drawingpatterns

[raerts]

We have made several drawingtemplates in NX5.0.4. We are working a lot for customers that demand that the drawings we deliver are based on their own drawingformat.
So we created for all our customers their own templates. We have putted the drawing border, titleblock and revisionblock in separate patternparts and retrieved the patterns into the customers drawingtemplates.

One of the problems is the alligment of text in the titleblock-pattern. In these titleblock-patterns we show some TcX attributes, works fine, but the alignment of these textblocks are terrible. Contacted GTAC about it: it is know that the alignment-properties of text is not saved in a patternpart. The text is not aligned as saved, only after expanding the pattern the aligment-properties are correct (but then the pattern-function is useless!).
Does anyone has a solution for this?

Another problem for us is the fact that we have dozens of drawingformats of our customers and when you start a drawing based on a wrong template it is terrible to change the sheetsize and replace the patterns with the right ones.
I tried to record a joural, but the pattern-actions are not recorded! I am familiar with VB/.NET: is it possible to write, for example, in VB a macro to do these actions? Which code do I have to use or does anyone have an example?

ThankS!

 

[JohnRBaker]

Attached is a zip file containing an example of what I use in Demo's. To start with, I no longer use patterns for drawing borders but rather I create them as Custom Symbols. There are several reasons for doing that including the fact that the symbol is a single object and I can embed smart notes which I can link to Attributes for automatic propagation of title-block information.

In the zip file you find 3 part files, the first, A1-size_4_views.prt, is the finished Drawing template part itself that you would use to create a finished drawing with.

The second file, A1-size_dwg_sheet.sym.prt, is the Custom Symbol file.

And the third file, A1-size_dwg_sheet.prt, is the master part file used to create the Custom Symbol file.

You use the Drawing template file just like you would your own except when you wish to fill in the title-block just go to the File -> Properties -> Attributes and fill in the predefined Part Attributes and then do a View -> Operation -> Regenerate Work.

Or if you have GRIP execute license, after using the Drawing template, just run the attached GRIP program, dwg_info.grx.

Now this is not intended as 'solution' for your problem, but I think it may inspire you enough to look into using Custom Symbols instead of Patterns and should give you some ideas as to how to proceed. BTW, it also possible, once a Drawing is created, to replace (actually Delete and Add) an existing Custom Symbol with a different one and have all of the embedded notes update automatically (this could solve your problem of editing the size of the drawing afterwords).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[raerts]

Thank you for your reply, John.

I tried some things with the Custom Symbols and it works nice. However these symbols cannot be created in TcX managed NX. I have to create them in native and afterwords I can select them in TcX manNX.
Next problem: we use UPM and the UPM has an option to replace a pattern before plotting it. When I use Custom Symbols for our drawings we loose the patternexchange at the plotting.

I assumed that creating drawings based on patterns was a correct way to build templates?
How do you act when you start your drawing based on the wrong template? You manually delete the current symbols and add the new symbols?
What about, for example, the logo and the ‘sheet 1 of …”-text on your example-drawing? When you, for example, change the sheet from an A1 to an A3 the logo and the text are getting outside the sheet and you have to move them manually.
Is there a VB-tool (example-file) that can replace symbols easily?

Thanks.

 

[JohnRBaker]

As I said, I use these for demos and while patterns are sort of the standard, they are very old, architecturally, and we would like to replace them with a different and more modern scheme. Long term, what we need is an actual drawing border function that has all of the built in behaviors and features needed. And while we have that on our 'to do' list, it's a very long list.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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