ProE Fundamentals 0001

8/8/2019 ProE Fundamentals 0001

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Pro/ENGINEER



WILDFIRE 2.0

Fundamentals

Written By:

Michael A. Drum

Lesson 01 – Pro/ENGINEER Basic Elements1-1

Lesson 02 – Taking a Look Around2-1Lesson 03 – Selecting Objects3-1Lesson 04 – Sketcher Basics4-1Lesson 05 – Sketch Feature5-1

Lesson 06 – Extrude Feature6-1Lesson 07 – Making Changes7-1Lesson 08 – Datums Part 18-1





Lesson 26 – Trim Tool 26-1Lesson 27 – Intersect Tool 27-1

Lesson 28 – Offset Tool 28-1Lesson 29 – Solidify Tool 29-1Lesson 30 – Thicken Tool 30-1Lesson 31 – Extend Tool 31-1

Lesson 32 – Mirror Tool 32-1Lesson 33 – Layers33-1Lesson 34 – Parameters & Relations34-1Lesson 35 – Family Tables35-1

Lesson 36 – View Manager36-1Lesson 37 – Assembly Mode – Bottom-Up Design

37-1Lesson 38 – Assembly Mode – Top-Down Design38-1Lesson 39 – Assembly Mode – AssemblyCuts 39-1Lesson 40 – Assembly Mode – Assembly

Operations 40-1Lesson 41 – Drawing Mode – DrawingFundamentals 41-1Lesson 42 – Drawing Mode – Creating A Drawing42-1



Lesson 43 – Drawing Mode – GeneralViews 43-1Lesson 44 – Drawing Mode – Projection & Section Views44-1

Lesson 45 – Drawing Mode – Auxiliary & DetailedViews 45-1Lesson 46 – Drawing Mode – Show Axes & GTOLDatums 46-1Lesson 47 – Drawing Mode – Dimensioning47-1Lesson 48 – Drawing Mode – Broken & PartialViews 48-1

Lesson 49 – Drawing Mode – GTOLS &Symbols 49-1Lesson 50 – Drawing Mode – 2D Drafting50-1Lesson 51 – Drawing Mode – Tables & Balloons51-1Lesson 52 – Drawing Mode – Adding Sheets &Finalize 52-1

Lesson 53 – Miscellaneous System Functions53-1AppendixA1 A-1AppendixA2 A-2AppendixA3 A-3Appendix

A4 A-4Tutorial Data Files

Fundamentals.zip



Lesson

1

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the basic elements of

Pro/ENGINEER, including the different object types, parametric modeling and design intent.



Pro/ENGINEER OBJECT TYPES

Before we get into Pro/ENGINEER and start poking around, it is good to understandthe different types of files created and used in Pro/ENGINEER so you will understandthe terminology as we go forward. PARTS – filename.prt

A Part in Pro/ENGINEER is a model that represents an individual productcomponent. Each part is made up of features that define its size, shape, color andfunction. As each feature is created, a history is kept that defines how the model ismade. This is known as Regeneration History .

A successful feature is one that regenerates without any errors or warnings. We willsee in a later topic how to deal with these situations. Parts are the building block of all Pro/ENGINEER objects. Without parts, assembliesand drawings can not exist. ASSEMBLIES – filename.asm

An Assembly in Pro/ENGINEER is nothing more than a container that points to partfiles. Parts can be assembled into an assembly (bottom-up design), or created withinan assembly (top-down design). In either method, assemblies still rely on the part fileto exist. In assemblies, we can define rigid constraints (such as two objects fastened or

welded together), or degree of freedom connections (such as a pin joint or a bearing). Assemblies also maintain a history of the order in which components were eitherassembled or created, as well as features that are created in the assembly itself(such as holes or cuts). This history must be successfully regenerated for theassembly to work properly. DRAWINGS – filename.drw



A Drawing is a two-dimensional representation of a part or assembly file. It relies oneither the part or assembly to exist in order to work. Drawings contain views, tables,notes, dimensions, symbols, and other entities designed to fully describe the modelfor the purpose of manufacturing. FORMATS – filename.frm

A Format is a file that overlays on a drawing to create the border, title block, revisionblock, and other company-specific standards that must always appear on thatdrawing. A Drawing can exist without the actual format file. SECTIONS – filename.sec

A Section is a two-dimensional sketch that is used to create certain features.Sections are widely used when you are in Part or Assembly mode, and are mostoften created within the model, not as a separate file. A section file can be created and re-used many times. In this case the section will besaved out as a stand-alone file. We will see both types of sections in this trainingguide.

ADDITIONAL FILE TYPES Pro/ENGINEER also creates other types of files that may appear on your computer.The following table outlines some of these file types and their usage.

File Type File Ext. File Usage

Configuration Files

.cfg.dtl

.map.pcf.pnt.pro.scl.win

Govern the look, feel and behavior of the application. The extensions are:Model Tree Configuration – CFG, Drawing Setup File – DTL, User DefinedColors – MAP, Plotter Configuration – PCF, Pen Table File – PNT, MainPro/E Configuration – PRO, System Color File – SCL and Main UserInterface Configuration – WIN. These files should not be deleted. Examples: tree.cfg, e.dtl, color.map, plotter.pcf, plotter.pnt, config.pro,syscol.scl, and config.win.

Error Files.crc.err.out

These files generally do not exist unless there is a problem or potentialproblem with something in Pro/ENGINEER. Either the model or the setup ofPro/E has an error. The extensions are: Circular Reference – CRC, BadGeometry – ERR, Config.pro Error – OUT. These files can be deleted. Examples: 12345.crc, bad_geometry.err, and std.out

Graph .gph

Graph features can be created to drive the creation of some features usingan equation. User Defined Features (UDF’s) also use this file extensionwhen saved. These files should not be deleted. Example: holes.gph

Information .inf

Typically created when performing an information query on an object in

Pro/ENGINEER using the Info menu commands. These files can bedeleted. Example: feature.inf

Log Files .log

Certain functions, such as exporting a model to an IGES format, willgenerate log files. These files can be deleted. Example: iges_out.log

Markups .mrk A markup file, or redline file, can be created for parts, assemblies ordrawings. These can be used to convey changes electronically. The



original model or drawing must exist for these to work. These files shouldnot be deleted. Example: 12345.mrk

Mass Property .m_p

File created when running a mass property calculation on a part ofassembly. These files can be deleted.

Example: 12345.m_p

Symbols

.sym Two-dimensional entities created in a drawing that can be re-used in otherdrawings. Examples of these include revision hex symbols, part markingsymbols, weld symbols, etc. These files should not be deleted. Example: revision_hex.sym.1

Tables .tbl

Drawing tables that can be re-used in different drawings. Bill of materialtables are a good example. These files should not be deleted. Example: bom.tbl.1

Trail Files

.txt A running log file of the current session, from the moment Pro/ENGINEER isopened until the moment it closes. Stored in the c:\trails directory. Thesefiles can be deleted. Example: trail.txt.1

If you are not sure whether you can or should delete a certain file, please contactyour CAD Administrator for guidance.

PARAMETRIC MODELING

Pro/ENGINEER is a feature-based, parametric solid modeling tool. As described inthe first section, when you create a part file, you create a series of features that addor remove material, resulting in a final model. This is what is known as feature-basedmodeling. Each feature contains parametric information that defines the size, shape andrelationship to other features. For example, when you create an extruded protrusionthat is shaped as a rectangular block, you can define the following:

• Length, Width and Depth of block.

• Sketching Plane where you initially sketched the rectangle before extrudingit.

• Orientation Plane to define how you look at the sketch when you enter intosection mode.

• Dimensional references (such as other geometry edges, planes, surfaces,etc.)

• Direction of the extrude

Parametric information comes in one of the many forms listed below.

• Dimensions

• Relations

• Parameters

• References

• Color (although not to a major degree that might cause a failure of the modelif missing)

Some of these parameters directly affect the ability of a model to regeneratesuccessfully, while others affect information about those features. Even if we create





Now, look at the next figure, which still gives the same overall shape and size.

With the same tolerance, the overall length could vary from 7.7 to 8.3 inches, or adifference of +0.2in., which is twice the standard tolerance. This is not to say that thesecond dimensioning scheme is incorrect, because we might not care about theoverall length, and we might be more concerned with the exact width and location ofthe center groove.

Also, the way in which you dimension can make drastic changes easy or verydifficult. You must always anticipate that you will need to change the model. This willaffect the decisions you make early on when modeling. For example, in the twofigures above, if we were asked to increase the length to 9.000 inches, we couldsimply change one dimension in the first figure, while we would have to decide whichdimension we needed to change in the second figure. One might argue that simplychanging the 2.5 dimension to the far right will produce the same result, and theywould be correct, however in most cases, such a change is not so cut and dry. We will see this in more detail as this guide progresses.

COMMON MODELING APPROACH BOTTOM-UP DESIGN

The following flowchart represents the basic steps on bottom-up design.



With Bottom-Up Design, parts are created as stand-alone files with an appropriatedrawing. As you create enough parts, you begin to assemble them into an assemblyfile. Once the assembly is created, you create a drawing for the assembly. Each individual part has a strong chance of existing independently from each other.The assembly and the drawing files will require the part files to exist. The ability toadapt to change is reduced in this mode, because there is very little tying the partstogether. For example, if you design a tote with a lid, there is no guarantee that thetote base and lid will line up. If a dimensional change is made to the base, the lid willprobably not fit correctly unless it is updated as well.

TOP-DOWN DESIGN The following flowchart shows the basic steps to the top-down approach to design.



In contrast to bottom-up design, a top-down approach to design involves building theindividual part files in the context of an assembly file. A neutral skeleton partcaptures all interface information between the components (a 3D layout), then onlyinformation needed for a particular part file is passed into that file to be used as astarting point for the geometry. Once the skeleton geometry is in the individual part, you can work in the part by itselfand be confident that it will completely fit when you go back to the assembly(provided that you use the skeleton geometry to mark the location where all of the

boundaries and interconnects occur. A MELTING POT Ultimately, you can choose to work in either a bottom-up or top-down approach, orchoose to perform a hybrid of these two where it suits you. The type of product youare designing may help you choose which method will work better. In this guide, wewill demonstrate both methods.



LESSON SUMMARY

Pro/ENGINEER, like many other software packages, produces results that are onlyas good as the information going in. Using standards and best practices, you canmaster your design intent to give you robust, easy to change models and drawings.

There are many different files used or created in Pro/ENGINEER, but the mostcommon ones are Parts, Assemblies, Drawings, Sections and Formats. Parts arethe building blocks for assemblies and drawings and must always be present forthese others to work. When designing in Pro/ENGINEER, you may choose to build your parts thenassemble them (a bottom-up approach to design), or you may wish to build yourparts in an assembly to provide a more accurate and complete fit (a top-downapproach to design). The type of project will determine which approach works best.



Lesson

2

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the User Interface of Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0, file operations, viewing modes and how to spin, pan

and zoom in this release.



STARTING Pro/ENGINEER

Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0 is installed in the C:\ptc\proewf2 directory. On yourdesktop, you will find the following shortcut.

When Pro/ENGINEER launches, it will start in the following directory.

C:\Data\proewf2

Every time you open up a new session of Pro/ENGINEER, a file is created thatcaptures every command, menu pick, and operation you perform. This file is called atrail file, and it is created and stored in your C:\Data\trails folder. Trail files can beused (with some limited degree of success) to restore work that is lost if you crashout of Pro/ENGINEER without having saved, however most of the time, this is notsuccessful. Trail files do not need to be saved. Since they take up some disk space, it isrecommended that you clean out your c:\trails directory from time to time.

USER INTERFACE

Once you launch Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0, you will see the following userinterface.



The following figure shows the different components of this interface when a model isopened.



The Wildfire 2.0 interface is made up of the following main areas (from top to bottomand left to right):

• Title Bar – Lists the currently object, and indicates whether the object isactive.

• Menu Bar – Every command in Wildfire 2.0 can be accessed from the

menus at the top of the application.• System Toobar – Contains icons that control system-wide functions, such

as the file operations, model display, datum display, window controls, etc.

• Navigator – Contains several different tools used to navigate through themodel or the interface, such as the model tree, layers, file explorer, favorites,and web browser controls.

• Web Browser – This is a fully functional web browser. Upon the initialstartup of the application (or by clicking on the home icon), you can get to aweb page with helpful information regarding this release. It also doubles asan information window for various tools in the software, such as a featureinformation window, bill of material reports, and when you click on a folder inthe file explorer, it shows the contents in this browser.

• Working Window – This is the main working area in Pro/E. Your geometry

or drawing will appear in this window, and you select and build features inthis area.

• Feature Toolbar – Contains icons used to create or edit geometry. Theseare context-sensitive, which means that as you are in a specific function, youwill see additional or fewer icons.

• Dashboard – Appears in most of the common feature creation modes.Contains options and elements for defining features.

• Message Bar – Area where information is displayed in the form of prompts,warnings, general information, etc.

• Status Bar – Provides additional information if necessary. It also displaysthe tool tip when the mouse is placed over an icon, menu or geometry in themain working window or in any of the other toolbars.

• Selection Filter – Used to select different filter options for picking. Displays

the total number of selected objects.

COLOR SCHEME

Every command or function in Wildfire 2.0 that displays graphically will have adifferent color associated with it. For example, when you move your mouse over amodel, you will see geometry highlight in blue. Once you select geometry, it turnsred. As you create features, you will see a yellow preview of the geometry. Datumplanes have a positive brown side and a negative black side, etc. For the purpose of being able to clearly print and read this training guide on mostBlack & White LaserJet printers, most of the system colors will not appear in thepages of this booklet. We will clearly describe colors that you should see at the time

you should see them, so you should be able to follow along very easily. Thefollowing figure describes the convention that we will use for this guide.



FILE OPERATIONS SET WORKING DIRECTORY If you recall from the first section of this lesson, we mentioned that Pro/ENGINEERWildfire 2.0 starts up in the C:\Data\proewf2 folder. You can change over to anyfolder on your computer after you open up the software. The folder that you changeto is called the Working Directory. If you choose not to change over to a new folder,then the start up directory is the working directory. To change your working directory, there are three ways to do this. Using the menubar, go to File, Set Working Directory, or click on the following icon in the systemtoolbar.

With either of these options, you will get a new window that appears, as shownbelow.



In this window, select the folder you wish to use as a working directory. You can usethe Directory Pull-Down to switch to a folder or network drive, use the Up OneLevel icon to go up one folder level, or you can even create a new folder in thecurrent location using the Create New Folder icon. Once you have selected or created the working directory folder, click on OK. The third way to set your working directory is to go to your Navigator and access the

file explorer. Find the folder that you want to work out of, then hold down the rightmouse button over that folder and select Make Working Directory, as shown in thefollowing figure.

OPEN FILES Opening files in Pro/ENGINEER is the same as in any windows application. Eithergo to File, Open from the menu bar, or select on the following icon from the systemtoolbar.



You will get a window that is very similar to the one you saw when setting yourworking directory, as shown below.

Initially, all Pro/ENGINEER items (parts, assemblies, sections, drawings, formats,etc.) will show up in the window for the current directory that you are in. If you wantto apply a filter to only see part files, use the Type Filter pull-down towards thebottom of the window.

If you are browsing through other folders and wish to return to the current workingdirectory to look there, click on the Working Directory icon. To browse throughfavorite locations that you set up, click on the Favorites icon. You can also change the display type using the Change Display Options icon. Thiswould allow you to see a list, or icons, or details, etc. In Session Memory Every time you open up a file in Pro/ENGINEER, it gets stored into memory. This iscalled Session Memory. The item does not have to be open to remain in memory.To view what is currently in memory, go to the open file window, and click on the InSession Memory icon (shown above). Only items that are in memory will be listed. Preview To see what the object looks like before opening it, you can click on the Previewbutton in the lower right portion of this screen. It will expand the window open to theright, and you will see the file, as shown in the figure at the top of the next page.



Once you find the file you want, either double-click on it using the left mouse button,or click on it once to highlight it, then click on the Open button in the lower left of theFile Open window. Another way you can open a file in Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0 is to go to your fileexplorer in your Navigator, locate the folder that contains your file, and click on thatfolder once with the left mouse button. The contents of the folder will appear in theWeb Browser, as shown below.

To preview the geometry before opening it, click once on the file in the File Names column. The preview appears at the top of the screen as shown at the top of the nextpage.



To open the file, either double-click on it using the left mouse button, or drag the filefrom this list out to the Working Window. ERASE As we mentioned previously, once you open up a file in a current session ofPro/ENGINEER, it remains open until one of two things happens.

• You exit the application using File, Exit.

• You erase the object from memory.

Simply closing the file will not erase it from memory. To erase a file, go to File,Erase from the menu bar. You will see two options for erase. These are:

• Current – Open erases the active file from memory (next topic).

• Not Displayed – Erases all objects that are not currently open.

EXAMPLE:Suppose you open three part files, A.prt, B.prt and C.prt. All three files are currentlyin session memory. If you were to close part B, it is still in memory. If C were theactive model, and you used File, Erase, Current, then C (and only C) would beclosed and erased from memory. If you used File, Erase, Not Displayed, then B(and only B) would be erased from memory. A and C would remain open and inmemory. ACTIVATE OBJECT The object you are currently working on is considered the Active object. You canhave as many files open at the same time, but only one can be active at any time. Toactivate an object, go to Window from the menu bar. At the bottom of this menu, you will see a list of currently open objects, as shownbelow.



