NX Journal to get a feature's associated body

[TheWenger]

I'm trying to write a journal that let's me select a feature and grab the body associated with that feature so I can do a DisplayModification to it. I tried to record a journal to see how NX does it when you press CTRL + J with a feature selected, but uses sticky references and I can't figure out. Anyone have ideas?

 

[cowski]

If you have a reference to a feature object, you can use the .GetEntities method to return an array of objects created by the feature. Face and Edge objects have a .GetBody method that will return the body that contains the face/edge. So, as long as the chosen feature creates a face/edge, you should be able to get at the parent body.

As an alternative, why not just prompt the user to select the body? Why does it have to be a feature that is selected?

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[TheWenger]

Thanks. I'll give that a try tomorrow. It's nice coding in Visual Studio with the NXOpen references added.

The way the journal is going to work is that if there is no selection at runtime, it'll prompt for a selection and filter it to bodies or components. If there is already a selection, and the selection is a feature (extrude, hole, etc.) it'll get the associated solid and apply the modification on it.

 

[TheWenger]

So I'm doing

Dim selectedFeature As Features.Feature = CType(selected, Features.Feature)
Dim selectedEntities As NXObject() = selectedFeature.GetEntities
Dim selectedFace As Object = selectedEntities.GetValue(0)
Dim selectedBody As Body = selectedFace.GetBody

But I get an error when running with the third line in that block. It says the index is outside the bounds of the array, which makes me think the array returned from .GetEntities is empty. I've also tried selectedEntities.First and it just says there is no First in the array.

 

[cowski]

I've been tinkering with it a bit and it seems .GetEntities returns empty no matter what. I'd suggest searching GTAC solutions for a working code sample.

http://solutions.industrysoftware.automation.siemens.com/login.asp

If there is no sample, perhaps a call to GTAC to see if .GetEntities is working as designed, and maybe they can whip up a sample and/or provide a workaround.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[FrankSwinks]

Features covers much more than features that have bodies. Therefore you first have to get the BodyFeature that the feature must have to get the body/bodies. Then using the bodyfeature you can use GetBodies(). Check BodyFeature Class.

Frank Swinkels

 

[TheWenger]

Frank, that worked perfectly. Thanks a lot!