There are various methods for manipulating sketches in SolidWorks. This tutorial will cover the use of the “Scale Entities” and “Modify” tools.  Use the scale entities command for selected or all entities.  The modify command scales the whole sketch, and dimensions are updated. Follow the instructions using the example from the end of the article “How to fully define a sketch in SolidWorks“.

Scale Entities

Begin by right clicking Sketch1 and selecting “Edit Sketch”. For the scale command to work properly, delete the two dimensions in the sketch, because dimensions do not update.  Select “Scale Entities” from the CommandManager. Click the box in the “Entities to Scale” section and select all entities of the sketch.

In the parameters Section select the bottom left corner as the scale point. Use a scale factor of 2.

Use the copy option to retain the original sketch. Selecting two copies will output the original sketch, as well as a scaled copy 2x the original size and another scaled copy to 3x the original size.

SolidWorks displays the preview of the scaled sketch in blue. Click the green check mark to complete the command.

Once complete, re-apply dimensions and sketch constraints to fully define the sketch. Refer to “How to fully define a sketch in SolidWorks” to accomplish this.

Depending on the complexity of the sketch, it may be easier to modify the dimensions to the desired scaled values.

Modify

Sketches with external references cannot be scaled. To use the command, delete the coincident relation at the origin.  In an active sketch, select “Tools” – “Sketch tools” – “Modify…”.  Next, set scale factor to 2, press Enter to complete the command.  This scales the entire sketch and updates existing dimensions.

If the sketch origin is not the point of scaling, use the movable origin (shown in black).  Click and drag to reposition the movable origin.  Once positioned, input the desired scale factor and Press Enter.

Follow the same procedure for sketches of any complexity.