Surface (or face) graphics to represent decals, labels and paintwork.

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
August 23, 2012
3 replies
2745 views

Hi all,

At the moment, everyone in my office will design detailed labels / decals by sketching an extrude to a depth of 0.01mm, or there abouts.

With simple identity labels we dont extrude and just sketch on the surface, its enough to represent itself on the assembly accurately.

However, when it comes to filled in warning labels for example which may feature logos & colour, etc, we have to extrude down to create a new surface to make a different colour with appearances.

Our problem is that, on complex assemblies, which have many labelled sub-assemblies, the graphics burden begins to mount with many detailed, extruded labels. Is there anyway to apply graphics to a surface in a lightweight fashion??

I've already tried creating a sketch on a surface, and then using Edit > Fill but the label surface conflicts with the filled sketch surface and it makes the surfaces appear funny!

The graphics on the label also need to appear as outlines when used in a 2D drawing.

Thanks in advance!

Mike.

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General

J

John.Pryal

1-Visitor

Hi Mike,

have you not tried using the view manager to apply decals to your models? Reading further down your post, an alternative to using fill would be to use trim & keep both sides of the surface. Hope this helps.

Regards

John

T

TomD.inPDX

17-Peridot

What John said... For best practices, maybe consider making the label a stand-alone part with the graphics as an allied texture (decal).

For silkscreen, you can do the same thing in the fabricated part where the silkscreen is applied. You can use the Alpha channel to provide a transparent background when applying silkscreens. The built-in image editor will let you edit these image files for transparent background and a limiited number of other commands.

The third common method is to use the symbols which is similar to the geometry "sketch" method but is probably a little easier to manage. These can be turned on and off with the Display Annotation option. This has its own limitations of course, but that is one way to manage a lot of labeling in assemblies.

And last, you could add symbols in the drawings only. That way you only have an outline in the model, but you can place the symbol when drawing. This really keeps the models lightweight.

Personally, I still extrude silkscreens for simple assemblies. Labels may require minimal geometry to represent orientation.

Limitations: symbols can be turned on and off on drawings at will but textures/decals only show up in shaded view mode on drawings. Defining labels in a hybrid mode, symbol and decal is the best of both worlds. Managing symbol libraries may be a downside but once inserted, it is part of the model/drawing.

S

Steele

1-Visitor

Hi Mike,

Here is a tutorial showing how to paint logo or decal on a surface. This tutorial was done by someone else.

http://communities.ptc.com/videos/1352

Hope this is answers your question.

Regards

Rick

M

MikeMortimer

Author