Movable Cross Section

[Marlamuth]

Hi,

does anybody know a way to get a movable x-section? In f.x. solidworks and UG you can move a slicing plane and the x-section updates in real time.

 

[michaelpaul]

that's one of the features I miss most from SW after switching to Pro/E. In short, no, you can't do it in Pro.

Somebody posted a work around by using a datum plane but it wasn't really the same thing.

I just find that I've adjusted my practices to create physical sections since typically I care about the section in specfic areas of the part. if I need to investigate other areas randomly, I'll just make an assembly cut and adjust the cut as needed. not as efficient but it works.

I also dearly miss the draft analysis functionality of SW. Pro has it and it works almost identically......but it's SLOWWWWWWWWWWWWW compared to the way SW handled the color map.

 

[dojo]

Eh, 'view', 'model display' (i dont know by heart) and then 'visibilities'.


That slides through your model parallel to your screen, so first orient your model for example to the right and then go to visibilities.


There is a option in config (again i think) enable_capped_clipping, set it to yes and you see a volume when you clip through your model. (this capped clipping can also be found under 'preferences'.


Michaelpaul, are you sure its not a hardware issue? We design plastic parts (very complex) for example tractor roofs, and the draft check takes no longer then or less then a second or two?





Hope it helps


Nick

 

[michaelpaul]

Eh, 'view', 'model display' (i dont know by heart) and then 'visibilities'.


That slides through your model parallel to your screen, so first orient your model for example to the right and then go to visibilities.


There is a option in config (again i think) enable_capped_clipping, set it to yes and you see a volume when you clip through your model. (this capped clipping can also be found under 'preferences'.


Michaelpaul, are you sure its not a hardware issue? We design plastic parts (very complex) for example tractor roofs, and the draft check takes no longer then or less then a second or two?





Hope it helps


Nick

Dojo, the clipping procedure that you reference is a "sort of" to the dynamic X-section, but you must always be looking normal to the clipping plane. so, you can't rotate the part or else it will start clipping at a location where you don't want to section. The dynamic x-setion from SW allowed you to simply pick any plane (or multiple planes if they intersected actually) to section your model. then, you could either dynamically drag the section plane to change where you were sectioning your model or adjust a slider that would increment by a preset interval and quickly pass through your model. I used this ALL the time when checking the wall thickness of parts to make sure I didn't have any errors I couldn't detect otherwise.

the processing of the draft analysis isn't what's slow, it's rotating the model with the color map displayed that really slows things down. I have a decent machine at work (P4 3.2 GHz, 1GB RAM, NVidia GForce 6600 LE) and it just seems to bog down when viewing the color map while rotating the model. It's kind of like it wants to process as you rotate or something.

Michael

 

[dojo]

Aye, I did not say its exactly the same, but it does the trick. I tend to use it alot for quick interference check instead of the pairs clearance, globel interference etc... I just suppose every cad program has hes pro and cons.Believe me, ive used solidworks release 95 (the very first) till 98, Unigraphics, proe since release 18 and ideas.


Concerning the graphics card (and i do think thats the reason why its slowing down) isn't a Gforce more for gaming applications? For my workstations i always go for the quadro cards.


Greets


Nick

 

[michaelpaul]

Concerning the graphics card (and i do think thats the reason why its slowing down) isn't a Gforce more for gaming applications? For my workstations i always go for the quadro cards.


Greets


Nick

I did't specify the card. whoever did apparently went on PTC's website and the one I got was supposedly recommended/authorized/approved/whatever by PTC for use with Pro. I never actually confirmed that though............

everything else about the card and other HW seems to work okay so I'm not sure. I just deal with it. I find I don't do a draft analysis nearly as often in Pro as I did in SW now simply because in SW you added draft with the feature most of the time so it was really only the random surfaces that you didn't draft. Now, most of my development work is done on an undrafted model so it's only at the end that I start to use it and check to make sure I got all the surfaces. In the end, I get the same results. While I do like Pro for some things, I do miss many things about SW though. Oh well, nothing is perfect!

Michael

 

[vitadj]

For thickness measuring you can use Analysis/Model Analysis/Thickness.

Logicaly, isn't ?