Freedom from Origin is Now Possible! Coordinate Systems Are Now Mightier than Origins, Planes and Axes

[zxys001]

Coordinate systems were a big deal 25 years ago when everybody moving from Autocad felt deprived, but we all learned to live without them and moved on. Why where they added now? It's not an innovative idea, and it doesn't add anything to the software that we haven't been able to accomplish. With all of the ways they are trying to limit access to the desktop version, I don't get the point. Plus, I agree, why would you trust a new feature like this when stuff that has been in the software for decades still flips orientation?

bcuz. they need to show and sell (look over here).

[HerrTick]

Coordinate systems were a big deal 25 years ago... It's not an innovative idea...

No, it's not innovative. It's a function so fudamental to geometry creation that it's shocking it was not included from Day Zero

...it doesn't add anything to the software that we haven't been able to accomplish...

...by way of cumbersome workarounds

I don't get the point.

I agree. You don't get the point.

[mattpeneguy]

I asked a friend at my old company for an example of how we used CS in NX.

This is a welded stainless steel oil line for the engine. In this first shot you can only see a single CS. That is the origin for the block. You can bring this oil line into the engine assembly, lock that CS to the main CS in the parent assembly, and it is properly located.

image.png

Here it is showing the CS for the fitting locations, along with the CS that define the bends in the tube.

image.png

And here's a shot of just the CS and the construction geometry.

image.png

(ETA:) The sketch is driven by the coordinate systems, not the other way around.

This is exactly what I envisioned...But, it's got to be implemented in a robust manner. If it flips orientation or isn't stable (as @matt and @zxys001 fairly imply will be the case based on SW track record) then it's worse than useless, it's dangerous. I posted above I quit using sketch entities for external references because they lose their references.

[SPerman]

No, it's not innovative. It's a function so fudamental to geometry creation that it's shocking it was not included from Day Zero

I've said this before but I was shocked coming to SW finding out that it didn't have a true CS. IMO, that's like buying a bicycle and finding out it doesn't come with tires. It's just such a fundamental part of how I modeled that it seemed impossible someone would write CAD software and not include that feature.

If you are trying to lure someone away from another software platform, and that someone has used CS all of their life, they probably won't even consider SW as an option.

[mattpeneguy]

I've said this before but I was shocked coming to SW finding out that it didn't have a true CS. IMO, that's like buying a bicycle and finding out it doesn't come with tires. It's just such a fundamental part of how I modeled that it seemed impossible someone would write CAD software and not include that feature.

Having never had it, I don't truly know what I'm missing... How much percentage wise would you say it takes you to work around this deficiency?

[SPerman]

At this point, I've completely changed my workflow, so it doesn't have a huge affect. But if I could have brought my NX workflow to SW, it would have saved me countless days.

[SPerman]

Imagine coming from an SSP background, and finding out that SW doesn't allow external references to drive geometry.

I'm not saying CS are the only way to skin the cat, but when it's the way you are used to, it is overwhelming to find out it's not a possibility. If I had done my proper homework before committing to a CAD package, I never would have considered SW due to this deficiency.

[bnemec]

Imagine coming from an SSP background, and finding out that SW doesn't allow external references to drive geometry.

I'm not saying CS are the only way to skin the cat, but when it's the way you are used to, it is overwhelming to find out it's not a possibility. If I had done my proper homework before committing to a CAD package, I never would have considered SW... due to this deficiency.

Right there with ya.
Not so much for the sake of CS in my case, but still in the same boat. Or maybe canoe.

[jcapriotti]

I asked a friend at my old company for an example of how we used CS in NX.

This is a welded stainless steel oil line for the engine. In this first shot you can only see a single CS. That is the origin for the block. You can bring this oil line into the engine assembly, lock that CS to the main CS in the parent assembly, and it is properly located.

image.png

Here it is showing the CS for the fitting locations, along with the CS that define the bends in the tube.

image.png

And here's a shot of just the CS and the construction geometry.

image.png

(ETA:) The sketch is driven by the coordinate systems, not the other way around.

You can still locate the origin of the part in SolidWorks relative to the assembly origin so that it inserts in the correct location. This only works for designs where the part is only used in one assembly right?

As for the other CSys driving the path, why not just use sketch relations. I'm not seeing the advantage of Csys in that use case.

[mike miller]

No, it's not innovative. It's a function so fudamental to geometry creation that it's shocking it was not included from Day Zero


...by way of cumbersome workarounds


I agree. You don't get the point.

[zxys001]

All these workarounds are reminding me of Mel Brooks...

