I was wondering what the curvature mode shows you precisely, in the help file it is somewhat explained:

"You can display a part or assembly with the surfaces rendered in different  colors according to the local radius of curvature. Curvature is defined as the  reciprocal of the radius (1/radius), in current model units. By default, the  greatest curvature value displayed is 1.0000, and the smallest value is  0.0010."

Some other programs use different terms, and have a few different modes of showing curvature with colours.

"Alias help file:

• Mean –  Average the two principal curvatures at each point  on the surface.
• Gaussian –  Multiply the two principal curvatures at each point  on the surface.
• Principal Min/Principal Max –  Use the minimum or  maximum curvature values (that is, the curvature of the steepest or flattest curves that pass through each point).

Mean or Gaussian curvature is most useful for detecting surface  irregularities.

Principal Min or Max curvature is most useful for detecting inflection points."

Now...which of all these terms relates closest to what Solidworks is using?

and what do these all even really mean?