Sketching-Path Lenth Dimension (New in SolidWorks 2014)

Path Length Dimension

You can set a path length dimension to a chain of sketch entities. You can set the dimension to be a driving dimension, so that when you drag the entities, the path length resizes consistently. The path length dimension can help constrain belt and chain assemblies or pulley systems.

You can reference this dimension in custom properties, configurations, equations, or tables, including design tables and BOMs.

Click Tools > Dimensions > Path Length or select it from the Smart Dimension command located on the Sketch toolbar as shown below.

Now we can right click on the sketch entity and select chain or pick directly from the graphics area the entities we want to select for Path Dimension.

As shown below we get the Path Length dimension.

Once we have the dimension we can round it off to the nearest value or even change the value.

Setting a Fixed Length Spline

You can set a dimension to fix the length of a spline as shown below. You can reference this dimension in custom properties, configurations, equations, and tables, including design tables and BOMs. Previously, you could not dimension splines to a fixed length.