The object that has the black circle to the left of it (currently shown as theCROSS_FEED_STOP.PRT file in the figure at the bottom of the previous page) isthe active model. To activate a different model in this list, simply select it from the list at the bottom. Toclose a file, it must be the active file, then you can use Window, Close or File, CloseWindow from the menu bar. If you were to open a file at this point in time, it will become the active model

automatically. You might notice that you have icons in your Windows Start Bar onyour desktop for each of the objects that are currently open in Pro/ENGINEER. If you were to select the icon in this Start Bar, it will bring that object to the front of thePro/ENGINEER interface, but it does not automatically make that model active. Youcan activate it by going to Window, Activate from the menu bar once the file is in theforeground. You will be able to tell if the currently visible object is active by looking at the title barin the upper left corner. The following figure illustrates an active and inactive objectindicated by the title bar.

SAVE FILES To save the current file, go to File, Save or click on the following icon in the systemtoolbar.

In the message window, you will be shown the part that is being saved. Click on theEnter key on the keyboard, or the green check mark to the right of the messagewindow. File Versions



Most Pro/ENGINEER files append a number at the end of the file extension – filename.prt.1 for example. Every time you save that object, a new file will becreated with the next higher integer – filename.prt.2 in this case. Your working directory will start to fill up with versions of the same file. For example,if you create a new part called mypart, and save it for the first time, you would seethe following in your working directory.

mypart.prt.1

As you continue to work with this part, you will save often. By the end of the day, youmay have saved this part 10 times, and so you would see the following in yourworking directory. mypart.prt.1 mypart.prt.3 mypart.prt.6mypart.prt.9mypart.prt.10 mypart.prt.4 mypart.prt.7mypart.prt.2 mypart.prt.5 mypart.prt.8You will notice that, sorted by name, the .10 file comes right after the .1 file. Beaware of this if you decide to manually delete older versions.

DELETE FILES Before you delete any Pro/ENGINEER files, be absolutely sure that no other Pro/Efiles are dependent on the files you wish to delete. For example, suppose youcreated an assembly and used a particular component. If you delete this part beforeyou take it out of the assembly, then the assembly will fail when you try to open it. To delete a Pro/ENGINEER file (part, assembly or drawing), the best way to do this isto go to the menu bar and select File, Delete. When you do this, you will see twooptions.

• Old Versions – Delete all of the versions from the hard drive except themost recent for the currently active file. This method purges old versions but

leaves the most recent in memory.• All Versions – Delete all versions of the file from the hard drive, including

the most recent, and erase the current file from memory. This is a total lossof data for this file.

It is not recommended that you blindly delete files from your hard drive through awindows explorer unless you really know the relationships. It is recommended thatyou purge your working directory once you are satisfied with the most recent versionof the file that you are working on. This will free up disk space. SAVE A COPY This command is used to do one of the following:

• Make an exact copy of the current object with a new name.• Export the file into a different file type (such as IGES, STEP, STL, etc.)

With the current object open, go to File, Save A Copy from the menu bar. You willsee the following window.



To make an exact copy with a different name, first select the directory where the fileis going – or leave this step out to make the copy to your current working directory.Then, enter a name in the New Name field. Once you are done, click on OK. To export the model as a different file type, first select the directory where the file isgoing – or leave this step out to create the new file in the current working directory.Then, use the Type pull down to find the file type that you wish to create (IGES, forexample). The name should appear automatically in the New Name field with theappropriate extension added. Click on OK to complete the file export.

BACKUP The backup command creates the exact file that you are working with, but in adifferent directory. The difference between a Backup and a Save A Copy is that aBackup allows you to keep the same name, but Save a Copy forces you to specify adifferent name. The backup command is really useful if you need to make a duplicate copy of anentire assembly, because it copies the assembly and all of its components to thedirectory you specify. To perform a backup, go to File, Backup from the menu bar. You will get thefollowing window.



Click on OK to complete the backup operation. RENAME You must really be aware of relationships when renaming in Pro/ENGINEER.NEVER rename a part using a windows explorer, always rename throughPro/ENGINEER. When you rename a part file, you must have any assembly and/or drawing file alsoopen. If you do not, then the assembly or drawing will still be looking for the old filename when it tries to open, and when it doesn’t find it, it will fail. To rename the currently active file in Pro/ENGINEER, use File, Rename. This will

bring up the following window.

Enter a new name for the file in the New Name field, then select the option below

this. There are two options:• Rename on disk and in session – renames the file in memory, and

renames it on the hard drive (for all versions that exist). This is the preferredoption for most renaming operations.

• Rename in session – renames the file only in memory.

There are only two reasons why you might want to rename in session only. The firstis if you accidentally renamed a part, and forgot to open the drawing or assembly filethat uses it, then you could rename the part to the old name temporarily in memory to



allow the assembly and drawing to open up, then rename it back to the new nameonce those files are open. The net change would be zero for the part. The other case would be if you wanted to perform a “Save A Copy” type ofcommand. If you rename the current file in memory only, then save it, it creates anew file in the working directory. This might be useful if you already made changesto an existing file, then realized that you forgot to save a copy of it first. By renamingit in memory then saving it, you left the original file at its last save. The proper order of operations should be followed when performing a rename on diskand in session.

1. Open up the object to rename.2. Open up all drawing or higher level assemblies where this object reports.3. Rename the object then save it.4. Change over to one of the other files (drawing or assembly) where the object

reports and verify that the name has been changed for these files, then savethem.

5. Repeat step 4 for every drawing or assembly file that contains the renamedobject.

6. Close all objects and erase session memory (not displayed).

7. Retrieve each file to make sure the rename was successful.

NEW FILES To create a new file in Pro/ENGINEER, go to File, New from the menu bar, or clickon the following icon in the system toolbar.

This will bring up the figure at the top of the next page.



In this window, start by selecting the primary type of file being created (Part,Assembly, Drawing, Sketch). Our Pro/ENGINEER license only permits the followingprimary types to be created:

• Sketch

• Part

• Assembly

• Drawing• Format

• Report

• Layout

• Markup

Once you select the primary object type, the Sub-Type options will change to reflectpossible choices. In the figure above, we can see the sub-types for a part file. Selectthe appropriate choice. Finally, enter a name for the file. Always remember to do this so you can avoid arename condition later. Once you are done, click on OK to continue. You will nowsee the following figure.

For this next window, the template should automatically select one of the following:

• Startpart – if you selected Part for the primary type, and Solid for the sub-type.

• Sheetmetal – if you selected Part for the primary type, and Sheetmetal forthe sub-type.

• Startassy – if you selected Assembly for the primary type, and Design forthe sub-type.

If you selected Drawing for the primary type, there are no sub-types. We will talk

about all of these in more detail starting in the next chapter.

VIEWING MODES

There are four primary viewing modes in Pro/ENGINEER for Parts and Assemblies.To select a viewing mode, pick one of the following icons in the system toolbar:

• Shaded – All external surfaces of the model are rendered and allhidden edges and surfaces will not be visible.



• No Hidden – All external edges of the model are shown in the primarymodel color, but all hidden edges and surfaces will not be visible.

• Hidden Line – All external edges of the model are shown in theprimary color, while all hidden edges are displayed in a muted color.

• Wireframe – All edges of the model (external or hidden) are shown inthe primary color.

The following figure shows the four different viewing modes for a part file.

Shaded mode requires the least amount of time to display, and provides the bestresults for spinning. Wireframe is the second fastest in terms of display and spin,but is the least user friendly from a viewing standpoint.

MOUSE CONTROLS (SPIN, PAN & ZOOM) LEFT MOUSE BUTTON

• Stand-alone, it is used toselect/deselect objects

• Ctrl + = Select/deselectmultiple objects

• Shift + = Select Seed and Boundary or Chain of objects



RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON

• Context sensitive

commands when held down• Click to “Query Select”

through model where mousepointer is located

• Shift + = When selecting, it queries through multiple choices for theselected object. For example, when a single edge is selected, it willgo through one-by-one, tangent chain, from-to chain, etc.

MIDDLE MOUSE BUTTON (Standard Mouse)

• Used to accept selections or finish commands when clicked

3D Modes

• Used to spinthe modelwhendragged inall directions

• Ctrl + = Zoom In/Out (drag mouse in front [F] or back [B] direction)or Turn (drag mouse in Left [L] or right [R] direction – snaps to 90degree locations).

• Shift + = Pan when dragged in all directions

2D Modes• Used to pan when dragged in all directions

• Ctrl + = Zoom In/Out (drag mouse in front or back direction)

MIDDLE MOUSE BUTTON (Wheel Mouse)

Samefunctions asregularmiddlemouse,PLUS…

• By itself, it does quick zooming in and out when wheel is rolledFront or Back

• Ctrl + = 2X Quick Zoom speed (for rapid zoom).

• Shift + = 0.5X Zoom Speed (for slower zoom).



When spinning the model, you have two different ways to control the spin using thespin center. The spin center on/off control is located in the system toolbar, and itlooks like the following.

When the Spin Center is turned ON, Wildfire 2.0 will always spin about the spincenter, usually located at the geometric center of the model. This is the easiestspinning method to use, but does not give much control when you are zoomed intothe model. When the Spin Center is turned OFF, Wildfire 2.0 will spin about the location of yourmouse cursor at the time you press down the middle mouse button/wheel. Thisallows for more control of the spin, especially when zoomed in close enough that thespin center is off the screen.

VIEW ORIENTATIONS

In addition to being able to spin, pan or zoom using the mouse and keyboard, youhave other ways to control the orientation of the model on the screen. This sectionwill discuss these different methods. SAVED VIEWS Built into the start part or start assembly, there are pre-defined saved views. Theseare FRONT, BACK, TOP, BOTTOM, LEFT, RIGHT, ISOMETRIC and TRIMETRIC.These views were created so the positive side of the default datum planes (which wewill talk about in lesson 6) faces in the orientation of its name. For example, theFRONT datum plane’s positive side faces the FRONT orientation. The FRONTdatum plane’s negative side faces the BACK orientation.

To access saved views, click on the following icon in your system toolbar.

It will expand to show the views that are available to pick on, as shown below.

DEFAULT VIEW The default view is a system-defined view that exists for all models, even if there areno other saved views. Many times in Pro/ENGINEER, you will return to a default



orientation to make seeing or selecting easier. To go to the default view, click on thefollowing icon from the system toolbar.

PREVIOUS VIEW To toggle between the current orientation and the last orientation, click on thefollowing icon in the system toolbar.

RE-ORIENT To create new orientations, click on the re-orient tool in the system toolbar (the iconshown below).

This will bring up the following window.

The default type of orientation type is Orient by Reference. The goal in this sectionis to pick two planar surfaces or datum planes that are perpendicular to each otherand face them towards specified directions. Once you enter into this tool, you areautomatically asked to select the first reference, as we can see in the figure above.Using the pull-down, we can change the direction the first reference will face. In thiscase, the first reference will face the Front (or face the screen).

Look at the following figures to see an example of using this tool. Start by selectingthe first reference and its resulting orientation.



Once you select the first reference, it will appear in the field to the right of theselection arrow. Next, select the orientation and reference for the perpendiculardirection. In the next figure, we will chose to face our reference towards the right,therefore we will select the right side of the model, as shown below.

If the two references we selected are perpendicular to each other, the model shouldsnap to its new orientation, as shown below.

In addition to selecting references to re-orient our model, we can dynamically controlthe spin, pan and zoom of our model by using the pull-down at the top of thisOrientation window, and selecting Dynamic Orient. This will change the window tolook like the following.



In the top portion, we can control the Pan of the model on the screen. In the second

section, we can contrl the Zoom, and in the third section, we can control the Spin.Use the sliders or type in exact values in the spaces provided. Under the Spin portion, you can select whether you are spinning about the spincenter or about the screen center. Down at the bottom of the Orientation window, you can also access the Saved Viewsfunctionality. Click on the blue bar where the name Saved Views appears to expandor collapse it. Expanding it will show the following.

You can double-click on any of the pre-existing orientations to set the model to thatorientation, or type in a new name in the Name field, then click on Save to createadditional saved views.



The last option at the top of this window is to change preferences for the re-orienttool. When you select Preferences you see the following.

At the top of this window, select where the spin center will be. By default it is locatedat the model center (geometric center of the model). In the lower window, you can specify which orientation will be used for the defaultview.

MISCELLANEOUS

PRINT When printing in Pro/ENGINEER, use one of the three non-shaded modes forprinting parts or assemblies. To print, go to File, Print from the menu bar, or selectthe following icon on the system toolbar.


The first thing you want to do is select the printer that you are going to print to. Dothis by selecting on the down arrow at the top, as shown in the following figure.



This list of printers is defined using Plotter Configuration Files (PCF). If you do notsee a printer listed that should be listed, please contact your system administrator.Once you select your printer, the rest of the options on the Print window will becomeactive. To change any of the print job settings, click on the Configure button, whichwill bring up the configuration for the current printer selected, as shown below.

There are three tabs on this window. Within this section, you can select paper size,orientation, print zoom options, etc. The PCF files should be set up to use theoptimal print settings for the printer, including the correct paper size. You should nothave to change any settings in this window for most print jobs. ZOOM CONTROLS In addition to the dynamic orient and mouse controls, you have a few additionaloptions for zooming on the system toolbar. These are:



• Window Zoom – Click the opposite corners of a box around any objectyou want to zoom in on.

• Zoom Out – Each time you select this icon, it will zoom out a smallamount.

• Refit – Zooms out/in until all objects are visible and centered in theworking window. This does not work if you are in a sketch for the first featureof the model.

REDRAW (REPAINT/REFRESH) Occasionally, you will need to redraw your screen to eliminate any graphical blips orghost images, etc. This is also referred to as repaint or refresh. To redraw yourscreen, click on the following icon in the system toolbar.

LESSON SUMMARY

When you start Pro/ENGINEER, you will be placed into a working directory. Changeover to the working directory you wish to use then start working. When you save a file in Pro/ENGINEER, new versions of the file will appear in yourworking directory. Use Delete, Old Versions to purge all versions except the mostrecent. If you must rename a file in Pro/ENGINEER, always make sure that any required filesare also open and in session. Start renames with the lowest level object (Part Files),then rename assemblies, then drawings. Remember to save as you go. To save session memory, erase non-displayed objects once you have saved andclosed them. The middle mouse button (MMB) is used for spinning when used by itself. Use Ctrlwith the MMB to zoom, and Shift with the MMB to pan. You can select from pre-existing saved views, or re-orient the model to create yourown saved views. There are four viewing modes. Shading is the best for spinning, panning, zooming

and visualizing the model. Hidden line and No Hidden take longer to display.

EXERCISES

Once Pro/ENGINEER is opened, set your working directory to C:\Data\ProETrain .



Click on this folder in the file explorer (navigator) to see the contents. Click once onthe Idler_Arm.prt part file to see the preview in the web browser. Try spinning themodel in the preview window. Place your mouse over the icon to the left of the Idler_Arm part file and drag it intothe working window to open it. Inside the working window, try spinning, panning and zooming using the mouse andkeyboard controls. Once you are done, go back to a default view. Try looking at thedifferent display modes. Use the Saved Views icon to go to a FRONT view. Close the model but don’t exit out of Pro/ENGINEER. Use File, Erase, NotDisplayed once the file is closed to erase session memory.

Lesson

3

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about action-object versus object-action selecting, query select, as well as pre-selecting.



ACTION-OBJECT / OBJECT-ACTION SELECTING

Some of the features in Pro/ENGINEER are created by selecting on an action first(Insert, Blend, Surface, for example), then later you select your references, such ascurves, planes, etc. In Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0, most of the common feature types can also becreated using an Object-Action method of selecting. For example, to create asurface copy, you would have to select your surfaces first, then click on the copy

icon. In order to make Object-Action selecting easier, there is a Pre-Selecting functionthat allows you to see a preview of the geometry you are going to select before youselect it.

PRE-SELECTION



As you move your mouse over a model in the working window, you will see objectshighlight in blue. When you move your mouse past the object, the highlightdisappears, and a new one appears at the next location. This blue highlighting iscalled Pre-Selection. If you leave your cursor over a highlighted object long enough, a tool tip will appearshowing you the feature that is currently highlighted. In the following figure, we cansee a protrusion highlighted.

With the highlight visible on the feature or geometry we want to select, we use the leftmouse button to click on that object. The object will turn red, which indicates that ithas been selected, as shown below.

To remove any selections you may have made, click anywhere outside of the modelin the working window.

SELECTION FILTER

During pre-selection highlighting, you may see only features highlighting. This is dueto a filter that is applied by default, called Smart. We can see the selection filters inthe lower right corner of the Pro/ENGINEER interface, as shown below.

The smart filter performs a “Drill Down” approach to selecting. You begin byselecting features (Protrusions, Cuts, Drafts, Rounds, etc.), then you pre-selectgeometry, such as surfaces, edges, vertices, etc.



If we click on the pull-down arrow in this field, we can see the other filters that can beapplied.

The other, different filters are:

• Features – only features will be selectable.

• Geometry – only geometry (surfaces, edges, etc.) will be selectable.

• Datums – only datum geometry (planes, axes, points, curves, etc.) will beselectable.

