Starting in NX 5.0, with the new Hole Feature functionality, the primary mechanism for positioning your hole features was changed to a Sketch. Note that if you preposition points, however you wish, via sketch or some other method, you can just select them for the locations of the holes. And starting with NX 5.0 you can use the Instance Geometry function and in NX 6.0 the newly enhanced Point Set capability, to create parametric groups of points which can be used to define multiple holes all as a single feature.
Note that the Sketch tools are going to become the primary tool for many functions in the future, not just to define the location of points, but also for the creation of basic curves either in modeling or even on the face of a Drawing. If you're not yet well versed in the use of a sketch and the sketcher tools, I highly recommend that you become skilled as it's going to be used more and more throughout NX.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Yes, what I found was (the view rotated planar like I was using ProE) then I clicked on a face to add the hole, but no view of a hole came up. A(+ sign) was attached to the surface but I did not find a way to dimension from the edges to place it.
I tried several times to find the dimension menu but to no avail.
"Note that the Sketch tools are going to become the primary tool for many functions in the future, not just to define the location of points, but also for the creation of basic curves either in modeling or even on the face of a Drawing. If you're not yet well versed in the use of a sketch and the sketcher tools, I highly recommend that you become skilled as it's going to be used more and more throughout NX."
Open ended question but... many still use the Basic Curves for cam geometry. I've recently switched to using at least Associative Curves for such things to tie them to the part model but find most cam folks are purely using Basic Curves.
I said "...that the Sketch tools are going to become the primary tool...', not the exclusive tool. There are no current plans to remove even the old Basic Curves dialog, although I can assure you that it will NOT be updated to the new style, which is required before it can be used in Journals or in order to support Redo.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Man you have to wonder why anyone would even want a CAD system that didn't support basic curves. At some point you absolutely require curves of all kinds in the 3D workspace in order to build lofted surfaces, and without these you might as well be working with a 2 1/2D system.
Not that I thought that they'd ever disappear, but for those who may occasionally overlook tools that they don't use very often it is as well that they know somebody very much finds them essential.
NX6 holes, things I wish they'd told me from the start:
It's actually a good system this.
When you place a hole you can still use an existing point (right hand icon near top of menu), this is good for putting holes on centres of bosses etc.
Most often though, use the sketch. Click on the "sketch" icon to allow you more control on the sketch orientation.
It's just a sketch with a hole placed for every point you put in the sketch.
Normal lines don't produce any feature, so you can draw rectangles to control 4 holes and other lines to constrain things.
For example, to centre a grid of 4 holes on a block I'll draw a rectangle, put a point on each corner, then draw diagonal lines from the bottom left of the rectangle to the bottom left of the block and likewise at the top right.
Make both extra lines parallel and equal length and with just 2 dimensions you can control the whole grid of holes.
The only downside with the new hole feature is that you can't change tapped holes to simple holes or vice versa afterwards
