CAD Forum

laukejas

how will it work on parts that are all ready shelled aka wall thickness? I get alot of parts created by students that need to be broken apart and then have this type of feature. as you know selecting a face that has inside outside edges will on offset the outer edge..... "No Bueno" Been d...

laukejas

Adding my macros as well. Modify External References - small dialog to Lock / Unlock / Break all references for all components in the assembly. Useful with Master models. Rebuild Assembly Parts - for when Force Rebuild doesn't cut it. This macro opens each part individually, shakes it down, saves an...

laukejas

I would use the user-selected point on the first face (make sure you use GetClosestPointOn with the values from GetSelectionPoint), along with its face normal, as inputs to RayIntersections. If the two faces are still coincident, you might have to offset your start point coordinates backward along ...

laukejas

Hi, Just wanted to share several macros I use in my day-to-day, most of them written myself. Modify External References - small dialog to Lock / Unlock / Break all references for all components in the assembly. Useful with Master models. Rebuild Assembly Parts - for when Force Rebuild doesn't cut it...

laukejas

Is it feasible for user to select any feature (solid/surface/edge/point) on the second body so you can get its reference, then your macro can only search for faces on the second body? Otherwise, you can try finding bodies whose bounding box (GetBodyBox method) intersects, however, it's not robust. ...

laukejas

@laukejas First and foremost I'd like to say that your Feature Manager tree organization is AMAZING!!!! Very rarely do I see Solidworks users be as diligent about keeping things together as this and especially more so when it comes to surfacing which, generally, requires a more surgical approach to...

laukejas

Hi, I am writing a macro to automate creation of glued self-aligning joints for 3D printed parts. User splits the part, selects a face from the split, and runs the macro, which then creates a sketch on that face, does entity offset, cuts one part, then creates another sketch, offsets from the first ...

laukejas

I thought the feature tree was nicely organised. I did however hit Ctrl T straight away as I am allergic to absorbed features... and the tree was still tidy in flat view! I name features as you have, but as folders are not available in flat view, I add a dummy sketch containing just a point, then r...

laukejas

You have right. ST8 There is no tangent condition at the keel! Also, I don't understand why this sketch isn't parallel to the others. This can cause contact errors on the small lower surface of the bow That sketch is not parallel because the bow has to be raked. I figured that if I kept this sketch...

laukejas

I wish I knew surfacic a bit more. These kind of shapes look awesome to develop. Well, doing it with SW is like 20 times more difficult than doing it with Rhino/Delftship/other NURBS modelers :D But having parametric model is just so awesome in boat design. Once you set up all these surfaces, you c...

laukejas

Why not? Select the edges of the secondary surfaces as guides and give them tangency conditions. Also, in your case you don't need these surfaces. As the tangency condition, you can use a normal to the profile or specify a vector image.png Okay, somehow I forgot I could do that. Yeah, that seems to...

laukejas

Quick tip: Swap profiles and guide curves! image.png Thank you, this does result in a much smoother surface, but I can't set continuity conditions for Loft guide curves. The surface should be tangent to both of these yellow helper surfaces, but Loft won't allow that. And without that, I get non-tan...

laukejas

Sorry, the whiskey was long gone but I didn't have time (and I don't have) for a longer sitting. However, as I wrote, it is enough to quickly change the way of creating the main surface from Border to Loft and the surface after stitching and thickening is free of these anomalies on the keel. Howeve...

laukejas

It is definitely a SW tesselation issue with the curvature analysis. SW should not be deriving curvature combs from a mesh though, so that is weird if you are seeing differences in combs before/after knitting etc. A work around would be making your own intersections on a series of planes then displ...

laukejas

After making the isophote cheat I spent time trying to add shortcut keys to control the image quality. There are some macros around to do this, but I found I'd have to manually go in and change image quality the first time after opening SW otherwise the macro would not work... I'm no macro expert s...

laukejas

Hmm ok, that is odd if the surface curvature combs change after knitting etc. How'd you find the isophote cheat? Unfortunately, it too is at the whim of the SW image quality settings... I was just googling around for more advanced surface evaluation tools, and saw it on youtube ;) It is actually pr...

laukejas

Just quickly, as I do not have time today to have a look at the model - but are you basing 'surface quality' on the surface curvature analysis? The facets you can see are based on the analysis mesh SW generates which is typically way too coarse for useful analysis. You can try and change the curvat...

laukejas

Krzysztof Szpakowski wrote: ↑Sat Apr 06, 2024 7:20 pm See you!