• Quilts – only surface quilts will be selectable

• Annotation – only notes, geometric tolerances, etc. will be selectable.

For example, if we change our selection filter to Geometry, then place our mouseover the same protrusion as we did before, we will only see a surface pre-selecthighlight, as shown in the figure below.

Then, if we click with our left mouse button to select the surface that is highlighted,we see something slightly different than what we saw when we selected theprotrusion before.



A surface, when selected, will shade or mesh, depending on what view display youhave set. In No Hidden, Hidden Line and Wireframe , the selected surface will mesh,as we see in the figure above. In Shaded mode, the entire surface will shade a rosecolor, as we can see in the following figure.

For the remainder of this training guide, we will only show figures in a non-shadedmode (unless it is necessary for clarification to show it in shaded mode). This is dueto the ability for you to see these figures when reproduced on a black & white colorcopier.

QUERY SELECT

Often times, what we want to select is not at the front of the model in the currentorientation. Instead of rotating the model around every time we want to select hiddengeometry, we can use a tool called Query Selection, which allows us to querythrough possible objects until we see the one we want in a pre-selection highlight(blue highlight).

For example, suppose I want to select the two surfaces of the hole indicated below.



If I have my selection filter set to Geometry, and place my cursor over the hole, I cansee that the back half of the hole can be picked without querying through the possiblechoices, as shown below.

Now, I want to pick the other half. The first thing I need to do is hold down the Ctrlkey on my keyboard to select multiple objects. When I place my mouse cursor over

the end of the hole, only edges highlight in blue. I could zoom in or rotate and get aclear view of the other half of the hole, but that would defeat the point to thisdiscussion. Instead, I am going to place my mouse cursor over the model in an area that is infront of the surface that I want to select. Imagine if the mouse cursor were a drill bitgoing into the screen of the computer and into the model in its current orientation.You want to place your cursor over the model so that as you “drill” down into the part,you come in contact with the object you want to select. The figure at the top of the next page shows a possible location that clearly sits infront of the surface that we ultimately want to select.



Since the outside surface of the protrusion is in front of our hole, only the protrusionsurface highlights initially, as we can see in the figure above. To query through the possible choices, click on the right mouse button (remember tokeep the Ctrl key pressed to select multiple objects). A single click results in the holesurface highlighting, as shown below.

Now that the surface we want to select is highlighted in blue, we can click with the leftmouse button to select it, as shown below.

REMEMBER! – Even though we are working in a non-shaded mode, we still havesurfaces on this model. To select a surface, you want to pick out in the middle of thesurface and not near its edges, otherwise you might select an edge instead.



This is one of the biggest mistakes new users make that come from 2-D or otherdrawing packages. The following figure shows the correct and incorrect place to pickfor selecting a surface.

EDGE SELECTING

Using the same selecting techniques, we will talk about selecting edges. To startwith, you can select a filter, such as Geometry, which will allow you to pick justedges, surfaces, etc. Then, bring your mouse over the edge to select. As with

surfaces, it will pre-highlight in blue, as shown below.

When you click with the left mouse button, the edge becomes selected, as indicatedby a bold red highlight, shown below.



You can hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple edges independently, however weare going to demonstrate how to pick edge chains. If you hold down the Shift key,then move your mouse cursor over to a different edge (in this case, on the samesurface), we will see different objects highlight, as shown below.

The first thing it looks for is any tangent chain of edges to the one we originallyselected. From the figure above, we can see that there are four other edges (twostraight edges at either end, and two circular edges around the corners) that connectup to the first selected edge to form a tangent chain of edges. The Tool Tip indicatesTangent. If we query select (click with the right mouse button), we will see another possibleoption for edges, which in this case is the entire set of edges that go around the topsurface (connected to the edge that we previously selected). The tool tip indicatesSurface Loop, as shown below.



Click again with the right mouse button, and we will see a From-To surface loopstarting from the selected edge and going around the top surface boundary until itgets to the edge our mouse is currently over, as shown below.

Click one more time with the right mouse button, and we see the opposite surfaceloop condition (going the other direction around the top surface boundary).

If this were the set of edges we wanted, we could now click with the left mouse buttonto select it (remember, we are still holding down the Shift key on the keyboard.)



SEED AND BOUNDARY SURFACE SELECTING

One last method of selecting is to get all of the surfaces between two boundarysurfaces. One of the boundary surfaces actually lies within the set of surfaces to beselected. This is known as the Seed surface. The other surface lies at the external end of the surfaces to be selected, and is calledthe Boundary surface.

The following figure illustrates the seed and boundary surface you would select to getall of the internal surfaces of our cavity.

Therefore, we will begin by selecting the seed surface, as shown in the followingfigure.



Next, hold down the Shift key and select the top surface of the part (the Boundarysurface). While the Shift key is still depressed, you should see the following.

Once you let go of the Shift key, the proper surfaces will be selected, as shown in

the next figure.



The Boundary surface is never selected, only the Seed surface and all of the other

surfaces between the seed and the boundary. To select additional surfaces at thispoint, use the Ctrl key. To deselect any of the selected surfaces, also use the Ctrlkey and select the surfaces to exclude. For example, selecting the back surface withthe Ctrl key gives us the figure at the top of the next page.

A RUNNING TOTAL

Within the selection filter area, we will see some text indicating how many objects arecurrently selected. For example, if we were to select the following surfaces andedges using the Ctrl key, we would have 8 items selected.



In the selection filter area, we see text that says 8 Selected, as shown below.

If you double-click on the actual text, it opens up the window shown at the top of thenext page.

As you move your mouse over this list, the items will highlight in blue on the modelitself. You can remove any unwanted selections by selecting them in this list, thenclicking on the Remove button at the bottom.

LESSON SUMMARY

Many of the features in Pro/ENGINEER use an object-action method of selecting, orselecting the surfaces or edges that you are going to act upon, then pick the featureto create, such as picking on an edge, then picking the round tool. You can pre-highlight objects before selecting them. This makes it easier to knowwhat you are going to pick. Use the selection filter in the lower right corner to pickonly on the types of objects you want. Use Query select to drill down into the model to pick hard to reach items, or to scrollthrough a set of possible edge chain options.



Finally, use the Shift key to perform Seed and Boundary or Edge Chain selecting,and use the Ctrl key to pick many individual items.

EXERCISES

Open up the Idler_Arm part file and go to a default view. Using techniques learnedin this lesson, try selecting all of the edges that touch the front face of the part, asshown in the following figure.

Next, use whatever method you want to select the following surfaces (NOTE: Thiscan be done with a seed and boundary if you pick the right combination of surfaces).

Close out of this model when done, and erase session memory.



Lesson

4

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the sketcher functionality.



STAND-ALONE SKETCHER

Many of the features in Pro/ENGINEER require you to sketch a profile then performsome sort of operation on that sketch, such as extrude, revolve, sweep, etc. Whenyou are creating features that require a sketch, you enter sketch mode through thefeature. To introduce sketcher functionality, we are going to create stand-alone sketches.The only time you ever create stand-alone sketches (besides for training purposes),is to create sketches that you can re-use. We will see examples of importing savedsketches into feature creation later in this guide. For now, please understand that you normally will not enter sketch mode as a stand-alone process. To start a sketch in stand-alone mode, go to File, New from the menu bar, or click onthe following icon in the system toolbar.

When the window pops up, select the Sketch type, which has no sub-types. In thisexample, I am going to call this sketch Latch_Plate. The window will look like thefollowing.



Clicking on OK brings you into the sketch. The figure at the top of the next pageshows the sketcher toolbar, which appears at the right side of the working window, inthe feature toolbar.

SKETCHER STEPS

To effectively use sketcher, it is highly recommended that you follow these steps inthis order.

1. Select/Deselect References – If entering sketch mode in the middle ofcreating a feature, and there is already geometry in your model, then thisstep applies. Otherwise, for stand-alone mode, skip this step.

2. Sketch Quickly – Your goal when sketching is to capture the basic shape,but not to worry about looking perfect, or even getting close to the propersize. If you spend too much time sketching, then you are using it incorrectly.



3. Add Constraints – Add any constraints to the sketch to reduce the numberof necessary dimensions (such as equal length, or perpendicular, etc.)

4. Dimension Completely – As you will see, sketcher does not allow you tounder- or over-dimension a sketch, but you should use basic manufacturingprinciples when adding dimensions. Remember design intent when doingthis, because the dimensions that you add in the sketch are the ones thatyou are going to use to make changes later, so pick dimensioning referenceswisely.

5. Modify Dimensions – Only after all of your entities are sketched,constrained and fully dimensioned, should you modify the dimensions to theirproper values. Modifying the dimensions as you go may cause the sketch towarp or fail regeneration. There are tools in the modify command to stopregeneration or to scale the sketch. We will see this in more detail comingup.

6. Finish – Once your sketch looks good, accept the sketch to continue thefeature creation, or to finish out of the stand-alone sketch.

LINE TOOLS

If you click on the Line Tools Icon, it will expand to reveal the following line types.

LINE Using the left mouse button, click where the start of the line is, then move yourmouse to the location where the end of the line is. Click again with the left mousebutton to place the end of the line. The line tool remains active, allowing you to pick the endpoint of the next line (whichstarts at the end of the first line). Continue selecting locations for line endpoints untilyou have sketched all lines, then use the middle mouse button to complete the linetool. The following figure shows sample lines. NOTE: The display of dimensions andconstraints have been turned off in the figure below. Each sketch segment containsa blue dot locating its endpoint.

TWO-TANGENT LINE This line entity is created tangent to two circles, arcs or combination of the two. Withthe left mouse button click on one arc/circle, then move your mouse over to the other



arc/circle. The line should automatically adjust itself to snap tangent to both entities(at both ends). Click with the left mouse button once you see the tangent snap occur. This line tool remains selected, but not active (in other words, you must start a newone by picking on the first arc/circle again, instead of continuing at the endpoint of theprevious line). The following figure shows a sample two-tangent line between an arc and a circle.NOTE: The display of constraints has been turned on, but the display of dimensionsstill remains off. Notice the small “T” symbol that appears at each endpoint. Thisshows the tangent condition.

CENTERLINE Centerlines are used as snap lines, symmetry lines (for mirroring) or as axes ofrevolution if creating a revolved feature. When you sketch a centerline, its lengthoccupies the entire working window. You click once with the left mouse button to locate a point on the line, then move yourmouse until it is in the orientation that you want. Click with the left mouse button

again to finalize the line. The centerline tool remains selected, but not active in the working window. Thefollowing figure shows three centerlines. At their intersection, a sketch point appearsautomatically.



RECTANGLE TOOL

The rectangle tool is only a single icon, shown below.

To use the rectangle tool, use the left mouse button to locate one corner of therectangle. Move your mouse to the location of the opposite corner, and then clickwith the left mouse button again to finish the rectangle. The following figure shows a sample sketched rectangle. Again, the display ofdimensions and constraints has been turned off.

CIRCLE TOOLS

If you click on the Circle Tools icon, it will expand to reveal the following tools.



CIRCLE To use the circle tool, click with the left mouse button to locate the center of thecircle, then move your mouse to adjust the diameter. Click again with the left mousebutton to place the diameter. The following figure shows a sample circle.

CONCENTRIC CIRCLE The concentric circle tool creates a circle whose center lies at the center of analready existing circle or arc. To create this, use the left mouse button to select anexisting circle or arc on the sketch. Then, move the mouse cursor to drag out thediameter. Click with the left mouse button again to place the diameter.

This circle tool remains active, and allows you to create multiple circles with differentdiameters located at the same center point. To cancel out of this circle, click on themiddle mouse button. The following figure shows a concentric circle at the center of an existing arc.

THREE-POINT CIRCLE The three point circle is created by clicking or selecting any three sketch points,vertices or general locations on the sketch. When you click on the second point, thecircle will appear, and the third point locates the diameter.



The following figure shows a sample three-point circle using three random locationson the sketch.

THREE-TANGENT CIRCLE The three-tangent circle is created tangent to three entities (lines, arcs, etc.) Tocreate this, use the left mouse button to select the three entities the circle is to betangent to, and the circle is created automatically.

The following figure shows a sample three-tangent circle using two lines and an arc.

ELLIPSE An ellipse is a circle that is longer in one direction and shorter in another (like anegg). The ellipse tool in sketcher creates only horizontal or vertical ellipses, howeveryou can use the transform tools to rotate it 45 degrees, for example. To create the ellipse, use the left mouse button to locate the center of the ellipse,

then move the mouse to locate the horizontal and vertical radii. If you move more tothe left or right away from the first point than you do up or down, you create ahorizontal ellipse, and the opposite creates a vertical ellipse. The figure at the top of the next page shows a sample horizontal ellipse.



ARC TOOLS

Clicking on the arc tools icon expands it to reveal the following tools.

TANGENT-END / THREE-POINT This general arc tool gives you two different options. The Tangent-End arc toolcreates an arc that is tangent to an existing line or arc at its endpoint. To create thisarc, use the left mouse button to select the open end of an existing line or arcsegment. When you do this, a special symbol appears at the end, which looks like agreen circle with a big “X” through it, as shown below.

The “X” breaks up the circle into quadrants. Depending on which quadrant you moveyour mouse out from, you will either get a tangent arc or a three-point arc. Thefollowing figure shows the quadrants that affect the result.

To create the tangent arc, bring your mouse out of the circle in the quadrant at theend of the line segment (indicated above), and then use the left mouse button tolocate the free end of the arc.



The following figure shows the resulting tangent-end arc. Note the “T” symbol at theintersection of the arc and line segments. This is the tangent constraint.

The Three-Point arc is created by picking on the two endpoints of the arc, thendragging out the radius. When starting from an existing line or arc segment, be sureto come out of the quadrants to the side of the existing segment to avoid a tangent-end arc. The following figure shows two three-point arcs (one from an existingsegment, and the other just by itself.

CONCENTRIC A concentric arc is created by using the left mouse button to select on an existing arcor circle, then move the mouse cursor to drag out the radius. While the radius showsup in a dashed circle, use the left mouse button to select the start of the arc, then

move your mouse to locate the end of the arc. Click with the left mouse button toplace the end of the arc. As with the concentric circle tool, the concentric arc tool remains active, allowing youto create multiple concentric arcs on the same center. To finish out of this tool, usethe middle mouse button once you have completed your desired arc(s). The following figure shows a concentric arc using an existing circle to determine thearc center.



CENTER-ENDS The center-ends arc is created by using the left mouse button to select the center ofthe arc. Move your mouse cursor to drag out the radius of the arc (which is indicatedby a dashed circle), as shown in the following figure.

Use the left mouse button to select the start point of the arc, then move your mouseto locate the end point. Once you have located your end point, click with the leftmouse button to place this end point. The figure below shows the resulting center-end arc.

THREE-TANGENT Similar to a three-tangent circle, a three-tangent arc is created by using the leftmouse button to select three entities the arc will be tangent to. The first two pointsdetermine the endpoints of the arc, while the third point selected is used to determinethe radius. The following figure shows a three-tangent arc using two line segmentsand an arc.



The “T” constraint symbols appear at the location where the tangency conditionexists.

CONIC A conic arc is an arc that does not have a circular profile to it (similar to an ellipse).You create the conic arc by using the left mouse button to pick the two endpoints ofthe arc, then drag out the radius. A centerline is created automatically through theendpoints. The following figure shows a sample conic arc.

FILLET TOOLS

Expanding the fillet tools icon reveals the following tools.

CIRCULAR A circular fillet creates an arc tangent to two entities (lines, circles, other arcs, etc.)that has a circular profile. The result is the removal of the corner (or projected cornerif the two entities are currently not intersecting) and the creation of the arc.



To create, use the left mouse button to select the two entities at the location whereyou want the fillet. The fillet will be created automatically using a best-fit method.The figure below shows a sample circular fillet.

CONICAL The conical fillet is created the same way you create a circular fillet. The onlydifference is that the resulting fillet does not assume a circular profile, and thereforedoes not have to do a best fit. The following figure shows a sample conical fillet.

SPLINE TOOL

The spline tool is used to create a continuous, tangent entity that passes through

specified points. To create a spline, pick on the following icon.

Then, use the left mouse button to select points in a row. As the points are selected,the spline will update to remain tangent and continuous (no sharp corners). Onceyou are done selecting points, use the middle mouse button to complete the spline.



The following figure shows a sample spline.

SPECIAL ENTITY TOOLS

Clicking on the icon will reveal two special sketcher tools, as shown below.

POINT

A sketcher point is used in various ways. One simple way it is used is to create asnap point to tie multiple entities together. For example, you might use a point toforce an arc to lie on a line segment. Sketcher points are also used to create Datum points if you use the “Sketched DatumPoint” feature. Another use for sketcher points would be to create blend vertices. This is, forexample, when you blend a square into a triangle, you have four endpoints in oneentity but only three in the other. The blend vertex forces two entities in the square toconnect up to a single vertex in the triangle.

The following figure shows a point used to tie two entities together, and a point all byitself.



COORDINATE SYSTEM

A sketched coordinate system is used for some specialized features, such astorroidal bends, helical sweeps, general blends, etc. To sketch a coordinate system,pick the location where you want the coordinate system. The coordinate systemalways has the X-Y arrows in the sketch, and Z points outwards. The following figureshows a sketched coordinate system.

