Sketching polygon in NX5

[emonje]

Is there any way to sketch polygons in NX5? I can't find polygon command anywhere. I've tried editing .tbr to include UG_SKETCH_POLYGON command but it doesn't work. Funny thing is that NX help says there is this Polygon command. What am I missing?

Thanks.

 

[man2007]

Make sure that you have selected Advanced with Full Menus Role (or any other role with Full menus) and then try this Insert>Curve>Polygon...

 

[emonje]

Yes, from Insert menu I can create polygon. But I wanted to know if there's any way to sketch one in Sketcher task environment. Such that there's an entry in the history tree. Thanks for the reply.

 

[emonje]

& also do I have to change CSYS everytime I need a polygon in some other plane or face?

 

[tsjaikdus]

You can use constraints tangent to circle and equal length for the lines. Then the circle radius defines your polygon (like a hexagon nut). Unless your polygon has so many sides this isn't practical.

 

[hudson888]

If you create a polygon using curve you could always add it to a sketch using the add curves function and then constrain it however you like. I know it isn't necessarily what you asked but is would be quicker than sketching the polygon from scratch.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[emonje]

I can always draw polygons from lines but that's not the point.

So far what I could gather is that if a part has 2 or 3 hexagons on differnt faces then I have to change CSYS at least. Or resort to other more time consuming methods. Am I still missing something?

Thanks.

 

[JohnRBaker]

There is no 'polygon' function in the sketcher nor are there any plans to add one. If you wish to create a polygon we recommend that you sketch and constrain the needed line segments.

Attached is an example of a sketched hexagon.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
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.

 

[StewB]

I've been frustrated by this too... Why would this command be left out?! Even I-Deas has a polygon option.

 

[JohnRBaker]

It would be easy to put a polygon command in the sketcher. After all, one is available when you're NOT in the sketcher. But let me ask you this, if we DID add a polygon command to the sketcher, would it be acceptable if ALL it did was create an N-sided set of unconstrained lines? Because while adding a simple polygon command would be trivial, creating one that met what we anticipate would be the expectations of our users would not be all that easy, particularly if the expectation was a very general implementation where one would expect that users would want several different schemes which we would have to accommodate, such as 'inside dia', 'outside dia', 'length of side', as well as of course the number of sides and I would guess that users would want to edit all of the above parameters as part of the object. And while you can do ANYTHING with software, there are certain limitations and constraints (excuse the pun) which we have to live with, such as you can NOT have a feature INSIDE another feature, which means that we could NOT give you the above behavior by creating a 'parametric' polygon inside the Sketch. No, the polygon would have to be just of loop of curves with normal everyday sketch constraints assigned to them, which while that could be done with respect to the size and location of the polygon, how do we address the issue of the value of 'N', as in 'N-Sided'?

Anyway, I offered up an example a while back in this thread of what a constrained polygon would look like in a sketch so perhaps you can just create a few template parts and use them when needed.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
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.