Coloring the individual surfaces of a solid

[jopal]

My NC dept. keeps pushing me to change the colour of the faces of my solid when I issue E/C's (Which we need to iges out for them). Then when there is a another e/c, I would have to change these back to original color and color the new ones again. There can sometime be hundreds/thousands of different surfaces I would have to color. I have set up different colors for holes, pockets, etc., but not individual faces of my part/parting line. Does anyone have an easy solution. Currently, our powerpoint lineup is not sufficient for them. Is there a way to split the solid to a surface/join and the split respect the colors of that surface. This has been going on for years and I'm getting really tired of arguing with these guys and hoping to find a better way for all parties to get what they want. New management is really pushing this hard on us.

 

[mjcole]

jopal,

1) CTRL Select the Faces you want to change the color of.
2) Hit Alt+Enter on your Keyboard to get Face Properties.
3) Change the color in the drop down menu at the top of the dialog that pops up.
4) You should get what you're looking for.

If you have many surfaces to Select the CTRL key can be a hassle so I'd suggest using Named Selection Sets to help out with the selections

Cheers,

"It's not the size of the Forum that matters, It's the Quality of the Posts"

Michael Cole
Boston, MA
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[jopal]

I know how to do it, it's the amount of time I will be wasting doing it. I'm looking for a better way.

 

[DBezaire]

Jopal,
I go through the same thing you do but I use, sorry, we use Federation during the Join command. This will consider the surface patches as 1 piece or a series of pieces depending on the use of Federation. You need an HD2 license to have Federation. What version of Catia are you running?

Regards,
Derek


Win XP64
R20/21, 3DVIA Composer 2012, ST R20
Dell T7400 16GB Ram
Quadro FX 4800 - 1.5GB

 

[jopal]

Yes I know about the federation. I've tried this in the past. My issue is that it does not respect non-connex elements. I running R20SP4HF37.

 

[DBezaire]

I do run into that but the majority of the time my E/C are in chunks of data.



Win XP64
R20/21, 3DVIA Composer 2012, ST R20
Dell T7400 16GB Ram
Quadro FX 4800 - 1.5GB

 

[jopal]

Mine are as well, usually I seperate in 2 differnt geo sets. 1 set with my master surfaces (datum), then 1 with my E/C data (datum). Then I do a non datum join of these surfaces which I split my main solid to. My EC's are in chunks, but in multiple chunks on different areas of the part which are non connex. Would it be advisle to joine these first by themselves using federate all, then add this join to my master join. I've always been to taught to avoid joining a join. I've attached a pic to explain further.

 

[DBezaire]

I use something similar. I would have a non datum Core Part Join made up of another non datum Core Part Main containing geometric set data Core Part Datum Surfaces. Then when (cuz it's going happen) the E/C arrives, create a non datum Federated Join of EC Core Rev 05 and add it to the Core Part Join.
When the next E/C arrives you can move the data to Core Part Datum Surface geo set after you add them to the Core Part Main join.

Regards,
Derek


Win XP64
R20/21, 3DVIA Composer 2012, ST R20
Dell T7400 16GB Ram
Quadro FX 4800 - 1.5GB

 

[jopal]

That makes sense. I was really hoping to avoid all this but I dont think this will be the case. I will have to do some testing and see how it goes. You've had issues with creating non datum joins with other non datum joins?

 

[DBezaire]

It works perfect. I have better results with the Join of a Join method on downstream fillets in solids not losing the edge. This will simplify your process too. Core Exp will always be made of just Core Part Join Net. Which in turn is attached in a non datum Join of Runout Exp and Core Exp. We work in a similar fashion but we do not history our expansion. We have a Master Part geo set with a non datum shrink of Core Part, Cavity Part, Lifter,....



Win XP64
R20/21, 3DVIA Composer 2012, ST R20
Dell T7400 16GB Ram
Quadro FX 4800 - 1.5GB

 

[jopal]

I will give it a shot, thanks for the help.