Still waiting for that whiskey to run out

I see my file has been downloaded 9 times - perhaps anyone else has any insights on what I'm doing wrong there?

laukejas

As you can see, the geometry is not correct. The keel is wider at the bow than at the depth. image.png Moreover, the construction seems to be incorrect. As you can see, the theoretical waterline is completely different from your madel! image.png And the structure of your model does not encourage de...

laukejas

Hi, I am building a shape for a boat hull that will be used as a mold, and therefore has to have impeccable surface quality. I am building it with surface tools, half at a time, using 3 longitudinal curves and guide curves at the start and the end: https://i.imgur.com/SJwY7tg.gif As you can see ther...

laukejas

As far as Mouse Gestures go, having the S-key menu in the bottom-right location of the Gesture Wheel is definitively the best place for it, as when it pops up it's already underneath your cursor without having to change direction. I've got a SpaceExplorer and I think the button I use most is to tog...

laukejas

This is the reason I quit using the SpaceMouse after trying it for a week. Too much to unlearn after using keyboard shortcuts since acad 10. Maybe the missing link to replace the keyboard is voice control. Like this https://www.solidworks.com/partner-product/xpresso . Although I suspect it's possib...

laukejas

I've been using a 3d mouse for many years, and wouldn't want to have to work without it, and I didn't start with AutoCAD like many people of my generation, so I never got accustomed to using keyboard shortcuts. I'd like to agree with @DanPihlaja about using keyboard shortcuts. I have mine set up wi...

laukejas

On Mouse: Enter, ESC so you don't need to move to top right to click Check and X. S for the other menu. Delete if you're brave. On 3D Mouse: Shift and Ctrl. MouseButtons-01.jpg Thank you, these are really good ideas. How do you deal with not having Normal To bound to any of these mice keys? I find ...

laukejas

Didn't know you could do that - scroll down to activate something? Anyway. Definitely have a look at SolidWorks 'mouse gestures' and also, something I only found out later, you can create your own 'custom radial menus' with up to 8 segments each in the 3Dconnexion software - in a clunky/roundabout ...

laukejas

I have the SpaceMouse compact, and a much more regular mouse than yours, with no extra buttons. I struggled with similar issues and settled on assigning CTRL to the right button on the SpaceMouse. For a long time I had the S-Key assigned to the left SpaceMouse button, which worked well; but I now u...

laukejas

Hi, After 11 years at SW, I finally wised up and got myself a SpaceMouse Compact (just the knob, with 2 programmable buttons). For my regular mouse, I am using Logitech G502, which has 11 programmable buttons. It has been just a few days, and I'm already much faster at navigating models than I ever ...

laukejas

After going through learning experience with Ender 3 and then Prusa MK3S+, I finally settled on Vorons (the small V0.2, and 350x350x300 V2.4). Don't ask me how much time I put into getting them tuned right, but goddamn these are some beautiful machines. Never seen better print quality at those speed...

laukejas

I think I had a really old enhancement idea I submitted to have the ability to define different configuration types with different settings (Part number, reference use only, etc.) I think we got the derived configurations that kind of did some of that but not fully. Today we somewhat handle it with...

laukejas

Configurations are a sticky issue for revisions. For us they can represent a family of parts each with their own part number. But we can also have some that are for reference in a drawing. The sheet metal flat is a good example. So do you revision those as well? Today we revise all of them together...

laukejas

AlexLachance wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 10:27 am Thanks for bringing it up. It's a bug that comes back every now and then, I've taken the habit of deactivating before upgrading to avoid this.