USE EDGE / OFFSET EDGE TOOLS

When we are sketching a new feature in a model that already has geometry, we havethe ability to use existing edges in the model as a basis for the sketch entities.Clicking on the Use Edge / Offset Edge icon shows us the two tools.

USE EDGE To create a sketched entity by exactly placing it on top of existing edges in the model,

use this tool. Click with the left mouse button on the model edges you wish to use.The complete edge will be copied into the sketch, and a backwards “S” symbolappears on the edge, indicating that it is a use edge. The following figure illustrates this. NOTE: The existing model edges are blue in thisfigure, and the sketched entities are black.



OFFSET EDGE To create a sketched entity by offsetting existing edges in the model, use this tool.When you click on the Offset Edge icon, you get the following menu choices (whichyou also got for the Use Edge command as well).

If you use Single you will pick on an edge, then specify the offset distance for thatsingle edge. To get all of the edges around a surface, select Loop, then specify theoverall offset distance for all edges. To select a chain of edges, pick on Chain, then pick the first edge in the chain,followed by the last edge in the chain, as shown in the figure at the top of the nextpage.

A new menu will appear giving you the choice to accept the highlight as it currentlyshows, or to toggle through other possible edge chains based on the two segmentsyou selected. The menu looks like the following.



Once you accept the chain, a red arrow will appear on the sketch, and the messagewindow will prompt you to enter an offset value. The direction of the arrow indicatesa positive offset. The following figure shows this arrow.

If we were to enter a positive value for the offset distance, then our sketch entitieswould appear outside of the existing model. If we enter a negative value, then ourentities offset towards the inside of the model. The following figure shows a negativeoffset value entered. Again, note the backwards “S” symbol indicating that theseedges are offset.

DIMENSION TOOL As you sketch, dimensions should appear on the model automatically. Thesedimensions initially appear gray and muted. This is known as a weak dimension.Weak dimensions are added to ensure that the sketch is always fully defined (noover- or under-dimensioning).

The following figure shows an example of weak dimensions applied to a sketchbefore any dimensions were manually applied.



Let’s take a minute to break down what we see above. We can see the existingmodel geometry (in blue), and the sketched entities (the lines that form a sort of “L”shape). We can see some constraints that are already on the sketch (the “H” and “V”symbols). In addition, we can see two dashed lines. These lines are sketch references. We willtalk about these later in this lesson. There are two sets of dimensions that you will have when you sketch to create a

feature in an existing model. These are:• Locating Dimensions – Dimensions that locate the sketch with respect to

existing geometry. Often, these dimensions go between the sketchreferences and the sketched geometry.

• Shape/Size Dimensions – Dimensions that control the shape and size ofthe sketch that we made.

You may not always have locating dimensions if you constrain the sketch to existingreferences or geometry (such as using a Use Edge or Offset Edge tool). Initially, all of these dimensions are weak. You want to make sure that you neverleave weak dimensions in your sketch, because they are not stable, and coulddisappear. We will demonstrate this as we start to add dimensions.

NORMAL DIMENSIONS To create normal dimensions, click on the following icon in the sketcher toolbar.



Click on the entities to dimension using the left mouse button, then place thedimension using the middle mouse button. Now, we will demonstrate the differenttypes of dimensioning schemes. Linear Dimensions Linear dimensions measure the distance between two entities in a single distance, orthe length of a line segment. The following figures illustrate linear dimensions.

results in…

The strong dimension shows up in a creamy yellow on the sketch (shown in black inthis training guide). Notice how one of our weak dimensions disappeared? The

weak 2.046 dimension in the first figure went away once we added our strongdimension, because it maintained a fully-defined sketch. We could have just aseasily lost the 4.092 dimension instead of the one we did lose. The fact that weak dimensions can arbitrarily disappear when we add strongdimensions is the primary reason we want to make sure all the dimensions arestrong.



We don’t have to redo create a dimension if we already have a weak dimensionwhere we need one. To make the weak dimension strong, we can either modify thedimension, or force it to be strong. To force a weak dimension to be strong, first select the dimension so it highlights inred, then click with the right mouse button to see a list of options. Select the Strongoption to make this dimension strong, as shown below.

Once we do this, the dimension should turn creamy yellow (black in our case), as wecan see in the following figure.

To create a dimension for the length of a line, click once on that line with the leftmouse button, the place the dimension using the middle mouse button. The followingfigure illustrates this.



You can also create linear dimensions by picking on two arc/circle centers or twovertices. The following figure illustrates a linear dimension between two vertices.

Angular Dimensions To create an angle dimension between two entities, click on the two entities with theleft mouse button, the place the dimension in the correct location with the right mousebutton. The location determines what type of angle you are going to get. Consider the sketch below.



There are four possible places to specify and angle on this sketch. The followingfigure shows the different scenarios for specifying the location to get the differentangles.

In the figure above, you select both line segments with the left mouse button, and ifyou click with the middle mouse button in the shaded area, you get the resultingangle dimension shown to the right of that figure.



Radius/Diameter Dimensions To create a radius dimension on an arc or circle, click once on the arc or circle withthe left mouse button, and then place the dimension with the middle mouse button. To create a diameter dimension on an arc or circle, click twice on the arc or circlewith the left mouse button, and then place the dimension with the middle mousebutton. The following figure illustrates this.

REFERENCE DIMENSIONS If you need to call out more dimensions than are necessary for the sketch to be fullydefined, you should use reference dimensions. Reference dimensions, unlike normal dimensions, can not be modified directly. Theyare what are called driven dimensions. Changing normal dimensions will cause the

reference dimension to update. A reference dimension is created exactly the same as normal dimensions (from astandpoint of picking with the left mouse button and placing with the middle mousebutton), but to access reference dimensions, go to Sketch, Dimension, Referencefrom the menu bar at the top. Then, pick your references. The following figure shows a reference dimension.



Notice how reference dimensions have parenthesis “( )” around them?

ORDINATE DIMENSIONS Typically, you use ordinate dimensioning to reduce the screen clutter on a drawing.These are very useful for objects with hole patterns, or many, complex shapes. To start an ordinate dimension, we need to create Baseline dimensions. A Baselinedimension marks the “Zero” location from which all ordinate dimensions aremeasured from. There are typically two baseline dimensions in an “X-Y” coordinatesystem, one that determines the horizontal zero and the other that determines thevertical zero. The following figures show the difference between linear and ordinate dimensioning(maintaining the same design intent).

Linear Dimensioning Scheme



Ordinate Dimensioning Scheme

Notice how much cleaner the ordinate dimensioning looks? You can also create acombination of the two. The following figure shows this for the same sketch,preserving design intent.

Would you want to do this? You’ll notice that in the figure above, ordinatedimensioning is used for the hole locations, but the rest of the model uses lineardimensions. Perhaps on your drawing, you may have a separate view detailing thehole pattern, and may wish to use ordinate dimensions for that view, but for the otherview that calls out the overall dimensions of the part, you may wish to maintain thelinear dimensioning scheme.



My recommendation is to reduce the number of views in the drawing that it takes toCLEARLY call out your design intent, and using ordinate dimensioning across theboard may accomplish this where linear dimensions may be too messy. To create ordinate dimensions, go to Sketch, Dimension, Baseline, and then clickon the entity with the left mouse button that represents one of the “Zero” locations.Place the “0.000” dimension along the entities’ direction, as shown in the figurebelow.

The baseline dimensioning tool remains active, so you can simply pick the next lineand place the dimension, as shown below.

Once you have your baseline dimensions created, you can create the ordinatedimensions. To do this, click on the dimension icon in the sketcher toolbar (just likewe do to create normal dimensions), then click in this order.

1. Pick on the baseline dimension, with the left mouse button, that runs in thesame direction as the ordinate dimension you wish to create.

2. Pick on the entity to dimension with the left mouse button.3. Use the middle mouse button to place the dimension.

The following figure illustrates this.



Repeat this process to create the other ordinate dimension; (pick the other baselineto start, followed by the top edge, and then place the dimension).

MODIFY TOOL

The easiest way to modify a dimension in the sketch is to double-click on thatdimension with the left mouse button and type in a new value. Once you hit the

Enter key (after modifying the value), your sketch should automatically regenerate toreflect this change. The following figure shows what the screen would look like once you double-click onthe dimension.

Once you modify a dimension, it becomes strong (if it was previously weak).



MODIFY TOOL ICON If you have a complex sketch, sometimes modifying dimensions using the double-click method causes the sketch to distort. Sometimes, you can not modify adimension value if the starting value and ending value are so drastically different thatthe sketch can not successfully regenerate. In these cases, you will want to use the modify tool by picking on the following icon inthe sketcher toolbar.

Before using this tool, you have two choices. You can either select the icon, thenselect on the dimensions to modify, or use the select tool and the Ctrl key on yourkeyboard to select all of the dimensions ahead of time and then click on the icon. We will do the latter for this example. We will modify all of the dimensions in thefigure below.

To do this, use the select tool ( ), and then drag a box around the entire sketch.When you release the left mouse button, all entities and dimensions will highlight in

red. At this time, click on the modify tool icon. A window will appear. I have moved this window next to the sketch so you can seeboth simultaneously, as shown below.



You will notice that all dimensions that are highlighted are listed in this window. Oneof them is currently selected (indicated by the blue shading in the field). On thesketch itself, the selected dimension will have a box around it (currently the totalheight dimension). The components of this window are shown in the following figure.

You can change the dimensions by typing a new value in the field provided, or bymoving the sliders to the right of the dimension to dynamically update them. Wewant to pay close attention to the two options in the lower left, which are:

• Regenerate – By default this is selected (green check mark). Turn this off toprevent the sketch from automatically regenerating as you modify thedimension values. This will let you modify all of the dimensions and thenregenerate the sketch all at once.

• Lock Scale – To use, turn this on BEFORE modifying any dimensionvalues. Once activated, the first dimension you modify will drive all otherdimensions to update so the sketch maintains its current aspect ratio.

For example, suppose you have a rectangle that is 2 inches long and 1 inch wide.The length to width ratio is 2:1. If we really want the length to be 200 inches long, tomaintain the same aspect ratio, the width would have to be 100. If we were to click on Lock Scale, then modify the length dimension to 200, the widthwould automatically update to 100. This is very useful if you need to make a drasticdimension change and you don’t want your entire sketch to distort or warp on you.

CONSTRAIN TOOL As we sketch in Pro/ENGINEER, we will notice some constraints that appearautomatically. Pro/ENGINEER’s sketcher tool is smart enough to make someassumptions (which may not be what you ultimately want sometimes). For example, if you sketch a line approximately in the horizontal direction, sketcherwill assume you want a horizontal line and snap it to that automatically. An “H”symbol will appear on the line when this occurs. If you don’t want a horizontal line,



then exaggerate your line so it is more of a 30 degree angle (for example) with thehorizontal. You can disable an automatic constraint by simply selecting on it after you sketch soit highlights, and press the Delete key on your keyboard. For example, if yousketched a horizontal line, and really wanted it to be angled, you would click on the“H” symbol so it highlights in red, then delete it. To add additional constraints to your sketch that might not have been “assumed” clickon the following icon.


The different tools are:

• Vertical Line / Line up Vertically – Make any line segment a vertical line ortake two vertices and line them up on an invisible vertical line.

• Horizontal Line / Line up Horizontally – Make any line segment ahorizontal line, or take two vertices and line them up on an invisiblehorizontal line.

• Perpendicular – Take two entities and make them perpendicular to eachother.

• Tangent – Take two entities and make them tangent to each other (usuallyan arc to a line, an arc to an arc, or a circle to a line or arc).

• Midpoint – Force a point, coordinate system or entity endpoint and make itat the midpoint of another entity.

• Collinear / Aligned – Make two line segments line up with each other, orplace the endpoint of an entity and snap it to another entity (anywhere onthat entity).

• Symmetric – Make two vertices lie equidistant from a sketched centerline tocreate a “mirror” effect.

• Equal Length / Radii – Make two line segments equal in length, or maketwo circles or arcs or combination of both equal in radii.

• Parallel – Make two line segments parallel to each other.



To demonstrate this, look at the following initial sketch.

The display of dimensions has been turned off so we can more clearly see theconstraints that are on the entities. As we can see, there are a few horizontal andvertical constraints added automatically as we sketched this profile. Now, suppose we want the bottom line to be horizontal, the three top horizontal linesto be equal in length, and finally the top left and top right horizontal lines to line upwith each other. First, we’ll address the equal length lines. Start by clicking on the constraint icon thatrepresents Equal Length / Radii. Then, select the two lines shown in the followingfigure.

The lines should snap to be the same length, and an L# symbol appears next to eachline. The # in this case represents a number that is sequential every time thisconstraint is uniquely applied. Since this is the first equal length condition, # = 1, asshown in the following figure.



Now, we are going to make the third horizontal line equal to the first two. Byselecting the Equal Length / Radii tool (which should still be selected from theprevious time), and picking on one of the existing “L1” lines, we will force the third tobe the same condition. The following figure shows what we are selecting.

When we do this, we get the following result.

You can see that the third line also has a L1 applied to it instead of L2. The reasonfor this is that all three lines are the same length. If we had picked two lines that hadno “equal” condition on it, then we would have seen two “L2” constraints on thesketch.



To make the bottom line a horizontal line, pick on the Horizontal Line / Line upHorizontally constraint, then pick on the edge, as shown below.

Once we do this, an “H” should appear on this line, and it will snap to a horizontalorientation, as shown in the following figure.

Finally, we will use the same constraint tool to line up the left and right top horizontallines. We will pick on two vertices to do this, as shown below.

The result will be the following.



The little rectangle icons facing each other is the symbol for this constraint. Thesesame rectangles will appear for the Collinear constraint when two lines are selected,but the icon for Aligned looks different. If we turn the view of dimensions back on, we can see that we only have threedimensions left.

Compare that to the original sketch before we started adding constraints.

Because we are not allowed to over-dimension the model, the addition of constraintshas forced many of the weak dimensions to disappear.



The following table shows the symbols that will appear for each type of constraint.

Constraint Type Symbol(s)

Vertical Line / Line up Vertically

,

Horizontal Line / Line up Horizontally ,

Perpendicular

Tangent

Midpoint

Collinear / Aligned

, ,

Symmetric

Equal Length / Radii ,

Parallel

Within the constraint window, there is a button called Explain. If you click on thisbutton, then on any constraint symbol on the sketch, it will highlight the entities thatare affected by that constraint, and in the message window, it will describe thecondition that has been set. For example, if you click on an L1 symbol, it will highlight two or more line entities,and the message window will say “Highlighted linear segments have equal lengths.”

TEXT TOOL

To create logos, part markings, and other text-type features on the model, you will

probably have to sketch text at some point in time. This tool is used for that purpose. To start creating text in your sketch, click on the icon shown below.



Then, sketch a line that represents the start of the text. The first point of the line thatyou pick represents the lower left corner of the text as it reads from left to right, asshown below.

The second point on the line represents the height and orientation of the text. If yousketch a vertical line straight up (as we see in the figure above), then the text will bereadable from left to right. If we sketch the line straight down, the text will be upside down and backwards. Ifyou sketch a slanted line, then the text will be at an angle.

Once we sketch the line, we see a window appear that looks like the following.

In the top field, type in the words you want for the text. In the middle section, you canchange the font used, the aspect ratio (the width of the word), and the slant angle (tocontrol italics). You can use any True-Type fonts (like you might find in MicrosoftWord). See your system administrator if you need a font added to the list. The following figure shows text using CG Times (Times New Roman equivalent).

You can also get your text to follow a sketched curve (spline, arc, etc.) Suppose wewant to have the text follow a three-point arc. We sketch the arc, then click on thetext tool. The start point of our text will be at the left end of the arc, and we willsketch a line perpendicular to the arc (look for the perpendicular constraint symbol toappear as we sketch). Once we sketch the line, our text window appears, and weenter the text, but we notice the text is still perpendicular to the line that we sketched,as shown in the figure at the top of the next page.



In the text window, click on the Place Along Curve option, then select the arc. Thetext will automatically wrap around this arc. Use the Aspect Ratio slider to get thetext to fit on the line. The result is shown below.

Once you finish, click on the green check mark to complete the text, then adjust theheight of the text by modifying the dimension, or dragging the top end of the line thatstarts the text. To modify the text (get back to the text window), click on the modifytool icon, then pick on one of the letters.

TRIM TOOLS

If you click on the trim tool icon, you see the following trim options.

DYNAMIC TRIM The dynamic trim tool is used to eliminate portions of the sketch you do not want to

keep by clicking on the items or drawing a path through the items. Take the followingsketch for an example.



Suppose we only want to keep the portion in the middle where all of the linesintersect. We would select the dynamic trim icon, then either pick on all of theoutside portions of the lines one-by-one, or draw a path that goes through the outsidesections at once, as shown below.

Once we are finished dragging the path around the part, let go of the mouse. Theresult will be as follows.

CORNER TRIM The corner trim tool is both a trim for intersecting entities, or an extend for non-intersecting entities. For this tool, you want to select on the part of the entity that isgoing to remain after the trim. For example, look at the following sketch.

We want to connect up the two line segments (extend), and then trim away the smallportion of the line that lies past the arc intersection. Therefore we would use thecorner trim tool and select in the areas indicated in the following figure.



The resulting sketch after this trim will look like the following.

