For the purpose of tolerance and interference checking, as the end step of making a generic part I would like to have a single feature which grows the entire part or selected faces of the part by some amount. Essentially what "offset entities" 
does for sketches, but in 3D. A surface "offset" 
is almost exactly what I'm looking for, but its not a solid, and it creates gaps at sharp corners. Does SW 2017 have this functionality?
Im on Windows 10, SW 2017.
Chris,
There is a tool in SOLIDWORKS for checking tolerances called Inspection which would do a better job of checking tolerances, however it is an additional purchase. If you would just like to grow the part by some amount, the SCALE
feature will uniformly grow your entire part by some amount.
Hope that helps!
- Jacob
Hi Chris,
There is a feature in the program called "Thicken" (found under 'Insert', 'Boss/Base', 'Thicken') that would take a surface body and add thickness to it. If you have modeled entirely in surfaces then this would be the only final step you need. If you have a solid model though you would probably need to create an Offset Surface set to zero value then thicken that zero offset surface to have the same effect.
Hi Chris,
Similar to offset in sketch there is 'move face' command for solid bodies and surfaces.
For solid bodies it'll offset the surface and fill up the gap.
Hi Chris,
Similar to offset in sketch there is 'move face' command for solid bodies and surfaces.
For solid bodies it'll offset the surface and fill up the gap.