Table of Points for Drawing

[debodine]

I would like to ask the advice of more experienced Solidworks users. I am a self taught user of Solidworks 2005 and therefore there are many holes in my understanding of how to use it. I have done searches on the terms "solidworks, points, table" and didn't find my answer, so I will ask in this forum.

I have created a sketch. One part of the sketch is a curve that is defined by 55 different X/Y points. Each point is placed at a specific X location and a specific Y location and then "fixed" in place on a spline. The the sketch is extruded and I have my 3D part with the correct curvature.

On the 2D drawing that will define this part for manufacturing, I would like to add a table of these X/Y points. Does Solidworks have a method to grab these existing points from the sketch and create the table on the 2D drawing? I would like to avoid manually creating a table on the 2D drawing. Manual creation of such a table allows too many opportunities for transcription error, plus later design changes or additional configurations (if any) would be more palatable if the table updated automatically.

I apologize for having to ask such a basic question as "Does Solidworks even do this function?" but our company does not like to provide training that "costs money" and I have not convinced myself that I need to foot the expense of a VAR class out of my own pocket...at least not yet. I hope within a year or two to have that excess cash and available time off sitting in my back pocket and then I will pay for my own training. I did also read through the help screens but I didn't find any function that appeared to accomplish my task.

debodine

 

[handleman]

This might be an option, depending on what you extruded from the spline and other part geometry. Create another configuration of your part and add tiny holes, maybe 0.01" dia. by 0.01" deep, with the hole wizard that are coincident with your sketch points. You can supress that feature on all other configurations. Create a hole table on your drawing. The hole geometry will be covered by whatever kind of marker you have designating the points. If it does show up you can do a hide edge, but that would take a while with 50 points.

 

[bkelsey]

You could create the 55 coordinate points file in an Excel spreadsheet, save the points out as a text file (with the proper format), to be used to insert a curve through xyz points, use that curve to sweep your part, then insert the spreadsheet into your drawing.

I can't see how you could get this to automatically update, since you have to save the points out to a text (or .sldcrv) file.

Any other ideas?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

[handleman[/b]'s suggestion is probably the simplest way to go ... and gives an associative table.

If you cannot use his suggestion, export sketch points thread559-119678 shows a macro which creates a text file of the point co-ordinates. This could be used to create a table, which would eliminate the manual transcription errors.


Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091

 

[debodine]

Thanks to handleman, bkelsey and CBL for information and suggestions. I intend to experiment with this information either later today or tomorrow, and I will report back in this forum sometime after that what my results were.

It's good to get information from those who have already "been there, done that".

debodine