BALLOON PLACEMENT

[jkcone]

Hello,
Is there a way to have all the balloons (ID Symbols) automatically be placed a certain distance outside a views border?
I'm using Auto Balloon in NX6.

James

 

[uwam2ie]

no.
I help myself to create a curve regtangle -
position the id symbols to the lines -
delete them

 

[JohnRBaker]

Why do you wish to do this? What advantage would be gained if the system were able to do this, other than avoiding having to do it manually?

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.

 

[jkcone]

Some of my drawing views have a lot of ID Symbols. Some of them are so close to the target component the Symbol circle looks like it touches the component & or the arrow head. Not having to rearrange all of them would save some significant time.

James

 

[JohnRBaker]

Part of the 'problem' is that the ID Symbols are being placed on the Drawing sheet itself with no regard what-so-ever for the views other than they being the place where the Assembly's Components are visible. The view boundaries are arbitrary and can be made to be any size desired and will in fact automatically update (change size) as the size of the items contained within a view changes due to editing or movement relative to other Components.

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.

 

[jkcone]

John,
Forgive me if I'm being thick-headed but am I understanding this correctly...there's no way to have these ID Symbols automatically placed a little further away from the closest component?

James

 

[JohnRBaker]

The algorithm used to determine the origin of an automatically placed ID Symbol, relative to the item it references, is under the exclusive control of the application software. There are no user settable options or parameters which will effect the codes behavior.

The intention is to try and place the ID's as close as practical to the item being referenced but without them interfering with other annotation or any of the other components in the Drawing view. Granted, as the Component count goes up, this can become very difficult to accomplish consistently, but that's the goal.

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.

 

[jkcone]

Thanks John that definitely answers my question.

I'd like to ask another ID Symbol related question. Is there a way to have a component be excluded & not ballooned during the auto ballooning but still be included in the parts list? I use the "PLIST_IGNORE_MEMBER" part attribute to have items excluded from the parts list. Is there anything similar but for ballooning?

James

 

[JohnRBaker]

Not that I'm aware of. The best that you can do is to either add them all on automatically and manually delete the ones you don't want, or reverse the procedure and only create manually the ones desired.

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.

 

[jkcone]

Thanks uwam2ie & John for your help.

James

 

[jkcone]

Okay, can I ask another weird "balloon" question.
Can the attribute which the system reads to fill in the ID Symbol circle have characters (other than what will be shown)which would change/drive the font size to something smaller than the system settings? The "systems settings" being "Preferences/Lettering/Character Size/.250".

James

 

[JohnRBaker]

Again, nothing that I'm aware of, at least not without some programming, possibly utilizing KF.

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.

 

[jkcone]

Thanks again John.

 

[DMiller01]

All this talk of balloons has me asking why the software allows any balloon to be attached to any component. This requires extra caution when moving balloons from one instance of a component to another. Can the system be set only to allow a balloon to attach to a correct component?

What is the logic to removing this level of intellegence?



I am using 7.5.2.5 NATIVE on Dell with windows XP OS

 

[JohnRBaker]

Not sure what you're talking about. Besides, if you really do move an ID symbol from one component to a different one, I think you will find that when the parts list is next updated that the ID letters will be properly updated.

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.

 

[DMiller01]

John,

I just tested one of my assembly drawings. I removed all existing balloons and then selected auto balloon from the menu system. The iso view on the sheet was updated with a balloon for each of the components in the assembly. One of the balloons is attached to a gusset on the backside of the assembly which is not fully visible in the view. I reattached the balloon leader to an identical gusset on the front side of the assembly.

However the system will allow me to attach the balloon identifying a gusset in the assembly to any of the components. I attached the gusset balloon to the base plate and then updated the parts list. No change in parts list or balloon placement. I in fact reattached all the balloons to the base plate and updated the parts list. No change.

I would not purposely attach balloons to the wrong component but it can very easily happen by accident. In some large assemblies it is sometimes hard to determine what part the balloon is really attached to. The fact that balloons can be attached to the wrong component at times undermines my confidence in assembly drawings. I have to go thru the parts list and verify that the balloons are attached correctly. Not fun.

It is hard to believe that this is really how the software is suppose to function. My first assumption is that I have a setting wrong or I am doing something else wrong. Am I reattaching balloons incorrectly? I double click on the leader and choose another terminating object.

I should mention that the drawing in in the assembly file. I know master model is the preferred method. I am seriously contemplating using a separate drawing file but I'm not there yet.

Any light you can shed on this is appreciated.

I am using 7.5.2.5 NATIVE on Dell with windows XP OS

 

[JohnRBaker]

OK, try this instead. Delete the ID Symbol which you feel was not suitable and manualy create a NEW ID Symbol, attaching it to where you would like it to be but leaving the callout blank. NOW go back to your Parts List and do an Update.

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.

 

[JJL79]

JohnRBaker, i tried your instructions for creating ID symbol manualy and then do an Update on the Parts List. Does not work.

Im having problem with autoballoon not balloning all the parts in a view when i rightclick the view and click autoballoon. Thats why i wanted to try your manual instructions.

I have this problem in broken views.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I have not tested this with borken views, however you should be aware that we have totally reimplemented Broken Views in the next version of NX and perhaps this will correct any issues which people are currently having with Broken Views relative to other functions. However, in the meantime, perhaps you should contact GTAC with this issue since it should have worked as I described and if it does prove to be unique to Broken Views, they may be able to test this to see if the recent work that we have done may have solved this issue as well.

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.

 

[Toost]

A little clarification might help here:
Automatic ballons do NOT change the number if re-attached.
Manual ballons change the number if re-attached. ( on update partslist)
I have found no option to highligt the difference on which ballon is automatic / manual.

Note, that if you RMB the partslist ( instead of the view) you can select multiple views for NX to create the ballons in, it usually helps on the question where leaders get attached to almost invisible objects, or ballons missing.

Regards,
Tomas