Show Fluid Flow Passages

[Wes_Tomer]

Hello,

This is a bit of a challenge. I think there may be a variety of creative solutions:

I would like to show in AR the passages where oil-flows within a special pump. I have attached an image of this. In Creo Parametric I am able to turn down the transparency of all parts to about 80% and then color the surfaces where oil flows. You can see they are bright red with no transparency. So you can see through the transparent pump and understand the passages inside.

However when I export this as a PVZ, the red surface coloring disappears. I would love to somehow select all the surfaces and turn them into a quilt or a solid geometry that I can then add back to the model. As it is now, they are just a void space within and between various parts of a complex assembly.

Even better would be the ability to show dots, arrows, balls, or some representation of fluid flow through the passages. This sounds very labor intensive if I did this all manually.

The end goal is for the technician to be able to walk around the AR pump and see the void spaces inside where the oil flows. Also - a related side note - has anyone figured out a hack to show X-sections in AR? This is another way that internal components with passages could be explored & understood.

Thanks for your creative ideas!

Wes

[jmikesell]

You are going to have to create a new part in your Creo assembly and in that part copy geom all the surfaces that make up your oil volume. Then you can control the visibility and opacity of this "oil" in Illustrate or with a modelItem widget in Studio. There is no way in Illustrate or Studio to work with surfaces within a part, only all the surfaces of a part at once.

If you want to go to the next level and try to simulate movement or flow possibly you can adapt something from the examples of CFD streamlines.

https://community.ptc.com/t5/Studio/Simulating-Fluid-Flow-in-Studio-Experience/m-p/574028

https://community.ptc.com/t5/Studio/How-to-add-streamlines-from-Creo-Flow-Analysis/m-p/563464

Or a custom shader

https://community.ptc.com/t5/Studio/Shaders-created-in-Vuforia-Studio-are-not-working-on-Hololens/m-p/582567

[AllanThompson]

I had a look at something like this a while ago and here's what I found.

You can get what you show in your screenshot out of Creo, but it's quite a bit of work.  As you've seen, the colours on the surfaces don't come through into Studio if you apply them at the assembly level.  If you set the colours on the oil surfaces at the part level, then it will come through into Studio.  To keep the part looking "normal", you can create an Appearance state that lets you switch between normal solid appearance and then the "oil bits" view, but you really would want this at the assembly level.  The problem is that you can't create an Appearance state at the assembly level that re-uses part level appearance states like you can do with simplified reps, so you end up having to create two assemblies with the different appearances - not ideal.

As @jmikesell said, you're better off creating a part to represent the oil channels and then control its display in Studio using the ModelItem.

If you've got some CFD software, then you may be able to export out flowlines or other geometry that you can bring into Studio.  The other posts that @jmikesell  show examples of this.  The most recent one that I did shows the airflow through a supercharger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bof5v8i35Ek

This is geometry exported out from ANSYS and brought into Studio.

[Wes_Tomer]

Thanks Allan,

Yes considering the numerous parts this part-level coloring is not ideal. It would be nice to have the ability to simply turn negative spaces into positive geometry, and either cap-off or trim-off the excess geometry, like an injection mold sprue. I believe creating positive geometry from negative spaces is possible in Autodesk if you subtract a part from a larger block. I'm not sure about PTC's Creo.

Otherwise adding the part-level driven appearance state would be a great added feature. I prefer not to purchase a CFD software just to show the oil passages by following a repeatable procedure. Does PTC provide a software package or extension for this? Or, is there a low budget one out there?

Wes

[RolandRaytchev · Accepted solution]

Hi @Wes_Tomer , 

I am not sure if I understood 100% your problem  . But I think there are 2 issues where I could try to answer

1.)making form negative space positive and vice versa - is something what requires a modeler functionality - means not only the ability to display an existing geometry but also the ability to create via some boolean or feature operations some new geometry. I want to point that Vuforia studio use only functionality to display already existing geometry based on WegGL and cordova. To create new models e.g. via boolean operations is something what is possible in the existing CAD systems. For example you can in Creo Parametric cut a part or assembly with a plaine or you can remove /CutOut  or marge some parts from other parts  to a new geometry

-2.) using some graphical functionality like clipping functionality - for example to clip the geometry with a plain. This is also possible for different x,y, z value using a shader.

Here an example how such shader could work:

[Wes_Tomer]

Hi Roland,

Yes, cutting the geometry in advance would be a nice solution. The model is so large and complex, with so many surfaces mixed with solid geometries, that slicing it doesn't work. Only a couple parts end up cut.

I'm very interested in this shader option. This would be a great way of seeing inside our product. I'd like to create this for a HoloLens experience. Could you please share the JavaScript used to create a shader that's controlled by X,Y,Z parameters? 

Thanks,

Wes

[AllanThompson]

Hi Wes

If your ultimate goal is an experience on the HoloLens, you’re not going to be able to use shaders. There’s been a few examples of these posted in this forum, but the problem is that they don’t work on the HoloLens as it doesn’t support OpenGL shaders.