Extrude line/curve to cilinder to create tunnel (by specifying diameter or radius)

[JoachimAlly]

Hi fellow engineers,

I have a quite simple question, but I don't know if it is possible in Siemens NX. I searched in the Help and on the net but didn't found a solution yet.

Is it possible to draw a line or curve and then extrude it to a cilinder just by specifying diameter of radius? The line or curve is than the curve passing trough the middle of the cilinder.

I want to share the background information: I am designing a cap for positioning on a rodents head to measure EEG. It has 30 holes in the cap where I want to install electrodes afterwards. Due to the fact that the rodent will be in the same time in a MRI-scanner I can only let the wires come out at the back of the cap, so I have to design tunnels in the cap for the wires. The attachment explains the same in pictures.

An additional question I have: can the routing electrical mode be of some use in my case?

Kind regards,
Joachmi

 

[jerry1423]

So will you have a scan of the skull to work with ?

 

[cowski]

The "tube" command will create a cylinder from an input line object. You can specify the ID and OD; enter 0 (zero) for the ID to create a solid cylinder. The tube command also works with tangent chains of curves to create, well... tubes. The command is also useful to model wires.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[JoachimAlly]

@Jerry1423: Yes, I have a .STL-file that comes from a scan of the skull of a rodent. =)
@cowski: Thank you very much for this very useful tip. I tested it and it worked, I can continue my work now.

Kind regards,
Joachim

 

[JoachimAlly]

I still have a problem. I was drawing multiple curves on a sketch and than projected them on the surface I want, that goes perfect. But when I want to use the tube command, I get the error: Gaps in string or multiple loops, as you can see in the attachment. Does it mean that I really have to draw each tube one by one?

Anyway, thanks in advance. The helpful people on the forum helped me already several times, which I appreciate a lot.

 

[jerry1423]

As far as the "gap" error goes; Yes, each one of those line segments needs to be its own feature and created separately.

Instead of trying to project curves onto the skull and creating a solid from those curves, what you can do it is create a solid that goes thru the skull and trim it back to the skull using Trim Body
You can also Replace Face in a similar way for that.