Make Sketch Internal (sometimes available, others not) 1

[BOPdesigner]

I am cleaning up my feature tree in NX 6 and am making some of the feature sketches internal to the feature. The strange thing is that for some of the features the option to make the sketch internal is not available from the right click menu. What is the reason for this? For example, you have the option to do this for some extrude features but not other extrude features.

 

[JohnRBaker]

OK, there are two basic situations where this would result.

If the sketch was used to create two features, only ONE can 'absorb' the sketch since there is no way to share it with both features. In other words, the sketch has more than ONE child and therefore we it would not make sense to let one feature 'own' the sketch and NOT the other.

The other reason is similar and that is if some other sketch is referencing something from the first sketch. For example, you create a sketch and use it to create an extruded feature, which is fine except that while creating a second sketch you reference some curve/point in the first sketch, perhaps as part of a geometric constraint (such as making a line in one sketch parallel or perpendicular to a line in another sketch). Again, this would lead to the first sketch now being the parent of two features, the original extruded body and the new sketch. Again, we would have the dilemma of WHICH child feature should be able to 'absorb' the Parent sketch and since it can NOT be both, we therefore don't allow either to do so.

I hope this helps explain what it is that's happening and why it has the effect which it does.

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

http://www.siemens.com/plm

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