SolidWorks wave 1: sketch tools, draft, rib, reference geometry, interference, section views

Sketch: straight slots, polygons (6 sides by default) and tangent arcs (press A while drawing lines). Trim cuts a piece back to its nearest crossings. Offset copies a chain at a distance driven by one dimension. Sketch fillet rounds a corner and trims both lines. Each adds the relations SolidWorks adds, so the degrees of freedom stay right.

Features: Draft tapers faces about a neutral plane (a 40 × 40 × 20 block at 5° comes out at the exact frustum, 29,282 mm³). Rib makes a wall from an open sketch line and extends it until it meets the part.

Reference geometry: planes offset from, at an angle to, through 3 points of, or parallel to existing geometry, and axes through two points, along an edge, down a cylinder or where two planes meet. They follow upstream edits, you can sketch on the planes, and Revolve, Circular pattern and Mirror can use them.

Interference detection (Shift+I, or Interference in the dock) checks every visible part against every other with exact solid intersections. It lists each pair that shares volume, largest first, and draws the overlap in red. Coincident faces count as touching, and fasteners and hidden parts can be left out.

Drawings: decks and sets of 5 or more sheets get a sheet with Section A-A (cutting line with arrows, cut faces hatched at 45°) and a circled Detail B at 2:1 or more. The deck grows to 11 sheets so nothing is dropped.

To keep the bars to one row, related commands share flyouts as in SolidWorks: Rectangle, Arc, Patterns and Reference geometry. Exit sketch and Cancel are in the PropertyManager.