worth noting that pictures are embedded in the document (not linked). If you change the original image, the sketch picture does not update!

So there you have it, sketch pictures allow you to create your sketches based on an existing picture. Keep following our blog to see some more great SOLIDWORKS features put to use in our Score with SOLIDWORKS Special.

Sketch Picture Gif