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Showing posts from 2008

Pro/Animation: Step 1 - A simple animation.

This post is to get you a very basic Animation that you can use if you are new to animation. Proe Version : WF2 Quick Introduction: ProE Animation is a typical ProE Module in the sense that sometimes its not easy to start with. But once you get the grip of it, its so easy and powerful. Most tend to think that it’s a hard think to crack but that’s NOT the case at all. I would try to post a few to get you started.

Wheel Rolling and falling. Made in ProE Mechanism.

This is the continuation of the previous post that I had. I modified the previous mechanism a little bit, and I got this. I removed the slot-follower connection and instead I added an additional pin connection which makes the wheel rotate about the vertical. That plus the manipulation of the tilting angle resulted in this. I think the rendering also is a bit better. It took almost couple of hours to capture the rendered video! But worth the effort.. Here is the video...

Wheel Rolling and tilting. Made in ProE Mechanism.

This is a Mechanism (with Animation) of a wheel rolling along a guide curve, tilting on its way.. I was browsing through the PTC Forum and found a requirement. He wanted to simulate a wheel rolling along a curve with a possibility of tilting as well. I have been playing around with mechanism options for my other task . So I thought of giving it a try.

Proe Files - Handling Old Versions.

This is typical view of ProE files saved in a folder. For a beginner this can be bit confusing and sometimes will lead to some problems. What is it Each time you save a ProE file, it creates an additional file (instead of overwriting it). file.prt, file.prt.1 etc. Next time you save and it will create another file with next higher serial number

Printing the Books, the Old school way.

I have this video of the The Old School Printing Method. Interesting, to say the least. Check out.

Answer to the ProE Puzzle 001

Here is my answer for the proe puzzle_001 . I must admit that, I could not fully solve my Qn. I will come to that later.

Compress ProE model beyond what a zip can do.

This is a something I noticed in the past and it an come handy sometimes. So here we go. When you are in an urgency to send a BIG (in file size) ProE model over e-mail and the zipping is good enough then what would you do. One possibility is to zip and split into multiple files and send as multiple mails. Then when you receive, you can combine and unzip it. There is another way. For this you need a small tweaking of the model in ProE. What you do is to make insert mode at the beginning (you can leave one or two features at the beginning in resumed status) and the file size come really down. Don't ask me why. I don't know. In both cases you have the full information needed in the file. But one is very small !! Strange, isn't it.

How to dimension the arc angle in ProE Sketcher

How to add an angular dimension for an arc in ProE Sketcher Mode. I have seen people creating radial construction lines at the beginning and at the end to insert the angular dimension. But thats not necessary. There is an easier way.

Select the ProE default options without clicking

Most ProE users may know this. This one is for those who missed out. In ProE, the Middle (Scroll) Mouse Button acts like a Default selection. In most commands of ProE, you will find one option in Bold. The straight forward option is to go there and click it. But pressing the middle button will select the default option automatically. You do not have to move the mouse at all. This also applicable in many Dashboard Commands and other like File-Open. Save your precious time ! If you have not used it, get used to it now on. Footnote: You can configure ProE to have your default option changed as well.. Thats another post coming later..

Setting the ProE model on its tolerance limits (MMC or LMC) using Dim Bound option

What is in the cards... * What is a DIM BOUND and its use? * How do I access it? * What are my options? * Maximum Material Condition (MMC) and Least Material Condition (LMC) * Dim Bound TABLE

ProE Puzzle 001

I thought it would be nice to learn if its put in the form of Puzzles. This is nothing but a modelling requirement. How would you do it? Puzzle No: ProE_Puzzle_001 Puzzle type: Basic. Here is the Qn. See the diagram. We have 2 sets of points. each set has 4 points. they are A1 to A4 and B1 to B4.

my blog logo

Hopefully the logo will be up-and-running from tomorrows e-mail subscription onwards.. I'm waiting.. BTW, how is it?

