Drawing template in the 3D space 2

[WilsonYau]

Hi everyone,

I was asked if I could have our customized drawing template to appear/show in the 3D space. The main reason behind this is we are testing out the PMI tool in NX 7.5 and we are wondering if it's possible to avoid the 2D and have everything on the 3D. Since there are important information shown on our drawing template, we would like it to be shown in the 3D space along with all the PMI objects and the BOM.

What I did is:
1) Start a new part file
2) Import the drawing template in the modelling module
3) Add component (the assembly)

So far, everything thing seems to be going the right way. However, I was also asked if it's possible to have the drawing template orienting the right way when i replace my views. In order words, I've imported my drawing template in the ISO view. If I want to replace my iso view with my top view, what can i do so that the drawing template also orients itself?

I thought of importing several drawing templates, have them oriented in the desired views and then save the view. However this seems to be extremely tedious..
If anyone can help out, it would be much appreciated!

Best Regards,
Wilson Yau

 

[JohnRBaker]

I not sure that there's a lot of future in trying to make NX behave as if your 3D model was really a 2D drawing or some hybrid of the two, that's NOT the direction that PMI is going. Either it's a 3D Model or a 2D Drawing.

Now don't get me wrong, having a PMI note object in your 3D Model which contains the sort of descriptive and topical information traditional found only in the titleblock of a Drawing is not an unreasonable thing to do, but to expect it to behave as if it were still more Drawing-like than simply an additional object in the 3D Model is probably not that easy or even desirable to do.

That being said, have you looked at what is already available with PMI in this area? I'm specifically referring to the different options which can be found at...

PMI -> Specialized

...and...

PMI -> Security Marking

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

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

 

[WilsonYau]

Indeed, i misunderstood their meaning when they said to include other information in the 3D space. How will you go to add information traditionally found in a title block?

I'm looking at those right now, let's hope i'll find what I'm looking for. thanks for the hint!

Best Regards,
Wilson Yau

 

[WilsonYau]

I'm trying to add the Proprietary information note. However, I can not edit the text. Anyone knows why?

 

[JohnRBaker]

What exactly do you mean by not being able to edit the note? Are you talking about the text that you see on the screen or the notice that appears when you open the part file?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

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

 

[JohnRBaker]

OK, I think I know what you're talking about and I can even understand why you've asked the question the way that you have. The dialog for adding a PMI 'Proprietary Notice' to your drawing gives you the impression that you are able to edit the actual content of the note but if you try you learn that you can't. That's by design, although I'll admit that we should really change the interface so that it's obvious that all that you're looking at is a 'sample' of the text that will be displayed, but not something that you can edit right there on the spot. It was done this way so that a normal user could NOT simply change something that's really the product of your company's legal department.

But assuming that YOU'RE not a 'normal' user, but someone who actually has a valid reason to change the wording of this or any of the other so-called 'Security Markings', including the 'Government Security Info', the 'Proprietary Information' and the 'Export Control'. In all of these cases, the only way to edit the content/wording of these notices is to edit the actual program files which are used to generate them. Normally one would consider these as being 'hard-coded', but in this case they're more like 'semi-hard-coded'. Now normally, without administrator priviledge the files that you need to edit will be 'read-only' so as to protect them from that 'normal' user ;-)

These file are called .dfa files, which are KF or 'Knowledge Fusion' files. They can be edited with a simple text editor but you must be careful not to mess them up so only edit the actual text of the message and nothing else. The files for the three 'Security Markings' can be found at...

...\UGII\dfa\smart_models\hostlib

...and the three files of interest are...

ug_product_government_security_info.dfa
ug_product_proprietary_info.dfa
ug_product_export_control.dfa

When you open these files you will need to scroll down to about half way and you will find (the example below is from the 'Proprietary' file):

(Canonical List Parameter) Data_List: {
#   { Terse Description, Verbose Description }
    { "Proprietary for Internal Use",
      { "COMPANY PROPRIETARY INFORMATION", "For COMPANY Use Only" } },
    { "Proprietary for External Use",
      { "COMPANY PROPRIETARY INFORMATION",
        "The information contained in this document is COMPANY proprietary ",
        "information and is disclosed in confidence.  It is the property ",
        "of COMPANY and shall not be used, disclosed to others or ",
        "reproduced without the express written consent of COMPANY, ",
        "including, but without limitation, it is not to be used in the ",
        "creation, manufacture, development, or derivation of any repairs, ",
        "modifications, spare parts, designs, or configuration changes or ",
        "to obtain any government or regulatory approval to do so. ",
        "If consent is given for reproduction in whole or in part, ",
        "this notice and the notice set forth on each page of this document ",
        "shall appear in any such reproduction in whole or in part. The ",
        "information contained in this document may also be controlled by ",
        "the U.S. export control laws. Unauthorized export or re-export is ",
        "prohibited." } }

You should only edit the stuff that's contained inside of quotes(" ").

Now if you do make changes to these files, please keep some safety copies of the edited files so that when you update to the next version of NX you can just replace the installed files with copies that you've already edited.

Anyway, I hope this covers what it was that you're looking for.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

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

 

[WilsonYau]

Wow John! Thank so much! I was trying to figure out how to put our company's proprietary information using the PMI tool. I ended up using the "note" in PMI to put it..
Now that I know how to change it, I'll make sure to let my project manager know about it. Thank you so much for your assistance!

Best Regards,
Wilson Yau.