Retrieve dimensions from animated sketch 1

[MickyV007]

Hello,

is there a way i can retrieve (by recording and/or spreadsheet output) the dimension(s) of a sketch when i turn one of the dimensions of that sketch into an animated dimension. Attached the specific sketch as screenshot, it is fully constrained and i would like to vary the dimension "Omhullende" from 4.4 to 4.0 and then i would like to know how much dimension "veerlengte" is getting longer.

Using NX4,

Greetz

Michael

 

[hudson888]

I have seen something done with using spreadsheets as a solver for this but I can't remember how to do it now.

What I have done in the past to illustrate such things is to capture an animation based on really basic coarse geometry that is merely sufficient to place a drafting dimension on in the modelling view. By running that out to an Mpeg and playing it back you can simply slide the progress bar on your media player to the point where the dimensions most closely match the point of interest. That is a somewhat rough construction based technique but it works as an alternative to manually plugging values one at a time until you hit paydirt.

Best Regards

Hudson

www.jamb.com.au

Nil Desperandum illegitimi non carborundum

 

[JohnRBaker]

How about a chart and a graph?

Open the attached part file. While in Modeling, go to...

Tools -> Spreadsheet...

...and once the spread sheet is open, go to...

Tools -> Goal Analysis

...and press the OK button.

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

 

[MickyV007]

Unigraphics keeps amazing me!!!

Thank you John for the info, still got some questions though.

What is the expression EXPRVAL that you used in the spreadsheet? I didn't find any help info for it.

You made the sketch fully constrained and defined a Distance measurement as a variable parameter, why didnt you used a parameter from the sketch itself.

With kind regards,

A thankfull NX4 user,

Michaël

 

[JohnRBaker]

OK, what you see in the spreadsheet is a 'function' which only READS the VALUE of the expression since it's a 'measurement' and therefore can ONLY be read and not written to. I didn't have to do anything since when I extracted the expressions from the model the system inserted the function automatically since it knew it was a 'read-only' parameter.

As to why I used it, I thought your goal was to 'plot' the changing distance from the origin to the end of the 'slider' (that last horizontal line on the right in the sketch). If I had placed an overall dimension showing that length, it would have had to have been a 'reference dimension' since a constraint dimension would have over-constrained the sketch. Granted I could have added a 'reference dimension' (which it appears you did), but those dimensions are not recognized by the spreadsheet since they do not represent an expression. That was the reason I used the Measurement expression since that WAS an expression and therefore will be recognized by the spreadsheet.

I hope that clears things up a bit for you. BTW, those Spreadsheet functions, like Goal Seek and Goal Analysis, have been part of UG/NX for better then 10 years (actually the spreadsheet, which included Goal Seek, was introduced with UG V11.0 back in 1996, but Goal Analysis and the charting came a few releases later).

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