Unleash the power of Surface selection by seed-boundary option

Lets have a look at how the surface selection by "Seed and Boundary" works and possible benefits.  The real benefits of this method will come when the model goes through unexpected changes and by following this approach, your model will be really rigid! What are the general methods of selecting surfaces? The main classification of surface selection is.. > Individual Surfaces > Bounded set > > Neighbouring surfaces > > Surface between anchor and boundary (or seed-boundary) > > All surfaces > Exclude surfaces

Love letter by a ProE Designer

Dear Missing Component, Life has been really hard and I cant get out of this RESOLVE MODE since you have left. I have been trying to LOCATE the missing element and cant SUPPRESS my feelings. I just cant REGENERATE without you. Without you, I'm like a PACKAGED ASSEMBLY. My heart is like a STEP file gone bad with MISSING SURFACES. I am haunted by the thought of you going into another assembly. I have been keeping my feelings in HIDDEN LAYERS all these while. I liked you for your SIMPLIFIED REPRESENTATION. Your STYLE DEFINITION is the best. I cant forget the RENDERED IMAGE of yours. Your face is like Class-A surface made out of a perfect BLEND. Your body is like a ideal VARIABLE SECTION SWEEP. I have your COPY GEOMETRY with me in my mind and I have defined it as READ-ONLY to protect it forever. I assure you that if there are conflicts in the RELATION, we can MODIFY THE RELATIONS. If the PARENT-CHILD-RELATION is a problem, we can REROUTE that as well. The PARAMETERS are modifiabl

Handling the ProE resolve Mode

Resolve Mode. Its every ProE users nightmare! I hope to bring some relief for all those woos. If you have been using ProE for sometime, then you don't need any introduction on this topic. I thought I would introduce you to the options that may not be frequently used.  Its rarely used, but is very useful.

Editing references in Pro Engineer.

ProE is a fully parametric modeling software and if not understood properly, can lead to havoc! Realigning references or editing references is a powerful feature of ProE. Probably you may be using it OR you may think that you may be using it OR you may not be using it at all.. This option allows us to change the parent-child relations.. (yaa.. There is no blood relation in ProE.. Only type restrictions.. I mean if you have a datum plane as parent and you want to change the parent, you can have another one but only another datum plane and not an axis.. Something like racism! Bad comparison! May be, but I will stick with it for the rest of this posting )

Can u bend a model in ProE

The answer is YES. Its usual in the industry that we have parts that change their shape when they go into an assembly. Simple examples are O-Ring, Spring. For such Items ProE has a flexibility option that allows us to modify the dimension or parameters to make a deformation in the component. For simple parts, if you take little bit extra care in modelling, these are sufficient. But there are other cases like Bellow for example or say a copy-geometry part from your supplier, in which you really cannot model in such a manner. Suppose you want to bend the component. The most flexible way is to make a UDF which makes use of SPINAL-BEND. (Insert -> Adavanced -> Spinal Bend). The key here is to get a parametric curve that simulates the final shape. Please make a note of my other post on UDF . When creating the UDF, make it driven by a set of Feature Parameters and you can place the UDF in any such model (let that model be parametric or not) and it will bend for you... for sure!! ha

Special Notes on UDF

Recently I had lots of problems with UDF Creation. I thought I will some those over here.. 1) Create a Coordinate System (C_SYS) and all the features coming to the UDF should be a child or a sub-child of that C_SYS. This way its easy to place the UDF. This is one of the critical things you have to consider for a successful UDF. 2) I had to make the teeth completely parameteric. But I had lots of issues when I used Part Level parameters (Normal Parameters). Instead, create all the parameters (and relations) that are needed for the UDF in the base C_SYS. This way the parameters will get created easily in the new part when the UDF is placed. 3) Using Feature Parameters has another advantage. You can have multiple UDF placed in new part and those UDFs can be different. If you manage to have part level parameters driving the UDF, then both instances of the UDF will be driven by the same set of parameters and hence the UDFs will be identical. 4) If you have to access the Feature Param

X-Section Reference

For a long time, it was a pain to find out the referance plane of an X-Section. Until I got this by accident. Notmally I suppress each plane and see the messages to see if the says about the section I was looking for... There are two easy ways. (1) Keep the mouse over the section of interest and the datum plane name will be shown at the bottom left corner of the base window. (2) Keep the mouse over the section for few seconds and the same will be shown next to the mouse.. Easy, isn't it.. until you know it !!!

SOLVE - FOR option in Proe

Well, its a follow-up post. I had mensioned SOLVE-FOR in my previous posting . I thought of elaborating that a bit. Basically it allows you to solve simultanious equation. OK. Normally we have relations like the following. A = F(B). { Eg A = 2B + Tan(B) } now if you know B, you can find A.