DIVIDE TOOL The divide tool is used to break up a single sketched entity into multiple entities. Youmight use this when sketching for a blend feature, because the number of entitieshas to be equal. Therefore, if you were blending a circle to a square, the circle would

have to be divided into four sections. The following figure shows where you might pick on a line to divide it, and then itsresulting sketch after the divide.

results in…

TRANSFORM TOOLS

Selecting on the transform tools icon gives you the following choices.



MIRROR This tool is used to mirror selected entities about a sketched centerline. You alwayswant to take advantage of symmetry in your models, and this is a great way to savetime in sketch mode. To use the mirror tool, select all of the entities you wish to mirror, click on the mirrortool icon, and then click on the centerline that acts as the mirroring plane. Thefollowing sketch is an example of how the mirror tool works.

results in…

SCALE AND ROTATE This tool is used to resize, move and/or rotate an existing set of entities in thesketch. To use, select all of the entities you wish to affect, then click on the scale androtate tool icon. Enter the appropriate scaling factor and/or angle, or dynamicallydrag these values on the screen. To demonstrate this, look at the following sketch.



Using the select tool, we will drag a box around the entire sketch, and then click onthe Scale and Rotate icon. The dimensions disappear from the sketch temporarily,and three symbols appear, as shown in the figure at the top of the next page.

Using the left mouse button, we can select once on any of these items then move themouse cursor to see it dynamically change. Once we are done, click again with theleft mouse button to place the entity at its new location/orientation/size. At the same time we see these symbols, a window pops up in the upper right corner.It looks like the following.

We can type in a value for the scale factor or rotation angle. In this example, we willenter a Scale of 1.5, and a Rotate value of 45 degrees. Once we are done, we willclick on the green check mark. Our sketch now looks like the following.



We can see that the dimensions are now 1.5 times larger, and the rectangle hasbeen rotated 45 degrees. Since we don’t have any other entities in our sketch, a

weak dimension had to be added to account for the rotation, and we can see this inthe figure above.

COPY The last transformation tool is the copy tool. To use this, select the entities you wishto copy, and then click on the copy icon. It performs a “Copy and Paste” operation

right in the sketch, and the new copy will appear in the upper left corner of the sketchwith the same symbols we saw in the Scale and Rotate tool. Use the same techniques to move, scale or rotate the copied entities. Todemonstrate this, look at the following initial sketch.

We want to make a copy of the inside closed set of entities. Therefore, we use theselect tool, and we drag a box around these entities to select them. Once they areselected, we click on the Copy tool, and we can see a copy of these entities appearin the upper left corner, as shown in the following figure.



Using the dynamic move and rotate symbols, I will locate the copied entities the way Ineed them, as shown below.

Once they look the way I want them, I click on the green check mark in the pop-upwindow, and my sketch looks like the following.

ACCEPT / CANCEL

When we are finally done with our sketch, we will click on the accept icon, whichlooks like the following.

If we were in a sketch that was part of a feature creation method, such as an Extrudefeature, then we would be placed in the next sequence of events for creating thatfeature. If we are in a stand-alone sketch and click on this icon, we are placed back



out into the Pro/ENGINEER interface, ready to open a new file or activate an alreadyopen file. To cancel out of a sketch, click on the following icon.

You will be asked to confirm the cancel of the sketch. If you accidentally cancel thesketch, it should still be in session memory, and you can simply open it again.

SKETCH MENU

So far, we have spent a great deal of time going over the sketcher toolbar. Many ofthese same functions are available in the Sketch menu, located in the menu bar.The sketch menu has a few functions, however, that are not icons. This section willtalk about some of these. CENTERLINE TANGENT This tool creates a centerline tangent to two entities. Use Sketch, Line, CenterlineTangent from the menu bar to access this tool. Use the left mouse button to selectthe two entities that the centerline will be tangent to. The centerline will still span theentire sketch window. The following figure shows a sample centerline tangent entity.

AXIS POINT An axis point is a sketched point that, when extruded, generates a datum axis on themodel. We will learn more about datum axes later, but the following figure illustratesthis. Use Sketch, Axis Point from the menu bar to create this entity. NOTE: This only isavailable if you are currently sketching as part of an extrude feature, it does not workin stand-alone sketch mode.



AXIS OF REVOLUTION When you create a sketch for a revolved feature, you must create a centerline thatacts as the axis of revolution. By default, the first centerline that you sketch becomesthe axis of revolution. If, by mistake, you realize that you didn’t sketch an axis ofrevolution, and you already have several centerlines on your sketch, you can use thisfeature to specify a different axis of revolution. Click on the centerline that you wish to use, and then select Sketch, Feature Tools,Axis of Revolution from the menu bar to create this entity. The following figureillustrates this. NOTE: This also will not work if you are in a stand-alone sketch, itonly works if you are in the sketch to create a revolved feature.

TOGGLE SECTION When you create a parallel blend feature, you must sketch at least two differentsections. Every section that you create is done in a single sketch. To tellPro/ENGINEER which sketched entities belong to one sketch and which belong toanother, we toggle between sketches.

To toggle between sections, go to Sketch, Feature Tools, Toggle Section from themenu bar. Again, this will only work if you are trying to create a blended feature, notin stand-alone sketch mode.The current sketch is in the color of the sketched entities (yellow in Wildfire 2.0),while the inactive sketch becomes a muted gray color (similar to the weakdimensions). Suppose we want to blend between a circle and a rectangle. We mightstart by sketching the circle, then use Sketch, Feature Tools, Toggle Section. Thecircle becomes a muted gray color, and then we sketch the rectangle, which is still inthe primary sketch color (in this guide that will be black). The following figuredemonstrates this.



Using the Toggle Section command again will cause the circle to become the activesketch, and the rectangle will become the inactive sketch. We will see more of thiswhen we get to the blend feature. START POINT In several features in Pro/ENGINEER, we must define a vertex that acts as the

starting point of our sketch. We can see this in the figure above for Toggle Section.The bold arrow pointing towards the right from the upper left vertex is the symbol fora start point. To change the start point, we select a different vertex on the sketch, and then useSketch, Feature Tools, Start Point. The arrow will switch to that new vertex. BLEND VERTEX A blend vertex is used in the blend feature sketch to force multiple entity sections toconverge into fewer entity sections. For example, blending a square into a triangleforces two corners of the square to converge into one corner of the triangle.

To specify which corner of the triangle will accept the two corners of the square, weselect that vertex, and then use Sketch, Feature Tools, Blend Vertex. The blendvertex is represented by a larger circle around the vertex selected. The followingfigure shows the blend vertex and the start points for this example.

DATA FROM FILE To re-use saved sketches, or to import neutral data into your sketch (such as IGES,DXF, Adobe Illustrator, Images, etc.) use Sketch, Data From File. This will bring upthe following window.



Each data type that we bring in prompts us for different options, so we will only talkabout inserting saved Pro/ENGINEER sections (.sec files). When you select the fileyou wish to bring in, it will look and behave exactly the same as the Scale andRotate or Copy tools under the Transform icon. Scale, move and/or rotate the sketch that you are bringing in, and then click on thegreen check mark in the pop-up window to place the sketched entities. Continue toadd/remove from this sketch as necessary, and then accept it once you are done. This is the way you will bring in the logo sections, part markings, recycle symbols,etc. OPTIONS The last item in the Sketch menu is the sketcher options or preferences. When youselect this option, you will get the following window.

There are three tabs: Display, Constraints, and Parameters. On the display tab,we can toggle on/off the display of sketched entities. We can see that we currentlydo not have dimensions or constraints shown in our sketch. The second tab, entitled Constraints, looks like the following.



In this section, you can disable automatic constraints while sketching. Right now,sketcher can assume any one of the above conditions if it looks like that is yourintention. I would recommend exaggerating your sketch instead of turning offautomatic constraints. The third tab is the Parameters tab, which looks like the following.

At the top of this section, we can define the grid type, origin and angle. The defaultgrid type is Cartesian, which creates an X-Y sketching grid. The other option isPolar, which can be used to help you sketch entities which predominantly lie aroundan axis normal to the screen.



In the second section, we can define the grid spacing. This only helps you if you turnon the display of the grid, and set the sketch to snap to grid. These settings are onthe first tab. In the third section, we can define the number of decimal places for our sketcherdimensions, and the relative accuracy of the sketch. This is useful if you aresketching very small entities in the same sketch where you have much largerentities. The smaller entities might appear to Pro/ENGINEER as having zero length.Increasing or decreasing this number may help fix sketch regeneration errors.

EDIT MENU

The Edit menu in the menu bar has some of the sketcher options, such as Modifyand Trim. There is one additional item that is very important to discuss here. That isReplace. REPLACE If you are creating a model, and you sketch a feature, such as an Extrude . When youcreated the sketch, the single line entity in the sketch extrudes to form a surface thathas an edge that lies on the sketching plane, and an edge that is projected to thedepth location. Both edges of this surface rely on the single sketched entity. If we add a round toone of the edges of this extruded feature, then that round now relies on that sketchedentity (by way of the extrude feature). If we were to go into the sketch again after we created the round, and deleted theentity that eventually made up the edge, then the round would fail. We can use thereplace command to sketch a new entity and make the downstream features use itinstead of the original one.

To do this, you would sketch a new entity. Once the entity has been sketched, youwould select it so it becomes highlighted in red. Then you would use Edit, Replace.You will then pick the old entity that the new one replaces. You will probably beprompted to delete dimensions that were applied to the old entity. Re-dimension thenew entity as needed, then finish out of the sketch. The features downstream shouldregenerate successfully. The following figure shows the original sketch, extrude feature, and round for thisexample.



Now, suppose we want to make the following change.

When we go back into the original sketch, if we simply pick on the edge and hit theDelete key, we get the following warning in the message window.

This is letting us know that if we delete this entity, other features downstream will fail.We will click on No to the right of the message window to cancel the deletion of thisentity. Therefore, we will sketch the new arc that will soon replace the edge, as shownbelow.

The old edge is still in the sketch, because we can’t delete it just yet. Once we havethe new arc sketched, we will click on it to highlight it in red, then go to Edit,Replace. We are prompted in the message window to select the old entity toreplace. We will pick on the vertical edge. When we do, we get the followingwindow.

You may or may not get this window, depending on how your sketch is dimensioned.If you are prompted with this window, do not worry. Click on Yes to delete anynecessary dimensions, and then re-apply the necessary dimensions to the new arc.



Once you are done, you r final sketch, extrude and round feature will look like thefigure at the top of the next page.

We can clearly see that the Extrude and Round features are able to use this newarc. If we had deleted the edge and sketched the arc in its place, the round wouldcertainly have failed. The extrude would not have failed, because it will successfully

use any regenerated, closed sketch, and because the sketch was for this feature.

RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON

You will also find that most of the common functionality in Sketcher can be carriedout using the right mouse button. Lines, arcs, circles, rectangles, as well asdimension and modify are a few of the items that show up on the screen when youclick on the right mouse button. If you have an entity selected, you may getadditional menu items. Feel free to use the right mouse button for easy and fastswitching between common tools and functions.

LESSON SUMMARY

Many of the features in Pro/ENGINEER require a sketch of some sort. This lessonwent into great detail to cover most aspects of sketching and sketch mode. Remember to always sketch in the following order:

• Select References

• Sketch Quickly but Accurately

• Constrain Entities

• Dimension

• Modify Dimensions

• Accept Sketch

Make use of symmetry whenever possible and mirror your sketch to save time. You can use the menus at the top, the icons in the sketcher toolbar or the rightmouse button to access common sketcher commands and tools.

EXERCISES



Create the sketches shown on the following pages as stand-alone sketches. Be sureto follow the proper sketcher steps (with the exception of the “Select References” forthese exercises. Save each sketch once you are complete before Accepting them.

Sketch 1 – Shear_Plate.sec



Sketch 2 – Latch_Plate.sec





Lesson

5

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the Sketch Feature. We will also learn how to start a new part.



USAGE

The Sketch feature is used to create a curve on a 2D plane or planar surface. Thiscurve can then be used to create a variety of different features.

STARTING A NEW PART Up to now, we have not created a part file yet. We will now create one before we cancreate our sketch feature. To start a new part, click on File, New, or click on thefollowing icon.

In the New window, make sure Part is selected in the first column, and Solid isselected in the sub-type column. Enter a name for the part in the field at the bottom.The window looks like the following.

Click on OK to complete this window. A new window appears as shown below.



In the upper portion, we want to make sure the appropriate start part is selected inblue. In this example, we will show the Startpart_English start part. You can enterparameter values in the spaces provided at the bottom and then click on OK tocontinue.

The part will open in your working window. By default, datum planes should bevisible, so the model looks like the following.

The model tree will appear in the Navigator, showing all of the existing geometry.



We can see that there are three datum planes, one datum coordinate system, andthree datum axes in every part created from the start part. This is intentional. Wewill learn more about datum features in upcoming lessons. Depending on theorganization, you may have different start parts with different start part geometry.

CREATING A SKETCH FEATURE On the Feature Toolbar, you will find a fly-out icon that represents datum features.Fully expanded, it will look like the following.

As indicated in the above figure, the Sketch feature is the icon that appears as a bluesquiggly line on a dotted grid. When you pick on this feature, you are prompted topick your sketching plane. The next section will describe the dialog box for selecting

sketching planes.

SELECTING SKETCHING PLANES

For any feature where a sketch is required, you are prompted to select a sketchingplane. In the Sketch feature, when prompted to pick a sketching plane, we will seethe following dialog box.

In Wildfire 2.0, dialog boxes that contain more than one field will indicate the activefield by filling it yellow. In the figure above, the field used to select the sketchingplane is currently filled in yellow.

A field that is white (Reference in this case) is an available field to select but is notthe currently active field. To activate a “Non-Active” field, simply click once in thefield with the left mouse button. Any field that is grayed out is currently “In-Active”until enough references are picked to make that filed active. Therefore, we would start by picking on the sketching plane. In this example, we usethe TOP datum plane.



Once we select this, we may see another datum plane or planar surface on themodel get selected automatically as the horizontal/vertical reference, and itsorientation will be selected as well. This is a good thing from a time savingstandpoint, but you will want to be aware which entity is selected, and how it isfacing. NOTE: There are times when it won’t automatically assume an H/Vreference. In this example, when we pick on the TOP datum plane, it automatically assumes wewant to face the RIGHT datum plane towards the Right . Our window shows this inthe next figure.

To change the reference entity, you can simply pick a new one on the model,because it is currently the active field. Be sure to note the orientation, as you mayneed to change it for the new reference. For example, if we wanted to face theFRONT datum plane towards the Bottom , we would need to first select the plane,and then change the orientation to “Bottom” in this window. In Wildfire 2.0, the arrow is always the viewing direction in this dialog box. To changethis, click on the Flip button. On the model, we can see which entities have beenselected based on the color. The sketching plane will always highlight in an orange color. The horizontal / vertical

reference will always highlight in red, and the direction arrow will always be yellow.The following figure shows this.

As mentioned before, the sketch feature looks like a datum curve, but is a slightlylighter shade of blue to make it stand apart. The following figure shows thedifference between a sketch feature and a datum curve (through points – which arecurrently not shown).



Printed out in black and white, you may not see the subtle difference, but it is there.

LESSON SUMMARY

A Sketch Feature creates a 2D curve. It can be selected directly to create certainsolid features. We will see this in the next lesson.

EXERCISES

Create a brand new part called Plate_Layout . On the TOP datum plane, create thefollowing sketch feature.

When finished, your sketch feature should look like the following from a TOPorientation.



Save and close this part. We will come back to it in the next lesson.



Lesson

6

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the extrude feature, and the different depth options available.



EXTRUDE DEFINITION

An Extrude is created by taking a sketch and pulling that sketch in a straightdirection to a specified depth. The following figure illustrates this concept.

Within the extrude feature, you can create solid protrusions, thin protrusions, solidcuts, thin cuts or surfaces, and can switch back and forth between these. Thefollowing figure shows these different types of entities.



We will see these entity types in many of the common features in Pro/ENGINEER.There are two different ways to approach an extrude feature. The first approachassumes you have no sketch features in your model that you will use as the basis forthe extrude. The second assumes you are going to use a sketch feature already inyour model.

EXTRUDE STEPS

The steps to create an extrude feature are as follows:

1. Use Insert, Extrude from the Menu Bar, or select on the icon in theFeature Toolbar.

2. Select one of the feature types: Solid ( ), Surface ( ), Cut ( ),

and/or Thin ( ).3. If no sketch feature was selected, hold down the Right Mouse Button , and

select Define Internal Sketch.

4. Select a sketching plane, horizontal/vertical reference and orientation in theSketch dialog box.

5. Sketch the profile to be extruded, followed by the blue check mark insketcher mode.

6. Select depth option and enter depth value (if blind).7. Accept the feature.

If you are starting off with an existing sketch feature as the basis for the extrudefeature, the steps are as follows:



1. Select the Sketch Feature (either in the working window, or in the modeltree).

2. Use Insert, Extrude from the Menu Bar, or select on the icon in theFeature Toolbar.

3.

Select one of the feature types: Solid ( ), Surface ( ), Cut ( ),and/or Thin ( ).

4. Select the depth option and enter depth value (if blind).5. Accept the feature.

EXAMPLE 1 – Internal Sketch

In this example, we will assume that we do not have a sketch feature to pick on tocreate the extrude feature. To begin, create a new part called Safety_Key. We willuse the Startpart_English as the template for this part since our dimensions will bein inches.

