Hiding bodies in drawing

[rossob]

I'm just wondering if there is a way you can hide certain bodies of a component in a drawing? We have an item which is essentially a piece of angle with a 5mm end cap (see attached image). This item is purchased as a single item, with only one part number. The current drawing (done in Mechanical Desktop quite some time ago) has localised parts and the drawing shows the fabrication details of the complete item, but also a detail view of ONLY the end cap.

I have modelled this in NX using two extrudes, and thought that if I created a drawing I could just show a detail of the end cap, somehow, by just hiding the piece of angle. I can't seem to be able to make this work. Is there a way i can do this, without making this item an assembly of two parts?

Ross

NX5.0.2.2 WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007

 

[hudson888]

Thanks John,

I'm looking forward to checking it out for myself. I went from NX-3 rather quickly to NX-5 and then as you know fairly recently. This may a somewhat infrequently used scenario for most applications so I hadn't chanced on the need of it thus far recently. This is where I find the forum does me some good, because although I think of one answer that suits from experience that is arguably what most people would do today, there is another tool that opens up possibilities in other projects that I probably wouldn't have considered using to help document that design.

Ross,

We had a very similar scenario to create standard layouts for Mining vehicles with various combinations of attachments and ranges of motion that needed to be shown. This is where we started getting really clever with our uses of arrangements and exploded views. I'm thinking of having a look at whether I can extend that concept with the new method, which I'll test on my other project and get back to you about.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[hudson888]

Ross,

Twice now I have answered and somebody else has posted at the same time, so as a consequence I appear to be addressing some issue at cross purposes to what has by then become the previous post.

Anyway it appears that using NX-5 you're far better off for functions that we support what you want to do. And since you've already discovered that you no longer need me to tell you any more about how much it has improved. Some of the new functionality is actually doing things we could always do in that you could previously add an extra component and specifically exclude it from the parts list by undertaking an editing step. This is far better however as it both makes it easier and legitimizes the technique at the same time, but it does more than that it manages the assembly when the views are added or deleted. That element to do with managing the assembly was the one thing previously missing to make doing this kind of thing maintainable and safe enough that whereas it was previously considered a last resort I think more users will be comfortable taking advantage of this technique under NX-5.

Obviously you can now get a result with reference sets as long as you have write access to the drawn part and can create and save a reference set. You'll find there are a couple of schools of thought on this when it comes to adding reference sets to assemblies. Some places allow it but many have issues with doing that, just as some people have issues where they'll try to avoid using layers. This is where we possibly differ I insofar I I doubt you can have the luxury to avoid both.

About the view from another part. I can get it to work by manipulating the options under add base view, and when you do so you can add a new part without affecting the parts list. There is an extra icon on my system greyed out called UG_DRAFT_DRW_VIEW_FROM_PART. I can't say that I'm unable to do any of the things you described, nor can I find a customer default that seems to relate to why this would be greyed out. Perhaps it is a license thing? We didn't fire up advanced assemblies for NX-5. NX-5.0.3.2

Apart from that I'm definitely able to do more that I could ever before in terms of view placement. The arrangements are straightforward enough and seem to operate as they always have. For my fairly modest project where I may use this to illustrate the drawing it will be great. I somehow doubt at the end of the day that we'd do the vehicle layouts using these techniques alone as the assemblies are simply too large to handle multiple copies on the face of the drawing, but with use of a few tricks to adapt the master assemblies I suspect you could probably make it work.

If it is components that you want to turn on and off rather that individual solids, you could also to use suppression to control the display of individual components within instances two of more assemblies added to a drawing such that you need use neither layers nor reference sets. In other words if you add an extra assembly to a view from other you can suppress some of the components in one but not the other and you can control this from the drawing file.

Good Luck

Hudson

 

[moog2]

BTW, Hudson, the extra icon for chosing an arrangement, only appears, if an arrangement is available

 

[rossob]

Hudson, thanks again for your advice mate. It is very much appreciated. I think you'll probably find me bugging you guys for plenty of help over the next few months....

Ross

NX5.0.2.2 WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007