Solidworks Logo
Kayleigh Telega
When creating your models in SOLIDWORKS there may be occasions when you want to make use of a logo image in your design. For instance you might want to have your company logo engraved or embossed on your model, or create a 3D model of your logo for sales and marketing.
The challenge is converting a bitmap image file (could be a JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, or another type of bitmap) into a vector file that you can generate sketch entities from and then create a solid or surface body.
In a previous post we demonstrated the SOLIDWORKS Autotrace Add-in, which allows you to insert a bitmap picture into your sketch and then automatically trace over it to create your sketch entities. Here is a quick summary of how to do that:
In this example the results were not that great, you can see in the image below that the sketch outline has captured the basic form of the logo and the sketch is comprised of lines and splines. So some tidy up and adjustment to the sketch is required.
NOTE: You can also apply the sketch trace over multiple passes if it makes sense, e.g. to capture the internal area of objects. Learn more about using AutoTrace effectively in this blog post
Every few years we undergo a redesign of our logos and certificate backgrounds which is done to keep them looking fresh. This week we released the latest version of both the certification logos, and the certificate backgrounds.
New logos are available to everyone that has passed one of our certification exams, and the new style backgrounds are available to those who have passed a certification exam in the last year or so. See the attached document that explains how you can download these new items. In the meantime, here are some sample shots of the new designs:
The SolidWorks text-based logo looks simple and light, yet pretty modern and elegant. Composed of a wordmark with an emblem on its left, the logo uses only one color in its palette and three different typefaces.
When working in drawing mode, we can simply select INSERT>PICTURE and add our company logo to the title block. This works great and is a simple process to follow. When using this method, we occasionally run into issues downstream.
After creating this we can exit this sketch and begin a second new sketch on same plane. We can use the command TOOLS>SKETCH TOOLS>SKETCH PICTURE to insert our company logo, as shown in the following image.
In this new sketch, our goal is to capture and convert the existing logo image into a SOLIDWORKS sketch. This often means working with splines, which we can see in the image above. We want to try to get as close to the original logo as possible. Splines are a great tool to use for shapes that have a lot of curvature. We are now finished with the first section of our company logo, so we exit the sketch.
In the above image we can see that we start by using the SKETCHED TEXT command. It can be very helpful to use a construction line and dimensions to define the location of the text. This will give us the ability to make some subtle adjustments to the font size and location, until we get pretty close to a match, as shown in the above image.
We now have our sketch text looking pretty close to the original company logo, but now we need to do some fine-tuning. To accomplish this, we can do a right mouse button click on the sketch text and choose DISSOLVE SKETCH TEXT, as shown in the following image.
Using dissolve sketch text actually helps us with two areas of this process. Once the text is dissolved, it becomes individual lines, arcs and splines. This means we can fine-tune the text to match our company logo.
Being able to fine-tune our text is a huge benefit of using the dissolve sketch text command. The other advantage of using the dissolve sketch text command is that we can now use this text geometry in downstream operations where sketch text cannot be used. The most common tool where this will become an issue is the CONVERT ENTITIES command in sketch mode. When we have sketch text in an earlier sketch, we cannot select this sketched text for a convert entities command. This is a limitation of the software. We can convert sketch text that has been dissolved. This will be very useful when working with company logos.
In the above image we can see that the sketch text was created and positioned so that it is a close match to the original logo. We then dissolved the sketch text and added the final touches to get it to match the original logo more accurately.
Now that we have our entire company logo in one single sketch, we want to be able to easily use and reuse this logo. One of the best ways I have found to accomplish this is to create a sketch block using the command TOOLS>BLOCKS>MAKE.
To turn our logo into the block shown in the above image, we can do a window select and select all of the entities in our sketch (the entire company logo). We can then choose TOOLS>BLOCKS>MAKE. This will take all of our selected entities and turn them into a sketch block.
To add our block to the design library, we can start by selecting our block from the SOLIDWORKS feature tree. We can then go into the TASK PANE, the tabs on the right side of the screen, and choose the DESIGN LIBRARY.We then choose the folder where we want to store the block.In the above image, we have chosen the ANNOTATIONS folder. We then choose the icon for ADD TO LIBRARY, and we finish by giving the block a name.
The logo looks great in our title block. We can add some shading to it if we want it solid and, of course, when we export this to a DXF or DWG, we can be confident that the sketch block will come through to the DXF as expected.
In the above image we can see that the process starts with us opening the 3D solid model of our neck plate. We then drag and drop our company logo from the SOLIDWORKS design library onto a planar face of our model.This creates a new 2D sketch. Our logo is added, as a block, to this 2D sketch.
When it comes to working with a company logo in SOLIDWORKS, there are a number of different tools we can use. We can add the logo as an image, either in our drawing title block or in our model as a decal. There are some limitations when we use embedded images in SOLIDWORKS projects.
Instead, we can consider taking a company logo and turning it into a true sketch. This often means importing the logo as an image and taking some time and care to properly recreate the company logo as a SOLIDWORKS sketch. Once we have the logo converted into a single sketch, we can use the TOOLS>BLOCKS>MAKE command to create a sketch block and add this sketch block to our design library. This block can then be easily used and re-used on future projects. We can insert this block into the title block of a drawing or use the block as a sketch geometry in a 3D feature on our model.
Toby Schnaars is a Certified SOLIDWORKS Expert from Philadelphia, Pa. He has been working with SOLIDWORKS software since 1998 and has been providing training, technical support, and tips and tricks since 2001.
When designing parts in SOLIDWORKS and documenting them in drawings, it is often necessary to display a company logo. Perhaps you need to put together some product reviews for marketing, maybe your drawing will be used to determine the position of screen printing on a part, or, maybe, you're just looking to spruce up your drawings with your company logo. In this article, learn three different methods for adding images and inserting logos into SOLIDWORKS parts and drawings.
Our video guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to bring a vector graphics logo from Adobe Illustrator into SolidWorks. Whether you're a seasoned SolidWorks user or just getting started, our tips will help you streamline your design process and save time. So why not check out our guide and take your designs to the next level?
Step 1: Prepare the logo
Start out with the logo in Illustrator on a layer. It's important for the line work to be expanded, which means that it's just paths and there's no text or groups. Some time at this stage preparing your assets will certainly pay off layer. You can use the Pathfinder tool (Windows > Pathfinder) to combine artwork together, and Edit > Expand to expand out Text and brush strokes.
The first, and most important step, is to select the paths of your logo and remove the fill and strokes. This makes the artwork invisible but you can use Ctrl + Y to show outlines. It's important to remove fills and paths because they will transfer through the exported DXF and cause all sorts of issues later on in SolidWorks. When your work is just outlines it generally gives nice clean artwork.
Sometimes it's also helpful to draw two centerlines that will give some reference geometry for positioning the logo later on. It depends on the logo and the destination part.
Export the file from Adobe Illustrator as a DXF
Go to File > Export > Export As, select a location and choose DXF as the file format.
The default settings should work but make sure that you're setting the document units to the same units as your file. We're working in millimetres here, but if you model in meters, feet or inches, set appropriately otherwise your logo may come in hundreds or thousands of times too large or small.
Conclusion
There are a few little tricks to getting a logo from Illustrator to SolidWorks. Generally, the best tip is to remove fills and strokes in Illustrator before converting to a DXF and then opening up the DXF as a new SolidWorks Drawing. Once it's open as a drawing you can easily use Make Block and Save Block to create reusable engineering assets for a brand's product line.
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