We will start off with a protrusion (Solid Extrude) feature. Therefore, click on the

extrude icon ( ), or use Insert, Extrude from the Menu Bar. Down in the lowerleft corner of our interface, the dashboard for the Extrude feature will open up. Itlooks like the following figure.

Along the bottom row of this dashboard are the different feature types, depth anddirection options. Along the top of this dashboard are feature-specific menu options.These menu options are referred to as “Slide-Up Panels”, because they open up intolittle panels of information when you click on them. By default, the solid option is selected for the Extrude feature. Since this is the first

solid feature in the entire model, the Cut option is currently not available. We will leave the default of Solid selected, and now it is time to create the sketch forour first extrude feature. We will therefore hold the Right Mouse Button down overthe working window, and select Define Internal Sketch, as shown in the next figure.



This will bring up the Sketch window, as we can see in the next figure.

We will select the TOP datum plane as our sketching plane, and accept the defaultselect of the RIGHT datum plane facing towards the Right . Click on the Sketchbutton to enter into the sketch. In sketch mode, sketch a horizontal centerline on the existing horizontal referenceline. Then, sketch a 1.12” x 2.4” rectangle to the right of the vertical reference line,symmetric about the centerline, as shown below.





I recommend always leaving the Dynamic Preview On (Checked). We will talk aboutthe pause feature a little later – but for now, understand that it is associated with “On-The-Fly” Datum creation. You can use the full preview (eyeglasses) to see what the final model would look likewhen the feature is done. We are going to click on the Accept Feature icon tocomplete this first protrusion. Our model looks like the following.

Now, we will create another extrude feature that will remove material from this block.Start by selecting the extrude icon again. This time, however, we want to make surethat we select the Cut icon in the dashboard, as shown below.

NOTE: When you select the Cut option, another icon appears at the end of thedashboard that allows you to specify which side of the sketch the material is beingremoved from, as we can see in the previous figure. Once we have selected Solid (by default) and Cut , we will use the Right Mouse Button to select Define Internal Sketch. We want to use the same sketching planethat we did before (TOP datum plane). Instead of selecting it again, we will click onthe Use Previous button in the Sketch window. This will automatically select the lastsketching plane, H/V reference, and orientation that was used for the previousfeature. Click on Sketch to get into sketch mode, and sketch the following 1.4” x .5”rectangle.



Once you sketch the rectangle, click on the blue check mark to complete the sketch,and then go to a default view to see the dynamic preview better.

From the previous figure, we can see that our cut is going in the wrong direction. We

can also see an additional arrow. One of the yellow arrows indicates the direction thefeature is going, while the other one shows up for cuts to represent the side of thesketch from which the material is being removed. In this case, we will click on the arrow to flip the direction of feature creation and thenwe need to change our depth option. In the Dashboard, we will click on the arrow to see the different depth options, asshown in the next figure.



Currently, we have the Blind depth option selected. We want to use the ThroughAll depth option. NOTE: We could have flipped the direction of feature creation byclicking on the icon to the right of the depth value, as indicated in the figure above. Once you select the Through All depth option, the depth value should gray out, andour dynamic preview will extend beyond the top of the part to indicate that it is goingall the way through the model, as shown in the next figure.

The depth dimension and drag handle have also disappeared from the preview, sincewe can not change the depth value with the “Through All” option. Now, we can clickon the green check mark icon to accept this cut feature. The model now looks likethe following.



The model tree will only indicate Extrude features with an incremental number.

The biggest reason it only says “Extrude #” is the fact that we could change the cut toa protrusion or a surface, etc. at a later time, and therefore, the “Extrude” name isgeneric enough to allow for this flexibility. Save and close this model – we will return to complete it in the exercise.

EXAMPLE 2 – EXTERNAL SKETCH

In this example, we will see how to use a sketch feature to create an extrude feature.To demonstrate this, we will start by opening up the Plate_Layout part that wecreated in Lesson 5.

If you recall – this part consists of a single sketch feature, and it looks like thefollowing from a TOP view with the datum planes turned off.

We will start by selecting the sketch feature (either by picking it in the WorkingWindow, or in the Model Tree). Next, we will pick on the extrude icon. Right away, we will notice a dynamic preview of the feature when we are placed intothe extrude feature, as shown below.

We will change the depth value to 2.0 and then click on the green check mark. Ourmodel looks like the following.



IMPORTANT: When you select on a sketch feature, the entire sketch is used. In thiscase we created a plate with four holes in it. Even if we were to select only portionsof this sketch feature (as we learned in Lesson 3), it still uses the entire sketch.Therefore, if we had wanted to have a plate with four cylindrical feet sticking out (or ifwe had wanted the holes to be blind instead of through all) we would have to makethe holes as a separate sketch feature, or we could create regular extrude featureswith internal sketches and use the “Use Edge” command to pick only the pieces fromthe sketch that we wanted. When we use a sketch feature to create a solid feature, it becomes hidden in the

model tree, as shown in the next figure.

A hidden feature in the model tree has a shaded block around its icon, as shown

above. We can unhide this feature and continue to use it for more features if weneeded to. The Extrude feature is completely associative with the sketch feature. Ifwe make a change to the sketch, it updates the extrude. There is an option in Extrude mode when we use an external sketch to break thatassociativity. In the dashboard, we would pick on the Placement slide-up panel, andclick on the Unlink button, as shown below.

When you click on the Unlink button, you will get the following prompt.



Click on OK to finish the unlink. In the slide-up panel, we can now see an Edit buttonthat replaces the “Unlink” button, as shown below.

When you click on Edit you are brought into the standard Sketch window to redefinethe placement and sketch of this feature. It will automatically take on the sketchingplane, H/V reference and orientation of the original sketch feature (in this case theTOP datum plane as the sketching plane, and the RIGHT plane facing towards theRight). If we make a change to the original sketch feature after the Unlink, we will not see theextrude feature update.

DEPTH OPTIONS

There are six depth options that are available at different times when creatingextruded features. These are:

• Blind – Extrudes a section from the sketching plane by the specifieddepth value. Specifying a negative depth value flips the depth direction.

• Symmetric – Extrudes a section on each side of the sketching planeby half of the specified depth value. Negative values are not allowed.

• Through Next – Extrudes a section to the next surface. Use thisoption to terminate a feature at the first surface the entire sketch profilereaches. You cannot use datum planes as terminating surfaces.

• Through All – Extrudes a section to intersect with all surfaces. Usethis option to terminate a feature at the last surface it reaches.

• Through Until – Extrudes a section to intersect with a selected surfaceor plane. You can use any part surface, datum plane, quilt composed ofseveral surfaces or another component in an assembly.

• To Selected – Extrudes a section to a selected point, curve, plane orsurface.

The following figure illustrates these depth option.



EXTRUDED SURFACE

You go about creating the extrude feature the same way you have so far. When youget into the dashboard, you will select on the Surface option. When you create your sketch, you can have an open section or a closed section.The following figures show the difference between an open section and a closed, andtheir resulting extruded surface features.

Open Section



Closed Section

SLIDE-UP PANELS Within the dashboard, we have some menus. These are called Slide-Up Panels,because, when you pick on the menu, a panel slides up to show the contents of thatmenu command. In the case of the extrude feature, there are three slide-up panels.

These are: Placement, Options and Properties. The Placement slide-up panel is used to define the sketch. We can see this in thefigure below.

Instead of clicking on the Define button, we can also right-click out in the workingwindow and select Define Internal Sketch. The Options slide-up panel is used to define additional depth options, and behavioras the depth is applied. We can see this in the following figure.

For a Blind depth, we have the ability to control the depth differently on either side ofthe sketching plane. For example, we could have the depth go through all in onedirection, and up to surface in another.



The other option on this panel – Capped Ends – will be discussed shortly. The third panel, entitled Properties, is used to rename the feature. The currentname is shown below.

We can see that this feature will be called EXTRUDE_1. This is the name thatappears in the model tree once we create the feature. We can edit it here to give it ameaningful name.

The little blue “I” next to the name field brings up an information window in the built-inweb browser with information about this feature that we are creating (sort of a

summary). It looks like the figure at the top of the next page.

CAPPED ENDS When we create a surface that has a closed section, we can cap off the starting andending surfaces of the feature. In the case of an extruded surface, this creates asurface on the sketching plane and at the end of the depth that have the profile of thesketch. The following figures show this last surface that we defined with the cappedends in a no hidden and shaded mode.



In shaded mode, the capped surface looks exactly like a solid protrusion, but in no-hidden mode, we can clearly see the purple and pink edges of the surface.

THIN OPTION

For either a solid or a cut, we can select the Thin option. This adds a thickness tothe sketch when extruding. The thickness can be added to one side of the sketch orthe other, or it can be added equally to both sides. When we create the thin feature, we use the same methods that we have for theother extruded features. In the dashboard, we will select our main feature type (Solidor Cut), then pick on the Thin option icon. This will bring up another field to enter thethickness, and another arrow icon to define the side of the sketch the thickness willbe added to.

The following figure shows the dashboard for a thin protrusion.

The dynamic preview shows us the thickness applied to the feature, as shown in thefollowing figure.



Use the arrow icon at the right end of the dashboard to see the different ways it

applies the thickness (inside, outside, or equal about sketch). Once you have whatyou are looking for, accept the feature. It will look like the following.

LESSON SUMMARY

An extrude feature takes a sketched profile and adds depth in a single direction. Youcan create a Solid or Thin Protrusion, a Solid or Thin Cut, or a Surface in a singleextrude command. Be sure to check the reference plane and its orientation once you select a sketchingplane. You don’t want any surprises in case it decides to pick a surface or orientationyou weren’t expecting. Use capped ends to close off the ends of a surface extrude, but only if you sketcheda closed section.

EXERCISES

Using the extrude feature, create the following parts on the pages that follow. Besure to use a start part for each separate part, and save your models when you aredone. Plate_Layout2.prt



Open up the Plate_Layout2 part. In this exercise, you will do the following: Create two extrude features – one for the rectangular plate, and one for the holes.The rectangular plate is extruded to a depth of 2.0 inches. The holes are only goingto be extruded 1 inch into the plate – making them blind holes. Use external sketches already in the model to create this part. The following figureshows the resulting model.

Save and close this model.

Safety Key – Finish this model that we already started in this lesson.



Rod_Support





Lesson

7

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about Edit, Edit Definition and Edit References.



EDIT

The Edit command is only used to make a dimensional value change. For example,if we want to modify a dimension from 1” to 2”, we would use Edit . If we needed tochange the location where the dimension is going to, we would have to use Edit Definition or Edit References . To edit the dimensions of a particular feature, select on that feature (either in themodel tree or on the model itself), and then hold down the right mouse button, andselect Edit, or just double-click on that feature in the working window. The dimensions appear on the part, and you can now double-click on them to changetheir value. Once the dimension has been modified, it turns green, as shown in thefollowing figure for the hole diameter in our Plate_Layout2.prt model.



To regenerate the model, click on Edit, Regenerate from the Menu Bar , or click on

the Regenerate icon ( ) in the System Toolbar .

EDIT DEFINITION

The Edit Definition command is used to change anything about the feature, such asthe depth value or option, dimensional changes, references used, the feature type(solid to surface, for example), etc. To use Edit Definition , first select the feature on the model or in the model tree, holddown the right mouse button, and then select Edit Definition. This brings up thedashboard that we saw at the time we created the feature.

EDIT REFERENCES

The Edit References command is used to reroute features to different references,such as the sketching plane, horizontal and vertical references, or any sketcherreferences. You can not modify dimension values, or change depth options or thesketch itself using this command. To use Edit References , first select the feature on the model or in the model tree,hold down the right mouse button, and then select Edit References. The followingmenu appears:

Reroute Feat This option is used to re-select references for the existing feature. This is the mostcommonly used command for Edit References . Replace Ref This option allows us to specifically pick on certain references of the feature toreplace with different references. In the message bar, we are prompted whether we want to roll back the model to thetime in which the feature was created or not. This is a personal decision. I personally think it is a good idea, because if the changecauses a failure, you will not be hit with all of the failure windows. Instead, you cannow resume features selectively, and address each failure one-by-one. Once you have made the decision to roll back the model or not, each reference usedto create the feature will highlight one-by-one on the working window, and you will beprompted in a menu whether to keep the same reference, or select a new one. Thefollowing figure shows this menu.



The default action is to pick a new reference (Alternate ). If we wanted to keep thesame reference that is shown on the screen, and go onto the next reference, youwould select Same Ref. Had we picked Replace Ref, we would see the following menu.

LESSON SUMMARY

Use Edit to make dimensional changes only. Use Edit References to change thedifferent references used to define the feature only. Use Edit Definition to changeanything about the feature.

EXERCISES

Plate_Layout2.prt Open up the Plate_Layout2 part that we changed in Lesson 6. We are going tochange the blind holes to be feet that stick out of the bottom of the plate at 0.5”. Use

the appropriate Edit command to accomplish this task. The final part should look like the following (from the bottom).





Lesson

8

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about Datum Planes, Datum Axes, Datum Points, and Datum Coordinate Systems.



DATUMS – WHAT ARE THEY?

Datum features are widely used in the creation of other features. They arelightweight, don’t affect mass properties, can be hidden when you don’t want to seethem, and very powerful in providing necessary ties and references for otherfeatures. The most common datum feature types are accessed in the feature toolbar byselecting the very top icon in this toolbar. When we select this icon, we see thefollowing datum feature types.

DATUM PLANES When we create a new part or assembly, we see datum planes already built into themodel, as shown for a part file below.



As indicated in the figure above, datum planes have two sides, a positive side and anegative side. The positive side (if you are using the default system colors), isbrown. The negative side is black (or actually, a very dark gray – but we’ll consider it

black for this training guide). When we are in a default orientation, we can see thepositive sides for all three default datum planes. If we rotate the model slightly to seethe back side of the FRONT plane, then we can see the negative side, as seen in thefigure at the top of the next page.

To turn on/off the display of datum planes, click on the icon in the systemtoolbar.

The positive side of the datum plane is the one that is used when picking orientationreferences. For example, if we pick on the TOP plane as a sketching plane, we knowwe will be looking at the TOP plane in the sketch. If we pick the FRONT plane as asketcher reference, and pick Bottom as the orientation, then the brown side of the

FRONT plane will face towards the bottom of the screen in sketch mode. Datum planes are widely used for sketch planes, sketch reference planes, sketcherreferences, depth references, cross-section planes, etc. They are probably the mostused datum feature in Pro/ENGINEER. To demonstrate the creation method, we will create the following part.



Before we do this, however, we will change a setting that will allow us to see datumplanes when we spin the model. Typically, datum planes temporarily turn off untilyou stop spinning, panning or zooming.

To change this setting, go to View, Display Settings, Model Display. This will bringup the following window.

In the middle of this window is a section entitled “Display While Reorienting” . Theonly items that are checked by default are Surface Mesh and Orientation Center.We want to check Datums, so datum features become visible when we spin.



Now, we will create this part, and call it Dtm_Planes. We will create the part using astart part so we have our default datum planes, as we can see below.

The first feature that we will create is the semi-circular extruded protrusion that formsthe main shape of this part. We will use the RIGHT datum plane as a sketchingplane and pick the TOP plane to face towards the Top as the sketching reference.Our sketch will look like the following.

The display of datum planes was turned off in the previous figure to see the sketcheasier. Once we are done the sketch, we want to extrude to a depth of 10.000inches. Our first feature looks like the following.

Be sure your RIGHT datum plane is at the left side of the model. If not, edit thedefinition, and change the direction of feature creation by clicking on the yellow arrowin the dynamic preview. Our next feature will be a datum plane that is offset the RIGHT plane by an amount of

4.00 inches. Therefore, we will pick on the datum plane icon in the datum flyouticon. This will bring up the following window.



The first tab, entitled Placement is active. We are asked to pick references to definethe plane. The datum plane creation tool is pretty smart. Depending on the type ofreference we pick, it will assume the most logical choice for creation. Therefore, if we pick on the RIGHT datum plane, we should see the preview of aplane that is parallel and slightly offset from the RIGHT plane. Drag the white square

out towards the right, and you will see it moves the preview of plane, as shownbelow.

In the Datum Plane window, we see the following.

The RIGHT datum plane is listed in the References field, and to the far right is thetype of creation method it assumed, which is Offset in this case. Down in thebottom, we can see the offset value, which shows in this figure as 3.500. We willchange the value to 4.000 (either here in this window, or on the model).



The second tab in this window is entitled Display, and if we click on it, the windowwill look like the following.

You can use this tab to change the positive side of the plane. In this window, it iscalled the Normal Direction, and there is a Flip button next to it. There is also anoption to Adjust Outline , which allows you to resize the datum plane. By default, itassumes the size of the model. I recommend you let it resize itself.

The third tab is entitled Properties, and looks like the following.

This tab is used to rename the datum plane, or get information about it. We aregoing to go ahead and click on OK to finish creating this offset datum plane. Ourmodel should now look like the following.

Now that we have this datum plane, we can create our first extruded cut feature. Wewill use the new datum plane (DTM1) as the sketching plane, and face the TOPplane towards the top again as the sketcher reference. Our sketch will look like thefollowing.



