Extract Curves from a Work Section View?

[BigJim71]

Is there a way to extract curves from a work section view?

The company I work for likes to use phantom curves in application drawings to give the parts some context. When a component is buried inside of an assembly, creating these phantom curves becomes very tedious. I have to trim and hide a lot of components to get the view I'm looking for before I can extract curves. The Work Section command can give me the view I want in just a few seconds, but I haven't figured out a way to extract curves from the sectioned geometry I see on the screen. I've been using the Extract Curves - All In Work View function, but it pulls curves as if the section doesn't exist. Is there a method to get the work section curves? I'm using NX7.5.2.5, but I have also access to NX5.0.3.2.

Thanks,
Jim

NX 7.5

 

[JohnRBaker]

What you're looking for is called a 'Render Set' in NX.

While in Drafting, but without the Drawing being shown and with all Components in your Assembly visible (Static Wireframe display is the best), go to...

Preferences -> View -> General

...and select the button in the middle of the dialog labeled 'Define Render Sets'. In the top section of the dialog define names for as many different 'Render Sets' as needed. Once a 'Render Set' has been defined, select the name from the list, press the 'Select Solids' button and then select the SOLID(S) of that you wish to see. At this point you're selecting the Solid Bodies within the Components of the Assembly, Not the actual Components so if a Component contains more than one solid, or you selected a sub-Assembly, make sure that all of the Solids that you wish to see in the Drawing view has been selected. Once all the desired Solids have been selected for this particular Render Set, and with the 'Visible Lines' otion toggled ON, select the desired Color, Font and Width of the curves of the Solid as you would like to see them in your Drawing views. In your case select 'Phantom' and perhaps a wider line Width so that it stands out better. Once you're done defining what the appearance of the Render Set should be, hit OK.

Now go back to displaying the Drawing, select the view that you wish to see the Render Set in, press MB3 and select the 'Style...' option. Now in the 'General' tab, select thje button labeled 'Define Render Sets in View' and from the list of available Render Sets in the list at the bottom, select the ones that you wish to be included in this view and press the 'Add' button which will move the Render Set to the list of active Render Sets. Now just hit OK, and after the dialog closes you will need to update the display of all the views, but when you do you will see the solid(s) in the Render Set displayed in that Drawing view rendered using the 'Phantom' line font', similar to what you see below:

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.

 

[timey]

I could also make this useful, but I don't understand when you say "While in Drafting, but without the Drawing being shown". How do you do that?

 

[cowski]

When in the drafting application, go to the View menu and toggle off the Display Sheet option. You will be in drafting, but with a 3D view of your model.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[BigJim71]

Thank guys. Unfortunately this isn't what I'm looking for.

The top level assemblies are entire locomotives. We can't even open the entire model at one time without crashing the computer, much less make drawings. We use phantom curves extracted from the geometry surrounding a particular part application to help detail where and how the part is applied. There are no solids to work with the Render Sets option.

NX 7.5