Feature Sets

[Jetsetter]

I am using NX2 and I am being told to use "feature sets" to group features together in the part navigator but i cant find "feature sets" anywhere in the toolbars or commands. Any help will be appreciated. thanks

 

[JohnRBaker]

The function that creates 'feature sets' is called 'Group Features' and can be found on the Format pull-down.

Can I ask, why were you 'told' to use 'feature sets' and what is the anticipated benefit that you're expecting to get?



John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
UGS NX Product Line
SIEMENS PLM Software
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/ugs

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

 

[ewh]

Well, it does make the Part Navigator seem less messy...

 

[JohnRBaker]

Yes, that's always a good reason. However, there is another reason that has led many people to be 'told' to create 'feature sets', a reason though that will no longer be an issue once you've upgraded to NX 5.0.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Product Line
SIEMENS PLM Software
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

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

 

[Jetsetter]

I have been using UG since the start, im talking way way back and i have never even heard of feature sets. The company i am contract at, wants everyone to take an assessment test to find out where everyone in the company rates as a UG user. This will determine who has to go to a special ed class. On the score sheet / evaluation sheet it ask if feature sets were used and you get a "0" for no and a "5" for yes. After I posted my question i did find it under "format" so thanks to all that replied. I do see the benefit of using "feature sets" and it does clean up the part navigator BUT the thing i do not like is... if you want to modify anything within the set then you have to de-select "hide feature set members" to get the features selectable in the part navigator, or lets say you want to modify a sketch then you would have to turn on your sketch layer to select the sketch. So I feel its a matter of how you want to use it. There is a "pro" and a "con" about this function. thanks All.

 

[hudson888]

John, I'm curious what was the other reason? We haven't got very far with NX-5 at this stage so I'm not across whatever advances may apply to feature sets.

Jetsetter, pending a good reason from John perhaps, it seems like your company may be somewhat errant in their emphasis on things that really aren't that important. I have and do use feature sets from time to time as means to manage the contents of the feature list for convenience sake, nothing more or less for what it is worth. I suspect we're somewhat similarly experienced, and I agree that some companies have their heads in the sand as to the best way to use UG and sometimes come up with restrictive ideas that tend to waste the capacity it has to be used to its best advantage.

Regards

Hudson

 

[Shadowspawn]

The other reason would be to array solid bodies that lie outside the main body (think arraying the spheres in a bearing as separate bodies). By grouping a feature, you create an entity that can be arrayed... In NX5, with the handy dandy spiffy new functionality of 'instance geometry', we can now array any geometry we like without having to 'group' them first.

Additionally, and more importantly to all us anal types that like our updates to update correctly, the instance geometry feature in NX5 gives us a means to associatively define the horizontal reference vector in an array. Prior to this, once you define the array the horizontal reference is forever set and doesn't/can't be changed (prolly didn't realize that did you?). Basically what this means is that prior to NX5 if you create an XY pattern w/the horiz ref in the 3:00 position, and rotate the pattern 30 degrees, the horiz ref would stay in the orig direction instead of updating to the 2:00 position as you would expect. NX5 solves this... and is making my job a whole lot easier in the process!

Hope this helps...

Regards,
SS
CAD should pay for itself, shouldn't it?

 

[JohnRBaker]

SS nailed it. While developers always were leery of users using 'feature sets' as a workaround to the array bodies 'problem', they never did anything to disable it since it was all that we could offer, despite the fact that there were some reliability issues with respect to edits and updates, but of course all of that is behind us now with NX 5 and Instance Geometry.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Product Line
SIEMENS PLM Software
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

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

 

[snowfire]

Thanks all.

Forever Young