[SPerman]

You can still locate the origin of the part in SolidWorks relative to the assembly origin so that it inserts in the correct location. This only works for designs where the part is only used in one assembly right?

Sometimes I did the opposite. I would draw the part at it's origin, and then put a CS in the appropriate spot to use for mounting. In this case, you could have multiple CS for different locations. (I don't remember ever doing that.)

As for the other CSys driving the path, why not just use sketch relations. I'm not seeing the advantage of Csys in that use case.

With one feature, I can have 3 planes, 3 axis and a point. This feature can be translated (or rotated) along all 3 axis. Maybe the same thing can be done with sketch relations, but can it do all of that in a single feature? I'm not trying to force my way of modeling on anyone, but it's nice to have CS as an option for those of us who learned that method. (Or it will be an option in 4 or 5 years when the feature grows up a little bit.)

[mattpeneguy]

You can still locate the origin of the part in SolidWorks relative to the assembly origin so that it inserts in the correct location. This only works for designs where the part is only used in one assembly right?

As for the other CSys driving the path, why not just use sketch relations. I'm not seeing the advantage of Csys in that use case.

Don't use sketch relations to drive anything if you can avoid it. SW randomly loses those relations, usually around deadline time.

[jcapriotti]

With one feature, I can have 3 planes, 3 axis and a point. This feature can be translated (or rotated) along all 3 axis. Maybe the same thing can be done with sketch relations, but can it do all of that in a single feature? I'm not trying to force my way of modeling on anyone, but it's nice to have CS as an option for those of us who learned that method. (Or it will be an option in 4 or 5 years when the feature grows up a little bit.)

No, I get the advantages of the Csys having that level of control, and I guess the 2022 enhancements goes a step in that direction. I was more referring to the example fuel line and how the Csys method of defining the path was more efficient than just a 2d/3d sketch with relations. You get the aforementioned planes, axis. origin at each junction point but I don't see what they would be used for.

How are the Csys locations defined? Just 3d coordinates or are they related to each other in some way?

[jcapriotti]

Don't use sketch relations to drive anything if you can avoid it. SW randomly loses those relations, usually around deadline time.

That's not been my experience. Yes you can have dangling relations due to geometry changes but that can occur with sketch relations, or reference geometry. There are certainly more stable ways to relate geometry to make it more robust such as not creating reference to fillet edges, etc. We use sketch relations heavily since '98.

[mike miller]

..........but it's nice to have CS as an option for those of us who learned that method. (Or it will be an option in 4 or 5 years when the feature grows up a little bit we're all using Catia Lite.)

FTFY

[SPerman]

As soon as I win the lottery I'm skipping all of this entry level stuff and going to NX.

[mattpeneguy]

That's not been my experience. Yes you can have dangling relations due to geometry changes but that can occur with sketch relations, or reference geometry. There are certainly more stable ways to relate geometry to make it more robust such as not creating reference to fillet edges, etc. We use sketch relations heavily since '98.

Sketch points? Both a coworker and I have repeatedly had to fix those.

[matt]

I've said this before but I was shocked coming to SW finding out that it didn't have a true CS. IMO, that's like buying a bicycle and finding out it doesn't come with tires. It's just such a fundamental part of how I modeled that it seemed impossible someone would write CAD software and not include that feature.

If you are trying to lure someone away from another software platform, and that someone has used CS all of their life, they probably won't even consider SW as an option.

At this point, do you think they are trying to lure anyone to desktop? No, they're trying to lure people away from it. That's the part I don't get. Why now?

I think at the beginning they were just thumbing their nose at a lot of stuff from Autocad, like the concept of moving the origin, zero radius fillets and a lot of other nonsense autocad has. They had to break the dependency on stuff that was conceptually suspect. Even the coordinate systems SW put in went largely unused aside from translations for CNC and early 3d print.

It's gotta be tough for people who get married to one way of accomplishing something and can't adjust to another way. You'd tend to get stuck in one place without any benefit.

[mattpeneguy]

At this point, do you think they are trying to lure anyone to desktop? No, they're trying to lure people away from it. That's the part I don't get. Why now?

I think at the beginning they were just thumbing their nose at a lot of stuff from Autocad, like the concept of moving the origin, zero radius fillets and a lot of other nonsense autocad has. They had to break the dependency on stuff that was conceptually suspect. Even the coordinate systems SW put in went largely unused aside from translations for CNC and early 3d print.

It's gotta be tough for people who get married to one way of accomplishing something and can't adjust to another way. You'd tend to get stuck in one place without any benefit.