Extrude this cut to the right of the datum plane a distance of 5.00 inches. The modelwill now look like the following.

Our next datum plane will be another offset plane, a distance of 3.5 inches up fromthe TOP plane. Click on the datum plane tool, then select on the TOP plane. Itshould automatically assume an offset creation type.

Make sure it is going above the TOP plane, and change the distance to 3.5. Ourdatum plane will look like the following once we create it.

Use this new datum plane (DTM2) as a sketching plane for our next extrudedprotrusion feature. Pick the RIGHT datum plane to face towards the right. Createthe following sketch (with datum planes turned off for easier viewing).



Once we accept this sketch, go back to a default view. The feature is probably tryingto extrude up from this plane. If so, click on the yellow arrow to flip the direction so

the feature is going down. Then, change your depth option to Through Next (). When you accept this feature, your model will look like the following.

Our final feature will be the cut that is angled. We could create this cut by extrudingsymmetrically about the FRONT datum plane, but then we wouldn’t learn anothermethod for creating datum planes. Therefore, we will create a new datum plane. This time, we are going to use tworeferences to create the plane, an edge to go Through, and a surface to measure anAngle from. Therefore, pick on the datum plane tool. First, pick the TOP datumplane. It will initially assume an offset, as we can see from the datum plane window.



To add additional references, hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard, and selectthem. To get an angled plane, we need a reference that acts as an axis of rotation.Therefore, we will also select the following edge (using the Ctrl key).

Once we select the edge, we see the Datum Plane window update to show the newcreation type applied.

We can see the “Through” condition, and a rotation angle in the bottom. You willwant to look at your model to see how the angle is being measured. Often times, theorder you pick the references, as well as the references themselves determine howthe angle is measured. Since we picked the TOP datum plane (whose positive sideis pointing upwards), and an edge, the angle is measured from the brown side of thedatum plane. Therefore, we can enter a value of 20 in the rotation field. The dynamic preview of the plane will look like the following.



We will click on OK from the datum plane menu to finish off the plane. The model willlook like the following now.

Now that we have this plane, we can create our cut. Use the top surface of the firstcut as the sketching plane, and face the left side surface towards the bottom. Thefigure below shows the references we are picking.

In our sketch, we want to take advantage of symmetry, and put in a vertical centerlineon the vertical sketcher reference. When we sketch our rectangle, we will make sureto look for the little arrow symbols that show it is symmetric about this centerline. Oursketch should look like the following.



Once we are done sketching, go to a default view to see the dynamic preview. Wewant to make sure the direction is going down, then change our depth option to To

Selected ( ), and pick the angled datum plane that we just created. Thedynamic preview (in No Hidden model), will look like the following.

It may not look like it is going to angle down, but if we were to click on the FullPreview icon (the eyeglasses) or accept the feature, we would see that it does stopat the datum plane, as shown in the final model image below.



You can also create datum planes using other references. The following describesthe most common methods and references for creating datum planes:

• Through – Create a datum plane to be co-planar with another datum planeor planar surface. Pick on a Datum Plane or Planar Surface as the onlyreference. When window shows offset, change the value in the window to“Through”, as shown below. Another set of references would be an edgethat lies in a single plane, but has at least two directions to it, such as theedge of a cylinder.

• Offset – Create a datum plane offset an existing plane or planar surface.Pick on a plane or planar surface as the only reference. The default typeshould be “Offset” in the window. Enter the offset value.

• At Angle – Create a datum plane through an edge or axis and at an angle toanother plane or planar surface. Pick on a plane or planar surface for onereference and an edge or datum axis for the other reference. Enter theangle.

• Parallel – Create a datum plane parallel to another plane or planar surfacethrough some selected reference. Pick a plane or planar surface as onereference to determine parallelism, then pick on a datum point, vertex, edge,axis or coordinate system as the second reference to determine the location.

• Through Points – Create a datum plane through three datum points orvertices. Pick on three points or vertices or a combination to determine

plane.

DATUM POINTS

Datum points are most commonly used for creating other datum entities, such as anaxis, plane or curve. Datum points can also be used as sketcher references or forassembling two components into an assembly. To turn on/off the display of datum points and their tags (names), click on thefollowing icons in the system toolbar.

The left icon is used for turning on/off the point completely. The icon on the right isonly used to turn on/off the point names (tags). We will open the model Dtm_Pac for an example, and we will show all of the mostcommon methods for creating datum points. To create a datum point, click on thedatum point icon in the datum flyout icons. We will see the following window.



We can create as many different points as we want in a single datum point feature.This is different from the datum plane tool where we could only create one plane at atime. For each point that you create, you select references. The Properties tab is used to rename the entire datum point feature (not each

individual point created). ON SURFACE This is a datum point that lies on a selected surface, and its location is measuredfrom two references. To create this, click on the datum point tool, and then pickanywhere on a surface (planar or otherwise). The following figure shows a samplesurface pick to place a point, and the Datum Point window when you select on thesurface.

The point shows up on the surface along with three white squares. The square nextto the point name (PNT0, in this case), is used to show the location of the point. Youcan drag this square to locate the point on the surface.

The other two white squares are used to tie to references to locate the point. We willstart by dragging the right-most square until it comes to the side surface and snapsthere. The model and window will look like the following once we let go of themouse.



We can see the white square has gone away, and is replaced by a filled dot. This dotshows us that we are lying on that surface edge. The window also reflects this bylisting the first Offset Refrence in the field at the bottom of the window. We will drag the other white square over to the front surface, as shown below.

This white square should also be replaced by a filled dot, and the other offsetdimension and reference shows up in the window. We would now edit the values ofthese offset dimensions. To create a new point, we would click on the New Pointitem in the left column of the window. To complete this datum point feature, click onOK.

The completed point looks like the figure at the top of the next page.



OFFSET SURFACE This is a datum point that lies offset a surface by a specified amount, and locatedfrom two references. The creation method is very similar to an “On Surface” with theaddition of an offset distance and direction. The following figure shows a sample surface pick, and the resulting window.

Just like the “On Surface” point, this starts out the exact way. It even assumes the“On Surface” constraint type. To change this, click where you see the word On, andchange it to Offset, as shown below.



A third dimension appears on the model, and a field for the Offset has become activein the window. We will drag the locating squares to the same surfaces that we didbefore, then enter the offset value as 1.5, and change the locating dimension to thoseshown in the following figure.

When we see the point as we intended, we click on OK to finish the datum pointfeature, or click on New Point to create additional points. The final point looks likethe following.

ON VERTEX This is a datum point that lies on the end of an edge or edge segment. You createthis by clicking on the datum point tool, then pick on any vertex in the model. Thefollowing figure shows the pick and the window that result.



If we click on OK now, we would have a datum point at this corner vertex. Instead,we will continue with this same window to show the next type. OFFSET VERTEX From the last figure, we had picked a vertex to place the point, and the windowindicated a constraint of On, which placed our datum point exactly on the selectedvertex. If we change the type from On to Offset, then we must pick another entitythat defines the offset direction. We will hold down the Ctrl key and select the edge just below the highlighted vertex,we see the following.

We can enter an offset distance of 1.5, as shown above. The constraint of Parallel

applied to this selected edge means that the point will offset from the vertex parallelto the direction of the edge. Now, let’s try a different offset reference. First, right mouse click over the wordParallel and select Remove, as shown below.



Now, we’ll hold down the Ctrl key and select the DEF_CS coordinate system fromthe model tree. We see the following in the window and on the model.

Next to the Offset field, we can see another pull-down that currently indicates “X”.This is letting us select which axis of the coordinate system is driving our offsetdirection. We can change this to “Z” as shown in the following figure.

We will now remove this reference the same way we removed the edge. Once it isremoved, we will hold down the Ctrl key again, and this time select the top surface.We will see the following.



Now, the reference becomes a surface and the offset direction is normal to thesurface. As we have demonstrated, you have the ability to select a wide array ofreferences to determine the offset direction. ON CURVE Another common point creation is to locate the point on a datum curve or existingedge. We will demonstrate this by selecting the top, front edge of the model. Ourmodel and window will look like the following.

When you select a curve or edge as the reference, you get a variety of options tofurther refine your point definition. The first is to determine whether the distance is aratio or a real value. The ratio option represents the percentage along the edge orcurve where the point resides. For example, if you wanted the point to be at theexact midpoint of the edge, you would enter a ratio of 0.5.

Real represents the actual distance along the curve the point resides at. Forexample, suppose you want the point to be exactly 1.5 inches in from the back leftsurface. You would change the Ratio option to Real as shown in the following figure.

Then, you would enter a value of 1.5 in the offset field. Once you have determined how the dimension value is being measured, you canpick your reference that the dimension value is coming from. In this window, we cansee that the dimension is being measured from the End of Curve. If you want theopposite end to be used, click on the Next End button.



Or, if you want to use a datum plane or other reference other than one of theendpoints, select the Reference option, then select the actual reference on themodel. Using the Reference option means that you are using a Real dimensionvalue instead of a ratio. AT CENTER This creates a datum point at the center of a circular edge, such as the edge of acylinder or a hole. To create, click on the datum point tool, then select on the circularedge. Initially, it will assume an “On Curve” constraint, as shown in the followingfigure.

As the figure above illustrates, we want to change the On value to Center. This willremove all other options, and place a point at the center of this circular edge, asshown below.

SKETCHED The previous points were created using the datum point icon in the feature toolbar.This is the first of the point definitions that can only be accessed through the menubar. Go to Insert, Model Datum, Point, Sketched. This will bring up the Sketch window to select a sketching plane and a sketching reference. We will pick the top

flat surface as a sketching plane, and then select the front surface to face towardsthe bottom.

Inside our sketch, we will use the sketcher point icon ( ) and pick the location onthe surface for the points. Dimension the points in whatever style you need.

The figure at the top of the next page shows a sample sketch for these points.







To create another point, click in the next row in the main portion of the window. Thiswill now look like the following.

At the bottom of this window, there are three other options. The first is used to importin a point file (has a PTS extension). The second button allows you to create a pointfile. If we click on this, we can save a file to our working directory. Opening the file innotepad, it looks like the following.





The datum axes will be created through this edge. NORMAL TO SURFACE If you select just a surface as a reference, you get the following window.

Just as we did with the “On Surface” datum point, drag the white squares to thereferences you wish to use to locate the point on the surface, and the axis will becreated at this point, as shown below.

THROUGH POINTS/VERTICES With this axes creation method, select any two vertices, datum points, or combinationof them to create an axis that goes through these points, as shown below.



THROUGH CYLINDER This creates a datum axes through the center axis of a revolved surface, such as acylinder. By default, most cylindrical surfaces or revolved surfaces will already havean axis, so you may not need to create this type very often. The following window shows the model and Datum Axis window when you pick onthe cylindrical surface.

POINT NORMAL TO PLANE With this creation type, select on a datum point, then select a planar surface that theaxis will be normal to. This creates an axis normal to the selected plane passingthrough the datum point. No dimensions are necessary for this one.

INTERSECTION OF TWO SURFACES / PLANES This is an axis that is created where surfaces or planes meet. They must intersect toform a single straight line, otherwise the axis does not lie in a single plane, andtherefore can not be created. The following window shows the intersection of thefront surface and a datum plane.



DATUM COORDINATE SYSTEMS

You may need to create a datum coordinate system for some features. To showcoordinate systems, click on the following icon in the system toolbar.

When you click on the datum coordinate system icon in the datum flyout tool, you getthe following window.

The most common way to create a datum coordinate system is to pick three surfacesor planes. The following shows a coordinate system window and model when threesurfaces are selected.







LESSON SUMMARY

Datum features are very common in Pro/ENGINEER. You will get to know them verywell. Use datum planes, axes, points, and coordinate systems to aid in the creationof other features.

EXERCISES

Create the following part files using the extrude feature. Create datum planes and/oraxes to aid in the creation of the extrude features. Angle_Bearing





Lesson

9

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the Revolve Feature.



REVOLVE DEFINITION

The Revolve feature is created by revolving a sketched profile around an axis ofrevolution. The angle and direction can be controlled independent of the sketch.

CREATING A REVOLVE FEATURE

The Revolve feature is very similar to the Extrude feature (Lesson 6) from the waythat it is created. The biggest differences are in the depth options (fewer for theRevolve feature) and the sketch itself (only a half sketch with a centerline that acts asan axis of revolution).

The steps for a revolve feature with an internal sketch are:

1. Use Insert, Revolve from the Menu Bar, or select on the icon in theFeature Toolbar.

2. Select one of the feature types (Solid, Surface, Cut and/or Thin).3. Hold down the right mouse button and select Define Internal Sketch.4. Select the sketching plane, horizontal/vertical reference and orientation in

the Sketch window.5. Sketch the profile to be revolved – making sure you only sketch half of the

feature and a centerline that acts as an axis of revolution. Click on the bluecheck mark to finish the sketch.

6. Select the depth option and enter depth value (if blind).7. Accept the feature.

When using external sketches, you either need to have a centerline defined in thesketch that will be picked as the axis of revolution, or you need to specify a datumaxis or straight edge that lies in the plane of the sketch to act as the axis ofrevolution. The steps for a revolve feature with an external sketch are:

1. Select the Sketch Feature (either in the working window or in the modeltree).



2. Use Insert, Revolve from the Menu Bar, or select on the icon in theFeature Toolbar.

3. Select one of the feature types (Solid, Surface, Cut and/or Thin).4. If a centerline was not used in the Sketch Feature, use the Placement slide-

up panel to define a datum axis or edge as the axis of revolution.5. Select the depth option and enter depth value (if blind).6. Accept the feature.

EXAMPLE 1 – Internal Sketch

In this example, we will create a revolve feature that uses an internal sketch. Todemonstrate this, open up the part entitled Bearing1. It contains a single sketchfeature, which we will use later. The following figure shows this part.

We are going to create a new revolve feature by clicking on the revolve icon (). Inside the feature, the dashboard for the revolve feature looks like the following.

As you can see, the dashboard for the revolve feature looks very similar to theextrude dashboard. We will keep the default feature type of “Solid” and then we willright mouse click in the working window and select Define Internal Sketch. When the sketch window appears, click on the Use Previous button to sketch on the

same plane as the first Sketch feature. Click on Sketch from this window to proceedinto sketch mode, and sketch the following profile (don’t forget the vertical centerlinesitting on the existing vertical reference).



In the figure above, the sketch is shaped like a “P” with all straight edges and sharpcorners, and the top of the “P” is tied to the top edge of the sketch feature. When finished with the sketch, click on the blue check mark. We will now see thepreview of the feature.

As with the extrude feature, we can see a drag handle on the angular dimension thatwe can dynamically drag to see the model update. Under the depth options, we onlyhave the following options: Blind (specify angle), Symmetric, and Up to Selected. Wewill leave the depth option at 360 degrees. We will click on the green check mark to complete this feature. Our model currentlylooks like the following.



EXAMPLE 2 – External Sketch

In this example, we will finish this bearing by cutting out the middle using the existingsketch feature. To do this, we will first start by selecting the sketch feature from themodel tree so it highlights in read on the model. Next, click on the revolve featureicon.

In the revolve feature, we do not see a preview yet, because we currently do nothave a centerline in the sketch feature to act as an axis of revolution. Until thefeature definition is complete, our dynamic preview will not appear, indicating to usthat we have not defined enough yet. In our dashboard, we can see a field that is used to select the axis of revolution, asshown in the next figure.

This field is currently highlighted in yellow. This means that we can go ahead andselect the datum axis or edge to use. If it were not highlighted in yellow, we couldpick once inside this field to make it active.Once the field is active, we can pick on the axis or edge to use. In this case, we havethe Z_AXIS datum axis in our model tree that would work. We can also select theinside edge of our sketch feature, since it lies in the plane of the sketch, and it lies atthe center of our model. We will select the edge, as shown in the next figure. When we do this, the dynamicpreview appears as shown.

There is only one thing we have to do for this feature, and that is to select the Cut icon to remove material from the model. The preview will change to show a cutinstead of a protrusion, and then we can click on the green check mark to accept thisfeature. The model now looks like the following (in hidden line mode).



LESSON SUMMARY

The revolve feature is not very different from an extrude feature in terms of the menupicks to create it. The biggest differences lie in the rules for the sketch and the depthoptions. When sketching, be sure to create or specify an axis of revolution, and sketch on only

one side of this axis. You can also use an existing edge or axis in the model for theaxis of revolution if you do not wish to sketch one. When specifying depth, remember that it is an angle in degrees.

EXERCISES

Create the part below using a combination of extrude and revolve features. Createdatum geometry if necessary. Bearing2







DATUM CURVE USAGE

Datum curves are used in a wide range of applications. They can be the trajectoryfor a sweep, variable section sweep or swept blend. They can also be the boundaryedges for blended surfaces. They are often used as tools to create or modify surfaces. We are going to learnabout a variety of methods for creating datum curves. We have already learned howto create a sketch feature, which produces a 2D curve on a plane or planar surface.We will now look at the other types of datum features and tools.

PROJECTED DATUM CURVES

A projected datum curve is made by projecting a sketch or existing datum curve ontoa nearby set of surfaces. You can either project normal to the sketch or normal to thesurface. We will demonstrate both of these options, and discuss what is happeningwhen you do this. We will start by looking at the following part (Dtm_Curve1).



