SolidWorks Tutorial 9: Ellipse Sketching Tool

Do you know how to do ellipse sketching in Solidworks? You know about the Ellipse shape very well. Here I give small idea about Ellipse. It is a curve on plane having two focal distances and also the sum of the focal lengths is constant for all the points on the curve. To obtain an ellipse you need to cut a cone using and inclined plane. To know more about ellipse click here.

In Solidworks sketch tools, there are two types of ellipse. One is ordinary ellipse and other is a partial ellipse. Partial ellipse is not fully closed like ordinary ones. Here you are going too see how to draw an ellipse and partial ellipse on solidworks graphic area.

Note: This is just tutorial showing how to use ellipse sketching tool, not showing any product drawing or designing in it. If you are advanced SolidWorks user please avoid it. This Solidworks tutorial is for beginners, students or people likes to learn about SolidWorks.

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Related SolidWorks Sketch Tools Tutorials:-

How to Create Ellipse using Ellipse Sketching

Note: You can control the dimension by using “Ellipse Property manager” or using “Smart Dimension Tool”

Step 1

Open the Solidworks and New part File. If you don’t know it, read How to Create New Part File. Select the Plane (e.g. Top Plane) and normalize using the “Normal To” Button. Also  read solidworks heads-up toolbar on this blog.

Step 2

You can select the “ellipse sketching tool” from the command manager or using menubar also shown below.

Or

By using Menu bar

Go to “Tools” menu and from drop down menu select the “Sketch Entities”. Then you see side drop down menu, select the “Ellipse” tool by clicking on it.

Tools -> Sketch Entities -> Ellipse

Step 3

Then drag your mouse pointer to the graphics interface and click on the mouse button to select the Center of the ellipse (Point 1) is shown in the figure.

After that move your mouse to sidewards to set the end point length of ellipse (Point 2).

Move your pointer to upwards to select the height of the ellipse from the center (Point 3).

This way you can complete the ellipse sketching and adjust the dimensions by using “Smart dimension” or “property menu”.

SolidWorks Tutorial 9: How to Draw Partial Ellipse

Step 1

Select the any plane “Top Plane” (follow the step 1 in the above ellipse tutorial).

Step 2

Select the partial ellipse from the command manager I shown in the image.

Step 3

Drag your mouse pointer to the sketch area and click on the left mouse button to select the center of the partial ellipse (point 1).

Then move to sidewards to select the length of the partial ellipse (point 2).

Move pointer upward to select the height of the partial ellipse and represented as point 3.

Rotate the sketch by moving pointer around it to select the point 4 and this way you can complete the partial ellipse sketching.

Additional Info: Ellipse Property Manager

Options: It contains “For construction” option helps to show the sketch entity in construction.

Parameters: In this section you can change the ellipse center by adjusting the X and Y dimensions. Then you can adjust the horizontal distance and vertical distance from the center point of the ellipse.

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