Arrangements in Drawing Views 4

[Jamziee]

Hi All,

I've just managed to work out how to use 'arrangements' in assemblies in the modelling environment.

I have a component shown in 3 different positions. Is it possible to show the three different arrangements in one view in drafting? I've be trying for the last few hours and searched all the online help guides, but still no luck!

Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

- Andy.

---------------------
(Using: UG NX6)
Design Engineer

 

[cowski]

No, but you can make 3 separate views and place them all on the same sheet.

 

[BOPdesigner]

Be careful with this. Last I tried it when I would switch to the next arrangement, my existing drafting views created with the previous arrangement did not persist, they changed to the new arrangement. I found it easier to create exploded views in the drawing file to mimic the different arrangements instead.

 

[JohnRBaker]

There were some issues with this a while back, but they've been resolved in recent releases.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Jamziee]

Thanks for your help.

I've read elsewhere the use of exploded views. But it seemed a little involved when I don't actually want an exploded view. There are several of these assemblies we have to prepare over the course of any one project.

I realise it's a complex thing to achieve, but it's such a shame that NX has the functionality of assy arrangements but no easy way of showing them in drafting. I would imagine that for some companies this would be quite a common thing to show in assy drawings.

I guess I'll have to look into the exploded views.

Many thanks,

Andy.

---------------------
(Using: UG NX6)
Design Engineer

 

[JohnRBaker]

The recommended approach is to use Arrangements for the type of situation you describe. If you use Exploded Views you could eventually run into other issues which will be much harder to workaround.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[BOPdesigner]

I recommend doing some quick experiments. I just did in NX 6.0.2.8 and I could not get existing views to maintain the arrangement that they were placed with as I switched arrangements to place the next view. You will notice that when you are creating the drawing view, there is an option to select which arrangement to use. The dropdown lists the arrangements that exist at the master model level (parent only). Is there anyway to switch arrangements in a drafting view after the view has been placed? How to you make the views stick (ie. maintain their arrangement state when the view was placed)?

 

[JohnRBaker]

Apparently there is some confusion about Arrangements and what shows up on your Drawing.

To start with, irrespective of which Arrangement you may be looking at in the Assembly, when you make a Drawing of that Assembly using the Master Model mode (particularly when using Drawing templates), the Drawing will show the 'Default' Arrangement. Also note that this will be the Arrangement that is used to compute the Parts List.

Now once you have a Drawing created (and I'm talking about the original 'Base View' and any projected views you may created relative to that original Base View) you can edit which Arrangement is being shown using the Assembly Navigator and both the Drawing views and the Parts List will update correctly and this situation will NOT change even if the new Arrangement is still NOT been set as the 'Default' Arrangement back in the Master Assembly Model. Once created, the drawing will retain what it it you wanted even if you change Arrangements later.

Now for any secondary views added. Once you have the original 'Base View' on your drawing and you decide that you would like to add some secondary views showing perhaps the alternative Arrangements, you add another Base View but you MUST at time decide which Arrangement that you wish to see since once placed, you can NOT edit the Arrangement shown in this secondary view, therefore this is when you use the option of defining the Arrangement as you are adding the view. Note that you can add as many secondary views by reusing the Add Base View function, which will allow you to select a unique Arrangement for each new secondary view.

Anyway, I hope this clears things up a bit.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[JohnRBaker]

An additional comment.

If you're not using a Drawing template and you're placing the original 'Base View' manually, do NOT switch Arrangements while in the Add Base View dialog if you are going to also be adding a Parts List as they may not agree. My advise is that if you wish to use a specific Arrangement for your Assembly Drawing either make that Arrangement the Default in the Master Assembly Model BEFORE creating the Drawing or else after creating a Drawing where you accepted the Default Arrangement (even if it was not what you wanted), while in the Drawing file, edit the Arrangement using the Assembly Navigator and then update your Drawing views. This procedure will assure that the content of the Parts List represents the Arrangement seen in the Drawing views.

Now the above comments ONLY applies to the ORIGINAL 'Base View' placed on the Drawing and any views created which references that view, such as Projections and Detail views.

Again, I hope this clarifies things.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[BOPdesigner]

I think I get it. Thanks for the explaination of how this works John. So in a nutshell:
1) The primary base view and its associated projected views will update to whatever arrangement you have currently applied in the assembly. (Useful for the cases when you want to views to match the current arrangement)
2) Any secondary base views will retain the assembly arrangement that was selected from the arrangement list in the base view dialog at the time of creation. (Useful for the cases when you want the views to maintain the arrangement state they were created with)

Attached is a simple example that illustrates this (NX 6). Open box_dwg and then from the ANT, change the assembly arrangements of the box to see the behavoir.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I think he's got it!

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.