Smart Title Block - Scaling Tables with Sheet Size change

[Tomiuck]

I am currently working on creating a smarter title block for the company that I work for. We do not scale views (always show as 1:1) and scale the drawing sheet to fit. I have created a drawing template that is connected to the boarders of the drawing. When we do change the size of the sheet the title block, revisions block, and note stay in the correct corner of the drawing.

The main issue that I am having now is that changing the sheet size to 100" X 200" the letters are no longer visible. Is there a way to use the sheet size linked to and expressions that changes the cell sizes and character sizes of the the title block feature?

We use to have a dumb curves in our title block and we would just scale the lines and text.

If anyone could advise in this scenario that would be a great help.

 

[NutAce]

Shouldn't a titleblock be of uniform size?

Ronald van den Broek
Senior Application Engineer
Winterthur Gas & Diesel Ltd
NX9 / TC10.1.2

Building new PLM environment from Scratch using NX11 / TC11

 

[Tomiuck]

Yes, this is correct in most cases. However, in this case, we are scaling the drawing sheet and not the views. This creates the problem that I am having with the title block size.

 

[NutAce]

Okay...then why scaling and not re-apply (edit)?

Ronald van den Broek
Senior Application Engineer
Winterthur Gas & Diesel Ltd
NX9 / TC10.1.2

Building new PLM environment from Scratch using NX11 / TC11

 

[Tomiuck]

I am a little confused with what you are asking. In terms of drawing creation we have drawings that vary in size from B size sheets to 200" by 300". When we change the sheet size we require the title block to scale with these changes.

 

[NutAce]

In first posting you state that you are changing the size of the titleblock (Cells and text) when the sheet size is changing. In my eyes that would be very strange. It means that when you are using an A0 size the titleblock would be much bigger than on an A4 sheet?

Ronald van den Broek
Senior Application Engineer
Winterthur Gas & Diesel Ltd
NX9 / TC10.1.2

Building new PLM environment from Scratch using NX11 / TC11

 

[Tomiuck]

Yes and this is correct, we print most drawings on a B size sheet. We are hoping to have the same size tittle block on all prints regardless of actual sheet size.

 

[JNieman]

That doesn't make sense to me. If you're printing them on B-size sheet, why would you not make a B-size sheet from the start?

Why wouldn't you want to scale the view to fit the sheet?

This sounds like the old AutoCAD days where people would draw everything in "model space" at 1:1 scale, then just use a 'scale' command to edit the border/title block to fit the part. It's completely backwards to what I was taught to do on the board, and backwards from what is commonplace in the CAD world.

I'm sorry to get off on a tangent, but... is there some special requirement that forces you not to scale your views to fit a B-Size sheet? I don't know what one would even do with a 200" x 300" sheet. If you're making 1:1 scale drawings for some sort of 2D manufacturing process (laser, router, waterjet, plasma torch, drag knife, etc) then why not export a DXF to go with your scaled B-Size sheet, that one would use to program from?

 

[Tomiuck]

I agree with this, standard sheet sizes should be used and view sizes should be scaled to fit the sheet. However, this is not the company standard, and I am trying to make this work for the standard that is in place.

I appreciate your concern, but I am looking for a solution to this problem with scaling the table sizes.

 

[Kenja824]

I think what is confusing is that nobody sees a reason to scale the title block itself. A title block should stay the same size. In the computer when you FIT the drawing sheet, it will make the title block look very small on the sheet, but when you print it out it will still print at the same scale as any other sheet and be legible. If you scale a title block to be much larger on a large sheet so you can see the lettering in the monitor, when you print it on paper you will have the enormous title block with huge letters. That is what I am reading that you want....

If you want to be able to read it on the computer when looking at the entire sheet, my advice would be to create a second title block that is scaled up and placed outside the drawing sheet limits. That way when you print it on paper, the giant title block would not be printed and just the regular sized one will print. But on the computer you can still fit it all in and read the larger one.

