I am trying to make a drawing in solidworks, with a view normal to plane offset from the top surface and at a 45 degree angle from the surface.
Here is an image showing my model with the plane. Sorry if the orientation of the view is weird from my screenshot.
I am using Solidworks 2019-2020.
Yes.
You need to use the "Auxilliary View" tool, but, this is only able to accept an 'edge' as an input, so you can't use a plane.
Usually, one would use this to create a 'view looking at a face', but in your case, there is no such face, and so no edge in the drawing view to select.
The workaround for this is to create a sketch entity, set perpendicular to your holes, and use that to define the Aux View. The sketch line will be consumed by the Aux View and disappear.
See the .gif below illustrating the method.
I'm too late for the OP, but perhaps this will help someone who finds this in search. You are looking for Insert > Drawing View > Relative To Model. This option will allow you to manipulate the 3D model in another window and select a plane to make the view normal to.
I use this a lot with injection molded parts where the overall product is done with a top-down approach so that the origin of each individual part is at an arbitration location and orientation. Then for the drawing I make the views relative to the pull direction of the part.
If you search the Solidworks Help for a "Relative View", you'll find any necessary details.
Another option is to make a "saved view" in the model that has your desired orientation, and then do the drawing w.r.t. this saved view.
There are pros and cons to both. The "relative to model" option updates parametrically, so if something in your model changes, the view should re-orient automatically. However it can't be "editted". You're stuck with the original definition and you can't even view what is was. It also can't be reused (other than by copy and paste).
The "saved view" option does not update parametrically, so you have to remember to manually update the "saved view" orientation if something about model changes such that the view orientation should be correspondingly updated. But unlike the Relative-to-Model option, you can effectively edit/update this sort of view by overwriting the saved view in the part/assy model.
