To include Border/Zones and Title Blocks and removal of patterns

Transcription

1 To include Border/Zones and Title Blocks and removal of patterns

2 NX 8 now includes a border/zone feature for the drafting application. This allows for Drawing borders to be generated using an easy to follow border dialog Zone location view call outs and reference zone annotations L. Brandenburg 2

3 Open legacy drawing template and perform a save as on it within NX 8. File SAVE AS For the Teamcenter templates I bumped up the item revision. For the Native templates I append the rev letter to the end with an underscore and rev letter _A I do this to keep track of templates and modifications. It also allows for the users still on previous version to use the previous templates. In Teamcenter my TC_NX**_FILE_NEW file settings include the items revision L. Brandenburg 3

4 The borders line color and annotation alignment location are determined by the files preferences. The color of the border lines are determined by the following preference Preferences Object Type = Line Color The annotation alignment is determined by the following preference Preferences Annotation Lettering Tab Alignment Position (For the border use Middle Center) Note: Ensure that you change the settings back to the orginal ones prior to doing final save L. Brandenburg 4

5 Patterns are now officially consider to be a legacy way of doing things so much so that they even hide the pattern menu button even with your role set to advanced with full menus. To get the pattern menu button back Tools Customize Commands Categories/Format Commands/Pattern and drag it to Format menu If the pattern was on a visible only layer. Turn that layer to selectable. Expand the pattern and analyze current border widths (they will be handy latter on when you re creating the new border). Delete any boarder curves/annotation leaving the other areas such as the title blocks, revision blocks and company statements. L. Brandenburg 5

6 Access the Border and Zones Dialog Tools Drawing Format Borders and Zones Icon = Set the setting for your Companies border style and click OK Move newly created lines and annotation to a visible only layer L. Brandenburg 6

7 The Drafting Grid can now be sized to match the Sheet zones Height and widths. Preferences Drafting General Tab Grid Settings/Use Sheet Zone Grid To easily view the grid MB2 on Drawing in the Part Navigator and check off grid L. Brandenburg 7

8 NX 8 also has a new Title Block function that will take multiple tabular notes and combine them into one title block feature that allows for easy editing of the title block. Some nice features are. It allows for attributes and editing of those attributes within the Populate Title Block Dialog Tabular notes that are used to create the Title Block information can be in different areas of the drawing It allows for locking certain portions of the title block like labels and sheet attributes so that they don t appear when populating the title block. This is nice when the same information is in multiple locations like part number and sheet rev. If populated with attributes the user can place the same attribute in multiple locations and lock the duplicates locations, leaving the user able to modify the main field. In return it will change the attribute value and then automatically update the other fields. It allows the creator to specify a particular order to populate the title block information When Populating the Title Block the particular cell of the tabular note that correlates to the value field being edited highlights, giving the user a visual of where the value is being placed L. Brandenburg 8

9 After creating place the Title Block on a visible only layer. Users will still be able to edit the title block through the Populate Title block Icon/Menu When Creating the Title Block use attributes for everything. These attributes can be used for many different customizations, reports and can be used in multiple areas Prior to placing Labels test out the title block, if changes are necessary the user must remove the tabular note from the set, edit it and add it back to the Title Block. When this happens the labels will be removed from that particular tabular note. When Defining the Title block only place label values in the unlocked Cells. The locked cells will not be visible in the populate dialog box If editing the Title block and only one tabular note is used. Place an empty tabular note on the drawing and when editing the Definition of the title block add the empty tab note to the Title block and hold shift while selecting the original to deselect it. The user can then edit it the original and then perform the same steps in reverse to add the original tabular note back into the title block while removing the empty one. L. Brandenburg 9

10 You can not actually copy Title blocks from one template to the next! But you can export the title block out as a part file and import it into another template. Note: If attributes are used ensure that those attributes exist in the new template prior to importing the title block in other wise it will convert those values into text L. Brandenburg 10

11 NX 8 also includes an easier way of making PAX files = Mark as Template It will mark as a template and optionally update PAX file The update pax file in my opinion is lacking because it places the file at the end of pax and still needs to be manually edited to be placed in a particular order. It also lays it out on one line of text instead of splitting it up like the defaults in the earlier versions. I tried a couple and just updated them manually. The nice part is that it will reference the part preview. This may have been possible in the past but I was unaware, so I manually created Jpegs for all of the previews and resized them = time consuming. To do this manually use the following <PreviewImage type="ugpart" location= PUT FILE NAME HERE.prt"/> Mark as template must be used for the new regions feature The new region/drawing automation needs a drafting plus license L. Brandenburg 11