Question, Might be a ER!!!

[Befuddled]

I need to reverse engineer a complicated gasket in order to get some water jet cutting done.

The idea i have is to scan the gasket using a regular desktop scanner, then (here comes the question) how the hell could i get this into NX so that i could import the outline (curves) into a sketch.

I cant be the first person who has tried this cheap 'n' chearfull method of reverse engineering.

Cheers in advance,

B

 

[MCGNX]

Pretty sure I saw a demo of maybe nx3 or 4, where they scanned in a sketch on a napkin and then created a model from it. Not sure how it was done though.

 

[Xwheelguy]

If we're talking about scanning images, and not scanning for XYZ points, you can import a TIFF image into Modeling, turn on Studio Display Mode and you'll then be able to trace the image with curves. You MIGHT need a Shape Studio license for this, or maybe just a Visualize Shape license....can't remember.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

 

[hudson888]

We had this question just the other day also. I think you may be able to buy Studio Visualise separately, but Shape Studio is what most people have (it gives you a lot of excellent surfacing features), plus the rendering package.

You could use that and scale up your image. Then effectively trace or screen digitise it using NX. Not always super accurate. I'm certain it will accept Tiff, maybe it supports Jpeg or Bitmap you'll have to check. If you have any of these three even Paint can save as one of the others.

The other way is to scan it to an image format that can be translated to CAD data. Some 3D party programs like Adobe illustrator will attempt to rasterize an image effectively turning it into a series of short lines as a rendering technique. That is achieved according to the type of image format that you ourput. Whereas Tiff, Jpeg, bitmap and others are pixelated formats and can only be used with methods as described above, DXF or cgm are basically rasterized formats that should import into NX.

The poster the other day was having trouble converting from illustrator DXF to NX I don't know why as it has worked for me in the past. You can also work with Adobe PhotoShop and other similar software for these tasks.

Lastly place something that will register an accurate scale into the background of your image when you scan it, a ruler in both X and Y axes or a grid pattern will help you so scale the results when you get them into NX. Most of the time image formats will lose scale by the time you rasterize them.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[joycejo]

I tried some software from

http://www.aidecad.com/

it converts pdf images to a .dxf then I could bring it into NX. You can get a free trial from the link.



John Joyce
Tata Technologies iKS
1675 Larimer St.
Denver, CO

http://www.myigetit.com