New user NX6-add parameters back to a solid body? 1

[MrDayshift]

Hello,

New user here, NX6. I have a solid body with minimal feature history in the part navigator. It has a series of counterbored holes I'd like to be able to manipulate. There are no parameters for these holes. Is there a function re-populate the part navigator?

or

Can I copy the solid body and fill the undesired holes?

Thanks for your patience everyone.

 

[cowski]

There is no function to 're-populate' the part navigator as you say, but you do have some options. You can use the synchronous commands (move face, pull face) to move or resize the holes, or try the 'delete face' command to get rid of the features and add new hole features.

The synchronous commands can be found on the 'Insert' -> 'Synchronous Modeling' menu. If you do not see these in the menu, you may have to change to a 'role' with full menus.

 

[hudson888]

You can also hybridise a model by adding back features to an dumb solid body at any stage. If you use delete face then that creates a feature in the model tree. You could associate points to the original hole centres before you delete the faces for the old ones. Using either these points or another method such as dimensioning relative to datums or other geometric features you can then add back the holes with parameters if you wish. You therefore don't need to copy the original body because it will have model history as you add these features to make modifications.

Synchronous modelling does things just as well but slightly differently, for most users working with holes I expect that redefining them might be easier.

Best Regards

Hudson

www.jamb.com.au

Nil Desperandum illegitimi non carborundum

 

[BOPdesigner]

I would hope that a next step for Siemens would be to have some feature recognition wizard/workflow that can you can apply to existing features on an imported solid and have it result in a parameterized feature in the tree as if you had created it natively.

 

[JohnRBaker]

You can do something like that today with NX 6.0 and Synchronous Technology with things like Holes and Blends, and in NX 7.0 with Chamfers. You can also add linear, radial and angular dimensions to models which in essence gives you parametric control over those aspects of of the model which these dimensions reference. You can also impose geometric relationships (constraints) between faces, such as making them Coplanar, Coaxial, Tangent,Symmetric, Parallel or Perpendicular. Now granted, this is not a 'magic bullet' like command which can turn a 'sows ear' into a 'silk purse', but with a little training and practice, you can create some very well behaved 'parametric' models from originally dumb solids.

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.

 

[BOPdesigner]

That's true, thanks for the clairification but these ST features look and behave differently than their native counterparts.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Of course, they are designed to be applied to the general topology of a model which has no predefined structure. And while some things are easy to interpret, like what constitutes a Blend or a Chamfer or a simple through Hole, what happens with something like a counter-bored hole? Is that one feature (a counter-bored hole) or two holes of different depth and diameter located at a common origin? Or when does a hole become large enough that it should be considered a cylindrical pocket? Feature-recognition is a bit of a 'black art' and while some progress has been made with software which is looking for shapes and 'features' which can be machined in a certain way, even it may not see what you're thinking. For example, take a pocket bisected by a full-height rib. Someone looking at it from a design intent point of view might see a pocket with a rib, while someone doing manufacturing planning would see it as two pockets. Who's right? And if I had software which could recognize and convert this dumb model to a fully-featured model, what features should it have 'created'?

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.

 

[BOPdesigner]

Makes sense. I wasn't thinking that you could run a wizard and have it decide what all the features are. There would need to be some user interaction along the way to specify if a feature is a counter bored hole, or two holes, or a pocket, etc.

 

[gap125]

I have seen in NX7 that I can optimize face- clean fillets. etc- I have attched an parasolid where nothing works?
can somebody give me advice?
thx

 

[JohnRBaker]

That model is WAAAYYY beyond the current state of the art. It's virtually ALL B-Surfaces, despite the fact that the many of the faces look they could be simpler than that. Also there is no support for converting variable-radius 'blends'.

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.

 

[jerry1423]

Yes the model can defintely be made simpler.

I am working on it a little bit at a time to come up with something that can be parametized - but I really don't know how long it will take me.

Was this model created in Catia?

 

[hudson888]

Its not hard enough to worry about! This only really took me about five or ten minutes. I don't know exactly I was talking to somebody on Skype at the time. I've just made the model really roughly with largely unconstrained sketches. The original unparameterised feature is suppressed.

Best Regards

Hudson

www.jamb.com.au

Nil Desperandum illegitimi non carborundum

 

[gap125]

Hudson
I'am your fan - no ST - but nice - ok
for your infomation this was orginal created on V5 an igs was delivered many faces had to be recreated - the other thing is that the orginal model is much bigger and more complex. I got this part for a demo to show the power of ST.
Recreation on a ST demo?
thanks to all