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tbraxton
22-Sapphire II
tbraxton22-Sapphire II
22-Sapphire II
February 1, 2021
Question

Designating dimension references in library sections; is it possible?

  • February 1, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 3032 views

PTC documents the following regarding importing sections into sketcher;

The imported constraints become strong constraints, and the imported dimensions become weak dimensions. Other weak dimensions are added to solve the sketch.

 

Is anyone aware of a method to designate entities in a section that will be used for placement references when importing the section into sketcher? I am trying to define some references that the weak dimensions would be applied to upon placing the section. Sketcher throws wacky dimensions when placing the section and I am trying to make that predictable. It would be the sketch analogue to a UDF where placement is predetermined.

 

The presence of a sketch CSYS does not get used as a reference when placing the section in sketcher. I would think that it would use a csys as a dim ref in the section if present but it has not.

2 replies

P
19-Tanzanite
pausob19-Tanzanite
19-Tanzanite
February 4, 2021

Doesn't answer your question, and maybe you know of this - but when importing a sketch section (or copying and pasting in the sketch), one can change the location of that "snap" point (or the pivot of rotation and scaling) of the incoming geometry, initially positioned at the its centroid.

I found 2 ways of doing it:

- left-clicking on the incoming geometry

- right-clicking on the snap point and dragging it over the incoming geometry

Personally, it took a while for me to find this feature, even though it is active by default - it is just not very apparent that Creo is prompting you to specify the pivot location.

 

Other than that, I find that .sec files preserve the state of the dimension and constraints, and it is useful to have a local coordinate system that "ties it all together".  Also, if all your .sec sketch dimensions are locked, then upon import you'll end up with just 2 weak dimensions that locate your incoming geometry by controlling the x, y distances between the coordinate system and your sketch references.

tbraxton
22-Sapphire II
tbraxton22-Sapphire IIAuthor
22-Sapphire II
February 4, 2021

@pausob 

 

Thx for the reply. I am aware of the controls available for the sketch placement reference target. My library sections typically include a sketch csys. The workflow I was hoping to implement was to have the weak dimensions created in sketch when importing a section to reference a designated entity in the section (i.e. csys). I tried both sketch and geometry csys in a section and neither one works as the sketcher intent mangler randomly selects dimension references on section geometry and never the csys in my testing. 

 

I have some sections that need to be placed in specific location relative to each other and by designating the dimension references it would streamline the use of these sections when placed in a model. I can use UDF functionality to work around this but would prefer that this functionality could be saved in the section file.

 

I am interested to know if anyone else would find value in this functionality if it were available. I may submit an enhancement request. If this were to be added I would also envision the dimensions added for placement in sketcher would be strong when referencing a designated dim ref in an imported sketch.

P
19-Tanzanite
pausob19-Tanzanite
19-Tanzanite
February 4, 2021

I can't quite picture what you are trying to streamline, but are you saying that dimensions and constraints in your saved .sec sections are gone when imported into a new sketch?  Like I said, my system makes weak dimensions to the .sec coordinate system when importing the section into new sketch:

.SEC file (with a local construction coordinate system).SEC file (with a local construction coordinate system)Section imported into a new sketch (which contained only a geometry coordinate system)Section imported into a new sketch (which contained only a geometry coordinate system)

(color scheme: locked orange, strong green; weak red)

(also note the orientation of the coord system in the .sec file was not constrained - hence 3 weak dimensions upon import)

 

 

Anyway, if you can, why not submit your enhancement request.  Are those different from the "product ideas" that this community forum can vote on?

tbraxton
22-Sapphire II
tbraxton22-Sapphire IIAuthor
22-Sapphire II
March 24, 2021

PTC support through R&D states that this is not currently supported.

 

The workaround suggested was to create a UDF and define the placement of the sketch using UDF functionality.

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