SolidWorks 2009 has so many great new features it's hard for me to pick a favorite, but one of them has to be the Magnifying Glass. Simply put, the Magnifying Glass lets me zoom into any area of my model and easily make selections for commands such as Mate.
Using the G key, I placed the Magnifying Glass over the model view, then used the zoom wheel to make the glass area zoom to a point where I could easily select two faces of the gears using Ctrl-select
The great thing about the Magnifying Glass is that it gives me independent zoom inside the glass area, but I can easily move the glass around and rotate the model. The glass stay put on screen, wherever I leave it, and I can follow the model under the glass as I rotate the view.
See that as the model view rotates, the Magnifying Glass holds zoom level and position.
I can even section the model in the glass area only, letting me cut through to easily select hidden faces.
Here, I used the Alt key in conjunction with the zoom wheel to cut my view plane back into the model, revealing a hidden face I wanted to select.
The glass disappears after I've made a selection, which is great for quick-zoom-selects. However, selecting while holding down Ctrl keeps the glass on screen so I can pick more than one item or toggle selections. I simply hit Esc when I want the glass to go away.
I find myself using this tool often; like most new tools, I just have to remember it's there!
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