Changing a very large number of circles? 1

[gunnykiln]

Suppose I have thousands of circles in an imported sketch that I need to change from say .030" to .035" dia in no particular pattern (think circuit board). How can I:

1. Create a filter to select only .030" dia circles on the sketch?

2. Change the diameter of all the holes at once (it would be unreasonable to change them one by one)?

3. Group them all together so that I can select them all at once for possible future modifications?

4. Make them a different color than say the (1200) .042" and (400) .025" dia circles on the same sketch? (So the size of holes is visually distinct on the sketch for example: Red = .025" circles; Blue = .035"; Green = .042"). Or do I have to make a separate sketch for each circle size?

 

[CADGemini]

Best thing to do is drag a box around all the circles or "Ctrl" select all the .030" circles and set them to equal. Now all you do is dimension one circle and the rest of them update accordingly.

In a sketch I don't belive you can change the actual colors of different sized circles. You can however change this at the drawing level to make them more clear. Just select them and change them to a layer that defines the color that you want. It might be best to create seperate sketches for each sized hole.

Also you cannot filter to specific sizes of holes in a sketch. maybe this could be done in API but you will have to ask the experts in that department.

Best Regards,
Jon

Challenges are what makes life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

Solidworks 2005 SP2.0

 

[ctopher]

I do the same as jksolid. Layers work well with PCB's. I always make sure all holes of the same size, same sketch, equal. I also use layers on drawings; dimension layer, sketch layer, notes layer, format layer, etc.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP1.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[Stoker]

Check if you can separate the different sizes onto different layers in the source application. If so, you can use DWGEditor to make the changes in size to all circles on a given layer. This will also allow you to import the entities onto a drawing and color them by layer.

I see no way of filtering circles based on diameter in the DWGEditor. You can do this with AutoCAD, or you could do this in either the DWGEditor or SolidWorks using a VBA routine to choose the parameters for filtering.

 

[gunnykiln]

Good ideas, thanks for the help.

What about grouping of elements? Is there a way to do that?

(Vellum calls it grouping, autocad and other software might call it something else. If your not familiar with grouping it is just like it sounds: It allows you to select many things with one click selection. Then if you want to edit one or all of the elements you can ungroup them, edit, then regroup them.)

 

[CADGemini]

The grouping/ungrouping feature is only available at the drawing level and can be found on your "Align" toolbar. This is new to 2005, so previous versions will not have this option.

This feature cannot be used when creating sketchs in a part/assembly. Maybe something that may come in the future.

Best Regards,
Jon

Challenges are what makes life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

Solidworks 2005 SP2.0

 

[gunnykiln]

OK, apparently I still need some help on this subject.

Here is the situation.
I currently design things in Vellum but I am trying to make the transition to Solidworks. I need to work with circuit board data not in drawing mode, but in part file. In otherwords I need to model a 12 layer circuit board (loaded) as a part to be used in a design. I see no ability to use layers in a part file only sketches. Is that correct?

In vellum I have a very dense 12 layer circuit board, with about a 8K drill (hole) layer. The entire vellum file is only about 9 Meg and when I select or manipulate a layer it is lightning fast with very little wait. So now that I am trying to transition to Solidworks I exported the layers to .dxf and opened them in Solidworks. In building the circuit board model I have only imported about 7 layers and I have 1 sketch to a layer. The solidworks file is already almost 50Meg and is virtually unusable when trying to select or manipulate something in the part file. At this rate the full pcb part file will be 75 - 100Meg.

It seems like Solidworks is just so horribly inefficient at storing and manipulating 2D data that it will be unusable for such a situation. Or is there some setting that I need to change?

 

[ctopher]

The best way is to create the PCB showing only basic geometry as needed. Or you can use

http://www.desktop-eda.com.au/products/solidworks-idf.htm

Importing PCB files with all of the layers can give you a headache and a lot of errors.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP2.0 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site
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[EvanBasalik]

You can use the API to do what you want fairly easily.

There is a really good example on doing just that in the API Fundamentals manual.

Evan T. Basalik, MCSD
--------------------------------
It's all about prioritization...

 

[kellnerp]

1. Create a filter to select only .030" dia circles on the sketch?

TOOLS/RELATIONS/FIND EQUAL
This will allow you to create and equal diameter relation between all holes the same size which is my take on what you mean by grouping. Once this is accomplished dimension one of the holes and all will change.

This should take care of 2&3.

4. Make them a different color than say the (1200) .042" and (400) .025" dia circles on the same sketch? (So the size of holes is visually distinct on the sketch for example: Red = .025" circles; Blue = .035"; Green = .042"). Or do I have to make a separate sketch for each circle size?

You can do this on the feature level if you have the Utilities addin. Select features of a certain size.

You should be able to do this in the sketch with a macro.