How to add keep-out lines to NXdrawing (template) that will not print?

[apekim]

Our company standards require that users do not place views, notes, etc within 4 inches of the revision block. See the attached picture - I would like to add the two lines indicated by the red arrows. I would like to add these as really faint phantom lines to the drawing templates to designate this as a keep-out area. But I do not want the lines to print when a user sends the drawing to the plotter. Is there a particular line type in NX that is used for this purpuse (print exclusion)? If NX does not have this feature out of the box, how can this be done? I would prefer not to get into print config files at this point, as I am trying to keep customizations to a minimum.
Thanks,
Mike

 

[JohnRBaker]

If you're running NX 5.0 or newer, and if you're currently displaying 'View Borders' on your drawings you might try this.

I assume that you're using Drawing templates so open your template file(s) and add a 'Drawing View' (NOT a 'Base View') which will always be an 'empty view' unless you explicitly draw something in the context of that view, to your drawing, positioned and sized to enclose your 'keep-out' area (you will probably have to edit the view boundaries to get exactly what you want). Now as long as you have 'Display Borders' toggled ON in Drafting Preferences (you may also wish to use a slightly more distinct color for your 'Border Color' than what you might normally use, but after awhile it should be that noticeable as long as your people know what it means) you will see what looks like a drawn 'keep-out' area. Now there is nothing that you need to do when it comes time to create Plots, Prints or even PDF's as the 'Drawing Borders' are automatically ignored when creating any sort of 'output' with the possible exception of a direct screen image capture.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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.

 

[apekim]

John,

Thanks for the reply. I will have to try this; but to be honest I am a little concerned about using an empty view as I am not sure how it will work in future releases. Also, the users may not want to see the view borders. Based on your reply, I assume there is no line type in NX that is excluded during plotting...correct?

Thanks Again.

 

[JohnRBaker]

The only way that one could explicitly exclude actual geometry would be set-aside either one of the 3 line widths or one of the 216 colors and set up the plot despooler to assign that particular width/color to a 'null' 'pen'. But this would require creating a customized plotter set-up which may not address the issue of removing these extra lines when you do a simple print from screen or export a PDF file.

What I've proposed, while I'll admit may appear to be a bit of a kludge, other than requiring that you enable at least some level of displayed 'View Borders', will provide exactly what you're looking for without anyone having to do anything once your templates have been updated.

As for concern about the extra 'view', if you use a 'Drawing View' (as opposed to a 'Base View') NOTHING will ever be displayed in that view unless you explicitly 'activate' it and start creating objects in the context of the view. Otherwise it will remain dormant/passive and will add virtually no overhead nor will it interfere with any other operation which you may wish to perform on the Drawing or in any of the other actual Drawing views. Just give a try and see what you think. Despite being a kludge, the elegance is in its elegance.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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.