symbol creation

[jerry1423]

I created a symbol of our company logo, and it worked fine except for one thing. There is no preview of the symbol when I am in the "insert symbol" menu.

How do I create a preview of the symbol so that it shows up in the "insert symbol" menu?

 

[JohnRBaker]

If we're talking about 'Custom Symbols', there is a button which looks like a 'camera' at the end of the list of icons selected to execute the various steps in the process of creating your Custom Symbol. What you do is when you're ready to save your symbol, just compose the geometry which makes up the symbol in the graphics window how you would like it look (and make sure that fill the entire screen just just the symbol geometry) and then press the icon that looks like a 'camera' (note that there is an option at the bottom of the Create Symbol dialog where you choose from one of 3 standard image sizes) and select the area of the screen you wish to include in the preview image. What happens is that the system will create, in addition to the symbol file, a .bmp file with the same name as the symbol. This is the preview that you see when you go to the 'Insert Symbol' dialog.

Now here's a little trick to remember. The system does really care where the .bmp file came from or even how large it is (despite the fact that the largest that NX will automatically create is 36 x 36 pixels). So what you can after the fact if you wish something larger, is to just go and create whatever .bmp file which you think represents the 'meaning' of the symbol, even if it may not actually look like the symbol, give it the same name as symbol of interest and place it in the symbol folder and then the next time you go to the 'Insert Symbol' dialog this will be image that you see.

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

 

[jerry1423]

Thank you John