Show me a better way than SSP that is robust and allows for last minute edits on large scale projects. I'm not married to any particular method. But that one seems to check all the boxes and has served us well. We tweak things here and there when we get a chance, but the principle seems the same. And properly functioning CS would make that method easier, IMO.

[matt]

Show me a better way than SSP that is robust and allows for last minute edits on large scale projects. I'm not married to any particular method. But that one seems to check all the boxes and has served us well. We tweak things here and there when we get a chance, but the principle seems the same. And properly functioning CS would make that method easier, IMO.

I wasn't talking about SSP specifically. SSP is also a very niche method used for a specific type of situation.

If you can make the new functionality work for you, I don't have any problem with that. I'm just curious why this has been added now. It's like painting the inside of your glove box as the car falls off a cliff.

[mattpeneguy]

I wasn't talking about SSP specifically. SSP is also a very niche method used for a specific type of situation.

If you can make the new functionality work for you, I don't have any problem with that. I'm just curious why this has been added now. It's like painting the inside of your glove box as the car falls off a cliff.

I guess planes and automobiles are niche?...maybe for SW.

They've got some good people at SW working on things. It's probably like the external reference to envelope components only scenario. IIRC, that functionality came about via collaboration between Grant Mattis and Nick Birkett-Smith.
I'm guessing this is similar where they were working with a customer and saw how the CS functionality would really help and somehow were authorized to proceed...Or as @dpihlaja, pointed out, it's been on the top 10 list for a number of years...maybe they were embarassed?

I completely agree that it should have been done a LONG time ago. As I posted above, I'll take what I can get and this would be a big help.

[jcapriotti]

Sketch points? Both a coworker and I have repeatedly had to fix those.

You have sketch relations to sketch points that just randomly go dangling? What do you work on, it must be more complicated than what we do (elevators)?

[mattpeneguy]

You have sketch relations to sketch points that just randomly go dangling? What do you work on, it must be more complicated than what we do (elevators)?

It may be something like setting an elevation for a platform with a plane to a sketch point. Or, I seem to remember extruding up to a SSP sketch point giving me problems. I don't think we often related sketches to SSP sketch entities (or if that particular scenario gave us trouble). It's been a little while for me dealing with that, I've converted over to planes. But my coworker is still using sketch entities to an extent.

We do movable bridge work. Probably a few more components than an elevator but surely the same concept. I'll get with my coworker tomorrow and see if we can't find an instance and grab a video.

[jcapriotti]

It may be something like setting an elevation for a platform with a plane to a sketch point. Or, I seem to remember extruding up to a SSP sketch point giving me problems. I don't think we often related sketches to SSP sketch entities (or if that particular scenario gave us trouble). It's been a little while for me dealing with that, I've converted over to planes. But my coworker is still using sketch entities to an extent.

We do movable bridge work. Probably a few more components than an elevator but surely the same concept. I'll get with my coworker tomorrow and see if we can't find an instance and grab a video.

For SSP I agree, I'd probably stick to planes for references for the most part. Most of our sketch relation and mate issues aren't really from random lost events. When digging into it, I usually find it's because we have so many people working on models that many will delete sketch segments and redraw it because they can't get a sketch error to go away. People panic when they see red and start deleting stuff not realizing the impact on the where-used.

[zxys001]

imho.. the power of the csys would be in import/export or the sharing of csys's between cad tools.
When I did use csys's from within a cad system, the power was modular between teams, we were less concerned with the default csys or how it may have constrained anyone.
For features, it was also useful for placing instances or populating inserts or subcomponents later.
Yes, there are workarounds for many of these within SW, been there done that.
But having a import/export of csys's is/would be nice. (workaround 101, create a dumb part and use that parts cys)
Lastly... why the heck did it take sooooooooooooooooo dang long? I mean, really... why now? (programmer boredom?)

[Lapuo]

I am really excited about Csys because it can replace couple of features with one , if it is going to work properly.
Last seven words of sentence above is reason why i am scared as much as excited.

This is some kind of fusion between planes , ref geometry, move-copy bodies , 3d sketching etc...
I dont feel like i necessarily need this , but i am open to trying it.

BTW for structure systems i felt similar , and tried to use it . I gave up because i saw from others that it is broken , but even if it wasn't i would give up because it was to complicated for me (i like simple stuff , and weldments worked great for my needs)
I hope this will not be case for Csys.

[AlexLachance]

It may be something like setting an elevation for a platform with a plane to a sketch point. Or, I seem to remember extruding up to a SSP sketch point giving me problems. I don't think we often related sketches to SSP sketch entities (or if that particular scenario gave us trouble). It's been a little while for me dealing with that, I've converted over to planes. But my coworker is still using sketch entities to an extent.