I guess I was lucky to only encounter this now, despite using SW since 2015

laukejas

Thank you for this post. I think this is probably why many VAR suggest to completely deactivate the license before upgrading the SNL. I heard that sometimes it goes wrong and it could be like what you saw with 2024. Yeah, I guess they probably noticed this bug as well. It makes sense that it would ...

laukejas

Not sure if this was mentioned anywhere or not, but there is a licensing bug with standalone licenses in 2024 SP0.1 when doing an upgrade from 2023 or earlier versions. For those who don't know, SW calculates the so called "hardware ID" from network card MAC address, CPU ID, hard drive ID ...

laukejas

The way that PDM does this is to load the latest referenced version and hope for the best. There's no good way to handle multiple references to different versions of a component in the same assembly. That sounds more trouble than it's worth... I suppose the "easiest" way to version config...

laukejas

Hi, excellent stuff! Thanks! Couple ideas: 1. All of us do not use "2-level revisions". I mean, I would like to just have revisions like "A,B,C..." or "1,2,3...". Or at least revision should be written to 2 different custom properties, so I could use only the 1st part ...

laukejas

GetSelectedObjectsComponent4 Thanks, Josh! I didn't realize this call could be used like that. I tested and it works. As Josh said, GetSelectedObjectsComponent4 should get it. I tried getting it this way, but it didn't work for some reason on SW2021 (I might have made a mistake trying to get it), b...

laukejas

When you say component, do you mean Cube<2> for that particular selection? If so, this should be fine. Sub main() Dim swApp As SldWorks.SldWorks Dim swDoc As SldWorks.ModelDoc2 Dim swSelMgr As SldWorks.SelectionMgr Dim swSelData As SldWorks.SelectData Dim swBody As SldWorks.Body2 Dim bool As Boolea...

laukejas

Hi, I am writing a macro that needs to collect references to solid bodies (Body2 objects) that user may select in an assembly environment through different ways, for example: 1) Select a component itself from a FeatureManager tree; 2) Select a body face from the graphics area; 3) Select a body from ...

laukejas

I probably don't understand all of the complexities of your specific problem, but I use s different approach. I would create a sketch block, and use that as the cutting geometry. image.png WIth that sketch, I do an extrude cut, thin feature, mid plane. (I find 0.015" makes for a nice fit.) Kee...

laukejas

I'm not sure what you consider a "small bevel" but if you're thinking about tapering the side surfaces of the lip or groove, it's possible. You can also save your settings in a template file to use them as defaults. I meant this little chamfer here: https://i.imgur.com/dqnRJWf.png Yes, I ...

laukejas

Can't you use the boss/groove command? It seems to do exactly what you want to achieve. image.png Yes, you are correct, it does (except for that little chamfer), but the issue is Lip&Groove can't be used in a Library Feature either, and setting it up for every single joint is just too tedious...

laukejas

You can save the splitting surface body as a library, and then use the Intersect feature to split the body and keep both solid bodies. That's the part that turns out to be the trick - keeping both bodies instead of throwing something away. You might try this as a tutorial for the Intersect feature:...

laukejas

I am developing a Library Feature to split a part into two pieces with a mortise and tenon joint with a small gap between the two: https://i.imgur.com/Jas6kLJ.png This is for 3D printing, I tried many different joints and this one is very convenient for some scenarios. I will have a model which I'll...

laukejas

Yeah, that's exactly the sort of process I had in mind. I don't know how to implement the next step, but say after you deform the truss, I'd be interested it extracting the edges where it intersects with the inside/outside faces of the main structure. And then I'd use those edges to somehow paramet...

laukejas

I would personally suggest option 2. This also let you keep track the amount of infill you are using in the bom more easily (assuming you have infill percentage assigned to material name). Batch creating material is not as hard as you think.. The *.sldmat file is basically just xml file, so you cou...

laukejas

Hi, this might be an unusual question, so I'll explain the context first. I design a lot of parts in SW that will be 3D printed with partial infill. I usually know the percentage of the infill in the design phase, but the infill geometry is generated by slicer software after exporting from SW. Mass ...

laukejas

To tackle the full problem, I think it first makes sense to ignore the sine-wave aspects. Those are topologically equivalent to "flat" (actually gently curving according to the overall part shape) surfaces. They are just bunched up in a special way. So see if you can even imagine how to g...

laukejas

Anyone? I'm really stuck on this one, would really appreciate any ideas...

laukejas

Frederick_Law wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:53 am Hard to see if the sine warp around the vise or just pass straight through.
Or if it's glycol infill.

It doesn't wrap - it goes down but not in a straight line, but rather in a sine wave path, like in the first photo in my initial post.

laukejas

Another idea I am exploring is designing this infill on a flat plane, which is very easy to make parametric / save as Library Feature, and then try to deform it to fill the actual space in the part: https://i.imgur.com/KTgZ2YT.png However, as you can see, I can't quite seem to make it work. Perhaps ...

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