Dear Solidworkers.

I would have posted this thread/ discussion more generally but it applies to all disciplines.

I model in various scale in the precision model locomotive field.  "Toy trains" for big boys.

One technique that really does suit my purpose is to use scaled up picture/drawings brought into a sketched planes so that they may be traced around to give good full size reference sketches for use in subsequent solidworks features.

This produces good full size representation but when the item is scaled down to the particular scale ( eg 4mm to the foot, 7mm to foot, 10mm to the foot  1/32  ) , when one is working in the assemblies created by parts that have been scaling down, we get problems with "zoom to fit" which invariably zooms to extent which takes in the sketches that where created when the model was fullsize.   Hiding sketches has like effect. The solid model vanishes to insignificance and it is tedious and difficult to manipulate via the rotate and zoom functions during further assembly and visualisation.  Your model zooms off, not to be seen again, unless you track it down using individual parts origins.

It would be cool to have another icon "zoom to model" which neglects the sketches and ony zooms on to the solid bodies created, so that the axis of rotation was centred in the centroid of bodies present.

I have been advised by my solidworks provider, to hide all sketches not required, so that I can home in on the solid bodies only. Let us get real, this is solidworks not Autocad Lite.