We do movable bridge work. Probably a few more components than an elevator but surely the same concept. I'll get with my coworker tomorrow and see if we can't find an instance and grab a video.

The only time I've faced such issues was when using the move/copy command that is integrated in the insert part feature, I've learned to use it as least as possible. Also, If you're going to pack and go the whole thing, you'll eventually run into issues that the new part sees references to the previous part.

[mattpeneguy]

The only time I've faced such issues was when using the move/copy command that is integrated in the insert part feature, I've learned to use it as least as possible. Also, If you're going to pack and go the whole thing, you'll eventually run into issues that the new part sees references to the previous part.

Yeah, I got burned big time on that. I pack and goed a production assembly and was testing the pack and goed version in the new version of SW. It up converted some of the production files. Lost about a week on that....Buggy software...Do people using SE and IV have such problems?

[SPerman]

No, I get the advantages of the Csys having that level of control, and I guess the 2022 enhancements goes a step in that direction. I was more referring to the example fuel line and how the Csys method of defining the path was more efficient than just a 2d/3d sketch with relations. You get the aforementioned planes, axis. origin at each junction point but I don't see what they would be used for.

I think it is what you are used to. If you learned to work with CS, that is more efficient that using sketches. If you started with sketches, that probably feels more efficient than CS.

How are the Csys locations defined? Just 3d coordinates or are they related to each other in some way?

These are all of the options available for defining coordinate systems in NX. For most of these, the references can be associative (unless chosen otherwise). This includes points, vertices, parametric point-on-curve, surface normals (even normal-at-point), and edge direction at point. As I recall, Creo is similar (maybe even better).

image.png (43.04 KiB) Viewed 2754 times

[Tom G]

image.png

The apparently self-descriptive image shared a couple of times in this thread lacks description. Here is more information in help files for those unfamiliar.
In NX, Offset CSys defines a new CSys from an existing CSys. That was my interest to seek explanation independently.

I would hope that if SWx is copying existing tools from competitors, that they come close to matching its capabilities.
I would negate hope with cynicism based on past learning experiences between expectations and reality.

[zxys001]

The apparently self-descriptive image shared a couple of times in this thread lacks description. Here is more information in help files for those unfamiliar.
In NX, Offset CSys defines a new CSys from an existing CSys. That was my interest to seek explanation independently.

I would hope that if SWx is copying existing tools from competitors, that they come close to matching its capabilities.
I would negate hope with cynicism based on past learning experiences between expectations and reality.

Totally agree!

If the idea of bringing Csys to 2022 is a marketing attraction offer to migrate Csys users to SolidWorks... so be it... but do it so Creo/NX/SE,.. can hit the ground running!

Listen up SolidWorks Programmers,... you don't need to reinvent the wheel here.

The word "interoperability" has turned into a bastard word for cad... Csys for ALL!

[jcapriotti]

Not sure why SolidWorks didn't model this after the "Move with Triad" command in assemblies. It's dynamic, has more options, and it's snazzier to satisfy those marketing types.

[berg_lauritz]

I would like to see a proper use for the coordinate systems regarding grain direction:

• The grain direction for our CNC program is defined by the x-Axis of a coordinate system
• The grain direction for sheet metal is defined by a plane
• The bounding box is defined by a plane
• The grain direction in textures can i.e. be defined by an edge/axis

Why not combine this? Use the new coordinate system for all of this. Use the coordinate system in weldments to define the grain direction for each of them.

[jcapriotti]

I would like to see a proper use for the coordinate systems regarding grain direction:

• The grain direction for our CNC program is defined by the x-Axis of a coordinate system
• The grain direction for sheet metal is defined by a plane
• The bounding box is defined by a plane
• The grain direction in textures can i.e. be defined by an edge/axis

Why not combine this? Use the new coordinate system for all of this. Use the coordinate system in weldments to define the grain direction for each of them.

I'd rather that be it's own function. When editing the sheet metal feature, you define grain direction, or maybe define it at the cut-list object.. To me that makes more sense than a coordinate sys.

[berg_lauritz]

I'd rather that be it's own function. When editing the sheet metal feature, you define grain direction, or maybe define it at the cut-list object.. To me that makes more sense than a coordinate sys.

I agree, but how do you define the grain direction on a sheet metal currently? Currently you can only do this by selecting an edge of the sheet metal (you cannot even select an axis). It's destined to lose it's reference due to changes. PLUS - have you tried changing the grain direction so something at an angle? Impossible.
It's basically unusable currently.
A coordinate system has an axis which you can use & define properly soon. Why not use that?