Choosing the correct projection angle

- [Instructor] When working with SolidWorks drawings, we have to make sure we're choosing the correct projection style, based upon where we happen to be in the world. Now by default, SolidWorks ships and installs with the First Angle projection generally. Now in the U.S. we generally use what's called a Third Angle projection and pretty much the rest of the world uses a First Angle projection. And if you confuse the two, you might get a part built the wrong way. So you want to make sure you're specifying on your drawing which type of projection you're using.

And that you're fully understanding of what it means to actually have a First Angle projection or a Third Angle projection. And that's what hopefully, this is going to clear up. Now, take a look at this part right here. Let's go ahead and open it up. Alright, so over here, on the front side here, we've just got this circle and over here on the right hand side of this part we've got this hexagon, and the very top has this little triangle cutout. Alright, so those are the different options for our part. Now if I go back over here to the drawing, you can see here, here's the front view of that part, and right over here is that hexagon we just looked at.

And what we have here is what's called a Third Angle projection. So the way I was taught this, is if you take this component right here and you think about it like a big mixing bowl, and you take that component and you put it at the bottom of the bowl and you slide it up the bowl to the right hand side, the view you're going to see is this one right over here. It's going to see that little hexagon, all right? And same thing, if you take that part and you roll it up the left hand side of the bowl, you should see the other side. Same thing if you roll it up the top of the bowl, again, you should see the kind of the top of the part, so that's what we call Third Angle projection.

So let me add a couple more projections so you can kind of see what happens. So over here under View Layout, Projection, I'm going to choose and add this projection here. I'm going to go ahead and do it one more time. I'm going to add this projection over here and one more time down here. Okay, so now I've got a projection from every different angle. And now I'm going to switch over to the other style of projection. So I'm going to right click anywhere over here and come down here to Properties and instead of a Third Angle projection, I'm going to switch over to a First Angle projection, apply the changes.

And notice exactly what happened on my drawing? All these views switched over to the other side. Is the part different? No. We're just looking at it and projecting these views in a different way. So wherever you happen to be in the world, you're choosing the correct style of projection, based upon where you are. If you're in the U.S. more than likely, it's going to be a Third Angle projection. Most other places in the world, it's probably going to be a First Angle projection. And just make sure you have that noted on your drawing which style of projection you're using, so that at the end of the day, you're parts come out correctly.