Am I misunderstanding what you are doing? To create a title block that actually scales up and down? As strange as it seems, I would say how if I knew how. Sorry.

 

[Kenja824]

Just had a thought.... I am not very good with expressions, but you might be able to create the title block with sketcher and the length to some lines you can use formulas so they will be a percentage size of the border line and such. Not positive how it would work but I tend to think that is what you are looking for.... as strange as a scaling title block may seem to me. )

 

[Tomiuck]

Yes, if we printed drawings 1:1 then this would be an issues, however, we print most drawings on A or B size paper. So although the text size would be large if printed 1:1 it will never be done.

I understand that this is a strange request, but this is a company standard and it is not going to change. I am just trying to work in the boundary that are set for me.

I would like to have the title block remain the same size on the printed A or B size paper and change on the sheet to reflect this.

 

[Kenja824]

So you create your views 1:1 scale. Make the sheet super large to fit the bigger views, then scale the drawing down to fit a specific drawing size to print.

Doesnt that essentially for all practical purposes do the same thing as just scaling your views down to fit the sheet size that is 1:1? When you dimension them, the dimensions will still show the 1:1 dimensions sizes.

I dont mean to argue with you. Forgive me for that. I am just curious as to why one would do it this way. What is the benefit?

But whether I understand or not, I cant think of any other way other than to use some kind of expressions so lines change according to other lines. Sorry I cant help more.

 

[Kenja824]

I just did a small test. I used sketcher to draw two lines side by side at different lengths. I added dimensions to the two lines for their lengths. I double clicked the smaller line and in the popup box there is a place where it gives the dimension a name like p178 and next to that is the length of the line. If you open the drop down option next to the length and change it to formula, another Formula box will open and you can see the other lines and objects available. The other line was named p179, so in the formula bar I removed the length number of the line I am editing and typed in p179/2 and clicked OK.

The smaller line will now stay one half the length of the longer line, however long I make that line. Once you create the title block and make the dimensions to each of he lines all change according to the size of one border line of the sheet, you can move the dimensions to a separate layer and turn that layer off.

This would essentially make it so that when you import the part file that has the border and title block, then change the length of the one border line to match the size you need, the title block would scale accordingly.

I still think it all comes down to the same thing and you are better off just scaling the views, but if its the title block you want to scale, this is the way I can think of to do it. However, scaling the lettering may be a different animal.

 

[Tomiuck]

You are correct, leaving the views 1:1 only serves a purpose for us exporting drawing for 2D manufacturing although not required. Having a 1:1 scale is just a standard and actually serves no purpose to my knowledge.


As for your suggestion, I believe that we can only use tables with the NX title block feature. I tried using a sketch as well as an associative line but would not work with the title block feature.

I already have a file that will pull the sheet size, I just need a function that will modify the table.

 

[Kenja824]

I would definitely want to suggest pushing for a change in that standard, but I understand what its like having to do something simply because upper management wants it done a certain way. I deal with that stuff now and then.

Unfortunately, I cant help you more as when it comes to a title block feature, I dont know. I wonder if it would be possible to create a journal with a button that would select the title block and measure a border line and scale the title block accordingly. Unfortunately I am weak with code. Sorry.

 

[Tomiuck]

That is ok, I will try to mess around with a Journal and see what happens.

 

[JNieman]

For files required 2D Manufacturing CAD files, I place a reference to that file on the drawing. A scaled view is created, with a 1:1 CAD file (DXF in my case) saved in the same location as the drawing. The CAD file naming convention prevents revision-mixing in the case the drawing is updated but the CAD file isn't or vice-versa. There is certainly a way to automate that, I'm sure, but I don't care to - it's infrequent, and I like manually checking over things. DXF files often need to be 'cleaned up' in AutoCAD before assuming they are usable, anyways.

If you're going to push for change, I'd suggest that.