thicken outlines

[Crocostimpy]

Where I work we want to make the outlines of the part in our drawing views a heavier line weight than the rest of the lines. So far the only way I've been able to do this is by creating a curve at the intersection of surfaces in the part, changing the lineweight of the curve and putting it on a layer, then showing that layer in the drawing. It starts to get confusing when there are multiple views, with different layers for each view, the intersection not being the same as the silhouette, yada yada. I haven't found any way of selecting the outline in the drawing and changing lineweight.

Is there some other way to do this? Perhaps in the drawing and not the part?

Mike

 

[Crocostimpy]

Hudson, when I try that in Drafting I get an error message. Something about needing an view with hidden lines set to invisible, which they are, so I can't get that to work. This is in 5.0.0.25. I know we're behind, but that's not my call.

Mike

 

[hudson888]

Well I'm on NX-5.0.4.1 as I think that I mentioned earlier. I haven't been able to duplicate your bug. An upgrade is in any case HIGHLY recommended since there are several bug fixes and a few new features bundled with this later version. Early NX-5 had quite a few idiosyncrasies you'd not miss. I'd say you've a VERY good case for the upgrade.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[Crocostimpy]

I've been trying to make a case for the upgrade for a while now. We're wanting to go up to NX6, but half the machines here are still on Win 2000, and there's some problem with the server to install Teamcenter also. We need a new server, and it's getting close to the end of the year with the budget now, yada yada.

On another note, I tried the various methods listed above on a couple of drawings I'm working on now. It seemed that changing the Visible Line and Shadow Line states worked out the best for most views. I then went back using View Dependent Edit to fix the handful of shadow lines that got picked up as visible lines, probably because of tangency issues. (This was an imported file and it's pretty complex.) It worked out pretty good and didn't take me too long at all. The majority of our stuff is not as involved as this one, so this will probably work the best for most drawings.

Mike

 

[hudson888]

You may have to turn off under the hidden line settings the option for "Curve Hiding Curve", in later versions NX-5 it is under "Include Model Curves". I suspect that when the views regenerate the shadow outline falling on top of part of the model may be being hidden by the solid edge when the view regenerates.

In brief testing I was able to find that this both occurred and gave be grief with a few errors in the process. One would hope and urge that you avoid using that setting altogether when you add views if you insist of pursuing these shadow outlines. I'm fairly sure this technique isn't strictly intended use of the system so it probably hasn't been tested and finessed to the point of being really robust.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[Crocostimpy]

I'll keep those settings in mind the next time I do it. The lines I had to fix myself were edges that were not tangent in the model. Some were a result of me bad area and putting a surface back in, usually with no tangencies. The surfaces tend to look better when I di it that way, and they're usually pretty small so they don't really affect the asthetics of the model.

Mike