Creating Solids 1

[spiritrider97]

I am currently using NX 7.5.4.4.
We recently were updated to this level and ever since when creating a block using the “Insert-Design Feature-Block” command, we are now forced into specifying a point location or coordinate for the block to go whereas prior to the update the newly created block would go to where the WCS was located.
Also there are time when creating a block next to an existing block seems to attaches itself to the existing block, then when trying to move it both blocks move.
Like I said it seems this is happening to several users here since the last update, but I’m not completely convinced that they are related to it.
Thanks for your help.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Are you sure that an origin hasn't already been preselected/defined when you open the Block dialog? That's how it's working in my copy of NX 7.5.

As for when creating a subsequent block next to an existing block, if you select the corner (vertex) of the original block, the new one will be created associative to the first one, meaning that if you move the first block the second one will move as well.

Now it is true that we changed both the dialog and the associative behavior of the Block feature, as well as the 'primitive' shapes (Sphere, Cone and Cylinder), with the release of NX 6.0, but this in response to the desire of many users that these features be given full parametric status like other NX geometric features (while the size of a 'primitive' has always been parametric, it was never possible to associatively position one of these features and so that was the primary motivation for making the changes that we did).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

UG/NX Museum:

http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[spiritrider97]

John,

Thanks for your speedy response. I have enclosed a couple of screen shots. Apparently the computer in our conference room still makes a block the way we are used to here as seen in the before.jpg. The after.jpg is how it is now. You can see in the before that the origin has already been selected. Is there a toggle that can turn this back on?

And thanks again

http://files.engineering.com/getfil...2-d300-42da-9ecf-4a5ca445ad0c&file=before.jpg

http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=a8c82a2c-0b15-4936-a3fc-6715535a92b9&file=after.JPG

 

[JohnRBaker]

OK, I think I've discovered what's happening. And I suspect that it might be working as designed.

When you create a Block and there are no bodies (solid or sheet) in the model, the 0,0,0 (WCS origin) is preselected. However, if there's already are bodies in the model, the dialog defaults to having the user make an explicit origin selection. I suspect that the assumption is that if the block is the first body being created in a model, that it's logical to think that it will be placed at 0,0,0 unless otherwise defined. However, if their's already bodies in the model, then it's likely that the Block will be created relative to the existing body(s) which REQUIRES that the user make an explicit selection and so there is no point preselected.

Now I'm willing to open a PR against this since the other Primitive features do not behave in this manner (the origin point is always preselected). However, I must warn you that it's very likely that if any changes are made it would be to make the other Primitives behave like the Block does now. I say this because I've looked ahead at an early development phase of the NEXT full release of NX (after NX 8.0) and while the there's still inconsistancy between the way Blocks and the other primitive features behave, there's also evidence that this assumption that it's 0,0,0 if it's the first body being created if being even more formalized, at least for Blocks (but then they don't have my PR yet ;-) And then I looked BACK an it turns out that the Block feature has behaved this way since UG V18.0 (released in 2001) which would lead me to think even more so that this is working exactly as it was designed to work (just that the other primitives don't but probably should).

Anyway, this appears to solve the mystery. If you wish to verify this go ahead, but I suspect that you will see that same things that I've described above.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

UG/NX Museum:

http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[spiritrider97]

I really hate to see the "Primitives" go away. For what we do in our business they are the quickest way to model. I guess this old dog has some new tricks to learn.

Thanks for your help

 

[JohnRBaker]

Actually that's what sort of led to this situation. Privious to about NX 6.0, while Primitives where technically 'parametric' in that the size of a Block or Cylinder could be edited and controlled by expressions, you couldn't associate them with other bodies or parametrically control their locations with expressions. In fact, there had been a debate as to whether we should either eliminate or at least reduce to some sort of de facto state of obsolescence the 4 legacy primitive shapes (Block, Cylinder, Cone and Sphere) since they could all be created by using a sketch and then Extrude/Revolve the final shape, which is basically what ALL other CAD systems other than UG/NX had done for years. These 'primitive' shapes were really holdovers from an era when Solid modeling, known then as CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry), was done using primitives shapes only and we simply retained them when we moved to B-Rep solid modeling, which is based on enclosing a volume of space using trimmed surfaces.

However, when we started the NX 5.0 project where we updated the user interface and adopted a common 'style guide'. It was at this point that the decision had to made as to whether we would include the Primitives shapes in this project and while there was some debate that perhaps this was the opportune time to remove them from the system (or at least leave them with their older non-NX 5.0 style dialogs which would be a sort of de facto obsolescence) however when we asked some of our users we got the sort of feedback that spiritrider97 expressed so we decided that 'in for a penny, in for a pound' and not only did we update the UI, we also went ahead and made Primitives fully associative as well as being parametric, thus giving them full-fledged status as NX Features.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

UG/NX Museum:

http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[dtharrett]

Normally, I construct blocks symetric about 0,0,0 as this works well for my projects. The primatives would be a great time saver for me if I could get them to come in symetric about 0,0,0. Is there a customer default or setting that controlls this?

 

[JohnRBaker]

No, but you could create a simple journal to do that.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

UG/NX Museum:

http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[dtharrett]

Benn thinking I should learn how to write journals to automate a few little things. Does NX have tutorials for journals?