Best "Out of the Box" Font Set in NX5 for ALL Latin Languages?

[MSawtell]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Working on nameplates for multinational customers in the Americas and Europe - and I am at a lost to know which standard font set in NX5, that comes with the initial install, that covers all the Latin based languages. I need German Umlats, Spanish Tildes, French Accents, etc.

Anybody has an answer?

 

[JohnRBaker]

Now when you say 'nameplates' are you talking about modeling them, as with geometric curves, or are you just talking about adding a text string as part of a notation on a drawing?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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.

 

[MSawtell]

Sorry for the delay in this response - but what I am talking about is modelling the 3D nameplate - then using the 3D Text Tool to mark the surface of the nameplate with the correct writing. Also, it seems that the area fill for the 3D text is not always 100% - especially for 6, 9, and some letters. I have had to export the curves of the letters in a cgm file, then do a join function, then fill. Once done, I cgm the file again - to import back into the original file. Not bad if the nameplate is static, but when revisions are applied, trouble occurs.

 

[JohnRBaker]

What TrueType font are you having problems with? Note that we are not responsible for the quality of the curves which are generated since we are using the data as is, but if we knew there were problems with a particular font we could at least look at it to see if something jumps out at us.

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

 

[MSawtell]

For the record, it was O, b, p, 0, 4, 6, 8, 9 that we had issues with at 3/8" Size.

Font: Arial Unicode MS
Script: Western
Font Style: Regular

I have uploaded the test file as an attachment to this post - please let me know if you have any ideas.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I had no problems creating the area fills for the missing letters/numerals (see attached file). The only difference is that I'm running the latest MR for NX 5, NX 5.0.6.3, which is available for download.

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

 

[MSawtell]

Let me talk with our system folks, and see what patch level we are at.

 

[MSawtell]

Nuts - we are working with 5.0.3.2

As for the patches - not my place to say about when they are going to be done.

Thanks for the help John!

 

[JohnRBaker]

Just start a session and go to...

Help -> About NX{/b]

...and when the dialog comes up select the 'System Information' button. This should give you everything you need to know.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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]

Just for the record, an MR (Maintenance Release) is not considered a 'patch' but rather an update since it can include enhancements as well as bug fixes. An MP (Maintenance Pack) is considered more of a 'patch' since it will contain ONLY bug fixes for specific problems and therefore is not automatically made available to all customers, but generally only those who have reported PR's which are addressed by that particular MP, whereas MR's are distributed using the same mechanism and procedures as would a regular 'full release'.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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]

MSawtell. I have ran across this before. On those text characters, when you are applying the area fill crosshatching, select the outer spline, then click New Boundary, and then select the inner spline and hit Apply. I am waiting for the day when the text can be filled as you apply it (rather than it being hollow). It is very time consuming to make labels and nameplates the way it works now.

 

[MSawtell]

BOP, you are a lifesaver! The process may be slow, but it is dynamic, so I can make edits without having to do exports, thanks!

 

[JohnRBaker]

If you're not interested in 'Geometric Text' but rather just Drafting text with filled characters, I have a bit of 'freeware' which one of our people developed, which among other things, will allow you to open a TrueType font, add fill lines to it, and then save it as an NX Font for use in the NX Drafting application.

If you're interested I've attached a copy (edit the file extension from .zipper to .zip before attempting to extract the files). Note that there is a very good document included which explains how to use this slick piece of the software.

Note that long term, we intend to support TrueType fonts directly inside of NX as if they were regular NX fonts, but until then, this tool might help some users who have a need for something like this now.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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]

This is good news for drafting John. In this case I am refering to having the Geometric Text in the modeling filled as it is applied on a face.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Yes, but the point is that 'filled text' is purely a visual issue and generally has no place in a modeling application. And if you're talking about photo-rendering the results, the approaches used for filling areas aren't generally compatible, to say nothing of the curves themselves, when rendering high-quality images of a model. In those cases it's better to create either solid text and assign face colors/textures or at least bounded planes and doing the same.

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

 

[MSawtell]

Actually Folks - the question of area filled text comes into play when the parts are being manufactured by a third party, with another CAD/CAM/Graphics package. Unless the contact or the design requirements spell out the details on how to mark the verbage on the part, strange results do occur. Without performing the Area Fill before the translation, or stating in the drawing to area fill, the manufacture will mark the outlines of the letters, with could have poor contrast to the base color of the sign or part.

 

[hudson888]

What are you doing in that case pray tell? It sound like what you're describing is a circumstance where by convention the manufacturer receives curves in the file to describe text that is to be machined and that if the text is filled then he embosses the body of the lettering not just the outline.

In the spirit of simply exchanging ideas what we do is simply 3D model what we expect on the final part. There's no doubt there then. We leave some curves on a layer if requested, and we let the manufacturing or toolmaking people sort it out for themselves.

Best Regards

Hudson

www.jamb.com.au

Nil Desperandum illegitimi non carborundum

 

[MSawtell]

Hudson - caulk it up to a couple of issues - One, an age old disconnect between product and tooling - Two, working with a company that has been around long enough to have a series of drawings (which are still viable to manufacture) that were done in several different styles, from manual to latest CAD Package.

As it stands with these two caveats - it becomes less a matter of tools used and more of documenting procedures. The JPEG is a stripped down example of what my company is in the process of writing to cover the caveats.

 

[hudson888]

Things change over time and as technology progresses to some extent procedure can be supplanted by the use of a specific geometry suited to a particular manufacturing technique. Whenever possible it probably helps going forwards.

What other companies struggling with issues in the same vein have come up with is a touch it fix it approach whereby unless you re-issue a drawing for manufacture you don't update the data, and if you do want to take advantage of modernising your processes then you modify and re-issue the design. The idea is that you keep it simple and you don't have to waste time re-doing work that you're never going to use. In some sense of the word it involves supplanting one procedure with another, but any time the procedural elements are moved closer to where the decision making occurs the shorter the lines of communication and the fewer mistakes are made.

Best Regards

Hudson

www.jamb.com.au

Nil Desperandum illegitimi non carborundum