Centerline Plane 1

[metman]

The following instruction (in quotes)is given in the tutor:

"Mirror Copy Feature

During the Plane Step of the Mirror Copy Feature command, you specify the plane of symmetry for the new mirrored feature. Because there is no plane through the center of the part, you must create a parallel copy of an existing reference plane there.
On the ribbon bar, click the Parallel Plane option.



Select the front reference plane, as shown in the illustration. You will create a parallel copy of this plane at the center of the part.


On the ribbon bar, click the Keypoints button, then set the Midpoint option.


Position the cursor near the center of the part, as shown in the top illustration. When the midpoint relationship indicator is displayed, click. "

I can create the plane during the mirror feature creation and then edit the position of the plane later by manually typing in the center distance. "When the midpoint relationship indicator is displayed, click." This indicator does not appear except sometimes when drug over or near the feature to be mirrored but not anywhere near the centerline.

Ideas anyone?

 

[fwc]

Hi

I think you need to activate the part first.


Regards

fwc

 

[metman]

Not sure what you mean by activate. I should think it to be active since this is during construction of the model. It starts with a sketch, has me protrude it, cutout thin feature, model rib, mirror rib...

 

[fwc]

Please ignore the post as I thought you are working with an Assembly.

Have you tried moving the cursor towards the middle of the centerline?

HTH

fwc

 

[metman]

Yep,

This indicator does not appear except sometimes when drug over or near the feature to be mirrored but not when drug anywhere near the centerline.

I undid the mirror and symmetry plane functions several times, went through the steps listed in the initial post of this thread including On the ribbon bar, click the Keypoints button, then set the Midpoint option, and moved the cursor near the centerline and every where in between there and past the ends of the solid body.

It would appear that set the Midpoint option is not functioning correctly. Maybe I should try "set the Midpoint option" in a different sequence of operations to isolate the culprit.

 

[fwc]

Have you tried with the keypoints button instead of the midpoint button?

Maybe I should try "set the Midpoint option" in a different sequence of operations to isolate the culprit.

I agree with you.

Maybe you should create a parallel plane first.

 

[metman]

I read thru the reference planes section of help then modeled a new part as a simple cylinder of 100mm. Next clicked on planes button on feature menu for parallel plane and then keypoints button in the ribbon bar for fly out and then set midpoint option. Still does not inference a midpoint anywhere near 50mm or elsewhere.

I notice that when a function on the feature menu is selected, it brightens (highlighted) to show that it is active whereas the keypoints selections e.g. midpoint or endpoint do not highlight. Possibly this is a glitch in the evaluation CD. In any event, this not a serious problem so I will move on but it did provide a good detour to gain a better understanding of how SE uses planes.

In a licensed copy of SE, do the keypoint buttons highlight when "touched?"

 

[fwc]

metman

Do you include any sketches in the cylinder?

 

[beachcomber]

You can't locate the mid-point of the length of a cylinder - it has to be a straight edge.
If you create a protrusion with a rectangular cross section you will see that you can create a plane parallel to one end, located at the mid point of one of the edges.
One way to do it for a cylinder is to specify an offset distance, then create a relationship between the offset and the length of the cylinder. You can do this using the variable table functions under TOOLS>VARIABLES>VARIABLES.
There are also other ways to do it.

 

[fwc]

beachcomber is correct that it's not possible to locate the midpoint of a cylinder. However, if the cylinder is created using swept protrusion method, it's possible to locate the midpoint of its path.

metman:

Is it possible that you use Symmetric Extend in the protrusion Ribbon Bar so that you could use reference plane of the cylinder to mirror the features.

 

[metman]

In the example for the tutorial the protrusion does have some linear edges but I think this has little to do with the function that is not performing in the fashion that the tutor says it should, because the tutorial is showing the student how to create a plane midpoint on the protrusion. It has you pick the parallel plane function (not an edge) then the keypoint button on the ribbon bar which gives you a fly-out where one of the choices is midpoint.

"On the ribbon bar, click the Keypoints button, then set the Midpoint option."

To verify this, I made a new part using a rectangulr cross section 100mm long and went thru the same steps and the midpoint placemant for parallel plane is not inferred.

fwc,
Not much doubt this would work but that is not the issue. As I stated earlier, I can put the plane at half distance easily by manually editing the dimension of the parallel plane. The issue is that the function does not work like the tutor claims it should work.

To clarify, I am working with an evaluation disc -- not a licensed seat of SE.

Thank you for your patience.

I repeat the question; In a licensed copy of SE, do the keypoint buttons highlight when "touched?"

 

[fwc]

Yes they do.

 

[metman]

fwc,
Thanks. It is apparently some little glitch in the SE demo CD which I can work around.