This part has a sketch feature on a datum plane (DTM1) that lies above thecylindrical surface, as we can see above. We will use this curve to project down ontothe cylindrical surface.

From a TOP view, we can see this circular datum curve takes up most of the width ofthe cylindrical surface, as shown below.

Therefore, we click on the Project Tool icon, as shown below.

When the dashboard opens, we will click on the References slide-up panel to see allof the options, as shown in the following figure.



At the very top, there is a pull-down field. Use this field to specify whether we areprojecting an existing datum curve (Project chains), or whether we are going tosketch (Project a Sketch). If we were to select the Project a Sketch option, ourpanel would look like the following.

We can see a Define button that will allow us to go in and sketch the profile toproject. Instead, we are going to continue with the Project chains option.Therefore, we need to select the existing edges or curves to project. We will selectthe circular sketch that is already in the model.

When we select it, it becomes a bold red, as shown in the figure at the top of the nextpage.





Now we come to the part where we pick to project from the sketching plane, orwhether we will project normal to a surface. Our two options are shown in thefollowing figure.

If we choose Along direction, then we must specify a plane or planar surface thatthe normal direction is based on. If we choose Normal to surface we will not haveto specify this. We will select the “Along Direction” option and then pick the DTM1datum plane. The following figure shows the dynamic preview for the Along Direction with theDTM1 plane selected as the reference.

NOTE: The arrow doesn’t seem to make a difference in this case. You could tryflipping it, but it does not change the preview. If we accept this result, from a TOP view, this is what we would see.



The projected curve is in exact alignment with the original sketched datum curve. Ifwe were to select Normal to Surface, our result would be the following.

We notice that the projected curve is now more of an ellipse than a circle. Why? The reason is simple. If we look at the following figure, we will see the answer.

When you use Along Direction , the curve is almost extruded down onto the cylindricalsurface, and the intersection of this imaginary extrusion and the surface creates theprojected curve. When you use Normal to Surface , the surface takes control of the projection. It triesto locate the spot on the cylindrical surface that, when projected normal to thesurface from that spot, it intersects with the original curve. We can see that, due tothe curvature of the surface, it actually starts up higher and in more to get to thesame original circular curve.



In many cases, you may have problems getting a “Normal to Surface” projectedcurve to work unless you really understand what is going on with the way it projects.Hopefully this will help you in getting the hang of it.

THROUGH POINTS

The next type of datum curve we are going to show is the Through Points (or inPro/ENGINEER – it is spelled “Thru Points”). This is a curve that passes throughdatum points or vertices. We are going to work with the following part (Dtm_Curve2) for this demonstration.

To create this curve, click on the general curve icon. It brings up a set of menuscalled the Menu Manager, which looks like the following.

The first option on this list is the Thru Points curve, which is the one we want. In themenu manager, you generally pick options at the top of the menu, then select Done,Done Sel or Done/Return at the bottom to continue. In this case, since the Thru Points menu item is already selected (shown in a blackhighlight), we will pick on Done to continue. This brings up the CURVE: Thru Pointswindow, which looks like the following.



This is a different feature window than the dashboard. Many of the more advancedfeatures still use this type of window. In the first column, entitled Elements , there is alist of items that we can define.The second column, entitled Info describes what is happening or what needs tohappen to the element in the first column. You can see that we are currently definingthe curve points. Below this window, we can see more menus, that look like thefollowing.

In the top portion, we define the way it handles corners (at the points along thecurve). If we use Spline, we get a continuous curve that is tangent along its entirelength. If we use Single Rad, then we will specify a single bend radius that it willapply at each corner. If we select Multiple Rad, then we will be prompted to enterthe bend radius at each point we select. In this example, we are going to stay with the default choice of Spline. In the secondset of options, we can select Single Point if we want to pick individual points, even ifthey all belong to the same datum point feature. If we pick Whole Array, then we willget all of the points in the datum point feature. Since we are only going to gobetween to vertices, we won’t care what option it uses here. Finally, we have one last section of this menu. There is only one choice at this time,

and that is to Add Points. Down below this menu manager, we see another little window, which looks like thefigure below.



You are going to see this a lot. Every time you are prompted to select something,this window will appear. When you are finished selecting items, you click on OK tofinish selecting. The easier thing to do, however, is to use the middle mouse buttonto click once to indicate that you are finished. It is the same as clicking OK. We are going to pick on the two vertices, shown in the figure below.

Once we select the second vertex, a blue arrow will appear, indicating the start pointof the curve, as shown below.

Since we are done selecting, we will click with the middle mouse button, then selectDone from the menu manager. We are now placed back into the CURVE: Thru Points window. We are technically done defining all of the required elements. Thereare still two optional elements we can define. We will double-click on Tangency from



the element list, which will bring up the menu manager shown at the top of the nextpage.

Looking at the menu above, we are asked to pick a Curve, Edge or Axis that definesthe tangency for the start of our curve. On our model, the start point is highlighted

with a red circle, as shown below.

We will pick the edge at the top of the front surface that intersects this start point.When we do, we will see the following on the model.



At the bottom of the menu manager, we see two options: Flip or Okay. The arrowpoints towards the direction that tangency is measured from. Many times, you willget it right the first time, and many times you will have to try again. If we pick Okay at this point (with the arrow going away from the curve that we arecreating), we will get the following.

This is one of the times that we got it wrong. Not to worry, however. All we need todo is pick on the Start menu item, pick the edge again, and this time flip the arrow,then click on Okay. The result from doing it over looks like the following.

That is much better. Once we define the start point, it automatically jumps to definingthe End point. We will pick on its adjacent edge, and flip the arrow so it is pointing inthe direction shown at the top of the next page.



Once it is flipped to face in this direction, click on Okay to finish it. The curve nowlooks like the following.

This looks pretty good – much better than the straight line we had originally. Nowthat we have finished defining the references at each end for the tangency condition,we are placed back at the start point, and a new menu item appears in the menumanager, called Curvature.

If we select this, the curve will take on the curvature of the entity that acted as thetangency reference. Since our entity was a straight edge, our curve will receive asmall straight portion to it at that end.

The figure at the top of the next page shows what would happen if we selectedCurvature for the start point.



If we click on the end point, and select Curvature for this end as well, we get thefollowing curve.

This is an even better curve, because it creates a smoother transition into the existingedges. If we were to use this curve to create a surface between the two protrusions,then our surface would have very good continuity with the surrounding surfaces. We are done defining tangency conditions, so we can select Done/Return at thebottom of the menu manager. We are placed once again into the CURVE: Thru Points window. We can see one last optional element, called Tweak. If we double-click on this element, we see the following window.



The curve on our model will show a control curve overlaid on it, as we can see below.

Using this menu, and/or dragging the control points on the model, we can adjust ourcurvature even more, or shorten/lengthen the straight portion of the curve as it goesinto the adjacent edges.

This basically gives us more control to Tweak the shape of our curve. We are goingto cancel out of this tweak window by clicking on the red “X” in the lower left corner.Back in our CURVE: Thru Points window, click on OK to finish this feature. The resulting datum curve will look like the following.



USE CROSS-SECTION

We haven’t talked about creating cross-sections yet, so we’ll just go into a part thatalready has one. The “Use Cross-Section Datum Curve” creates a curve thatrepresents the boundary of the entire cross section. These curves are very useful for rib features, or other features that need a sketchingreference but the shape of the surrounding geometry does not allow for picking as asketcher reference. The curve segments at this area are always selectable. To demonstrate this, we will go back to a model that we saw in Lesson 3 – SelectingObjects (Selecting.prt). When we open it, it looks like the following.

To access the cross-section functionality, go to View, View Manager from the menubar. We will get the following window.



Click on the Xsec tab at the top to get to Cross-section functionality. The window willnow look like the following figure.

In this window, we can see a cross-section that already exists, called A. If yoursection is not visible on the model, click on the A row in the main window. The crosssection looks like the following on the model when it is visible.



Now, we can close out of this window (which will make the cross-section disappearfrom the model), and create our curve. To create a cross-section datum curve, click on the General Curve tool. When themenu appears in the upper right corner of the screen, select Use Xsec, followed byDone. The menu will list all of the available cross-sections in the model, as shownbelow.

We can see the cross section “A” that we just looked at a minute ago. When weselect A from this list, the curve is automatically created, as shown below.

The curve takes on any external edge that the cross-section goes through. That iswhy it goes around the entire part.

COPY CURVE (COMPOSITE)

There are many times when you will need to have a single curve defined. Atrajectory for a sweep might be a great example. However, many times you areunable to create a single curve that captures what you want. Therefore, you create multiple curves, and then you need a way to splice them alltogether to form a single curve. This is where the Copy Curve comes in. With this curve tool, you can select from existing edges or datum curves to form asingle curve. To demonstrate this, go back to the Dtm_Curve2 model that we justworked with.



In this example, we want to create a single curve using the following three edges.

To create the copy curve, we first need to select the entities. Therefore, we will makesure our Smart filter is turned on, and we’ll begin by selecting the solid protrusion soit highlights in red. While this protrusion is highlighted, move your mouse over to the



edge labeled (1) in the figure above and select it. It should be bold, as shown in thefollowing figure.

Something unique to the copy curve feature is the fact that we can NOT hold downthe CTRL key and pick the other two entities. We must first hold down the SHIFT keyon the keyboard, then RE-SELECT the same edge that we already selected. Once that edge is selected, keep the SHIFT key pressed and pick the other twoentities. They should all be bold, as shown below.

Now that all of our edges are selected, we will go to Edit, Copy from the menu bar(or select Ctrl-C on your keyboard). Next, use Edit, Paste from the menu bar (orselect Ctrl-V on your keyboard).



When we do this, our model will look like the following.

There is a yellow arrow at one of the endpoints (in this case the right-most end),which indicates the start point for the newly created curve. The little “T” symbols atthe ends represent the distance away from the end that we want to end the curve. Avalue "0.00" will cause it to be at the exact length of the original geometry. Any valueother than 0.0 will cause the curve to extend beyond the geometry or end before thevertex.

The default value is 0.000, which assumes that the new curve takes on the exactlength of the existing curves/edges. The dashboard for this copy command looks like the following.

In the Curve Type field, we have two choices. They are:

• Exact – The new curve takes on the exact shape of the selected entities.

• Approximate – The new curve creates a C2 Continuous curvature conditionfrom existing C1 continuous entities.

The only potential problem with the “Approximate” option is that the new curve may“liftoff” from the existing curves. The “Exact” option will keep the original curves asthey are. The only restriction with using the “Approximate” option is that the curvesalready have to be tangent. Exact will allow you to use non-tangent entities.

Therefore, we will change the Curve Type to Exact, and then accept this feature.The following figure shows the resulting curve in our model.





We will make a datum curve at the intersection of these two surfaces. Therefore, wewill begin by changing our selection filter to Quilts, and then pick the cylindricalsurface, followed by the revolved surface.

The figure below shows both of these surfaces selected (in No Hidden viewingmode).

Once both surfaces are selected, we will pick on the Intersect icon in the featuretoolbar, which looks like the following.

NOTE: There are three icons in the feature toolbar that look very similar. These are:

• Merge – Merges two surfaces together to form a single quilt.

• Trim – Uses a surface or a curve as a trimming tool to act onanother surface or curve.

• Intersect – Intersects two surfaces to form a datum curve, as wesee in this lesson.

Be sure you are grabbing the correct one. Once we select on the Intersect tool, thedatum curve should be created automatically, as shown in the following figure.



TRIM CURVE Another operation that can be performed to create a new curve is to trim the curveusing another curve or surface as the trimming tool. In this example, we will use asurface as a trimming tool. Look at the following model (Dtm_Curve4).

We are going to use the surface as a cutting tool to remove the portion of the curvethat sticks out to the right of it.

When creating a trim curve feature, always start by selecting on the object that youare trimming, in this case the curve. Use the Smart filter to select the curve, asshown below. NOTE: If the curve is made of multiple segments, as it is in this case,you will need to pick on the part of the curve that is being trimmed.



Once you have the curve selected, pick on the trim icon, as shown below.

When we enter this feature, we will click on the References slide-up panel in thedashboard to see the different entities we are selecting. It will look like the followingfigure.

We can see that the curve we selected shows up in the Trimmed Curve field. Weare prompted to select the Trimming object. We will pick on the extruded surface.Our model now looks like the following.



An arrow appears at the cut location, and points towards the part of the curve that wewant to keep. Flip the arrow if it is not pointing in the correct direction. Once youapprove of the cutting direction, click on the green check mark to accept this. Thecurve will be trimmed up to the surface, as we can see in the following figure.

LESSON SUMMARY

Datum curves are very useful tools for creating other datum features, surfaces orsolid geometry. There are a variety of tools available for creating or editing curves. The most common curve types are sketched and projected. Remember that with theprojected curve, normal to surface may give you results that you do not expect.

EXERCISES Create a new part called Basket, and create the two sketched curves (as individualcurve features) that you see below (complete with dimensions). Create these on theTOP datum plane as the sketching plane.





Lesson

11

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the Sweep feature.





Unlike the extrude and revolve features that we have already seen, the Sweepfeature makes you decide whether you are doing a Protrusion, Thin Protrusion, Cut,Thin Cut or Surface. Once you decide, you can not change it without deleting thefeature and starting over. The method for creating the five different types is identical, therefore we willdemonstrate this with a solid Protrusion. Therefore, we would select the Protrusionmenu option. Once we do this, we see the following window.

We saw a similar window earlier in lesson 8 when we created a datum curve throughpoints. We can see in this window that we are currently defining the trajectory for oursweep. The menu manager appears just below this, and looks like the following.

We can either sketch a trajectory (if one does not yet exist), or select an existing setof edges or datum curves for a trajectory. We will choose the Sketch Traj option tosketch our trajectory. Once we pick this option, we get the next menu.

In this menu, we are asked to create or select a sketching plane. This is a differentway to prompt us for this information than we have been used to, but we will see thistype of prompt quite often with some of the more advanced (or less commonly used)features. In this menu, the option to select an existing plane is already selected(Plane). Therefore, we just need to pick the datum plane or planar surface that wewant as our sketching plane. We will pick the TOP datum plane. When we do this, an arrow appears on themodel, as shown below.



In the message window, we are asked to select the direction for VIEWING thesketching plane. The menu manager gives us two options, as shown at the top of thenext page.

We can either flip the direction then click on Okay, or accept the current selection byclicking only on Okay. We will accept the downward direction for viewing. Once wedo this, the menu changes once more.

Here, we are asked to select or create the sketching reference plane and itsorientation. We will select the Bottom orientation, then pick on the FRONT datumplane on the model. Once we do this, we are placed into sketch mode. We will create the following sketch.



We notice a yellow arrow on the sketch. This is the start point for our trajectory. Thissketch is called an “Open Section”, since some of its endpoints are not touching eachother. In an Open Section , the start point must be one of the open endpoints of thesketch (as it is above). If it is not, you must pick on one of the endpoints with the leftmouse button so it highlights, and then right mouse click and select Start Point. The Start Point represents the location where your profile starts from. We want it tobe on the straight segment for this example. Once our sketch is complete, we acceptit by clicking on the blue check mark. We are then placed into the sketch for theprofile that we are sweeping.

We will create the following sketch for this profile.

When you sketch the sweep section (profile), there will always be a horizontal andvertical reference line that forms a “Crosshairs”. This “Crosshairs” marks the location



of the start point. If you are not sure how you are looking at the trajectory, I stronglyrecommend rotating your model slightly to see. You can always pick View,Orientation, Sketch Orientation to return to the sketch view.

IMPORTANT! – When you have an open trajectory, you must have a closed sectionfor your profile for a solid protrusion. We will see how to handle a closed trajectory ina few minutes. Once you are done sketching the profile, accept this sketch. All of the elements arenow defined for this trajectory. We can click on OK from the window to complete thefeature. Our model now looks like the figure at the top of the next page.

The symbol for a sweep can be seen by looking at our model tree, as shown below.



CLOSED TRAJECTORIES

In this example, we will show the slight difference in creating a sweep that has aclosed trajectory. We will start the same way that we did before by going to Insert,Sweep, Protrusion from the menu bar at the top. We will continue the same way by sketching a trajectory, and then using the TOP

datum plane as our sketching plane, and FRONT datum plane facing towards theBottom. Our sketch for our trajectory will look like the figure on the next page.

This is a simple closed rectangle. Once we are done sketching our trajectory andaccept our sketch, we get a different menu option.

Our two choices are:

• Add In Fcs – Add Inner Faces – This requires you to sketch an open profile,and as it sweeps around, it connects across all of the open endpoints to form



an inner face. This is great for closed picture frames, or other parts wherethe outside is definitely a swept profile, but the middle is closed.

• No Inn Fcs – No Inner Faces – This requires you to sketch a closed profile.There will be no inner face that results from this. This would be ideal for anopen picture frame (with no back plate).

In this example, we will select Add Inn Fcs, and then click on Done to continue. Weare now placed into our section for our profile. We will sketch an “OPEN” section, asshown below.

We can see the two endpoints of this sketch. As the profile is swept around therectangle, the top endpoint will connect to itself at all locations across the center ofthe part, while the bottom endpoint does the same. Everything in between becomes

a solid mass. When we accept this sketch and click on OK to complete the feature, we can see thefollowing model.



If we made a cross section through the middle, we would clearly see the solid massthat was created, as shown below.

SWEEPING SURFACES

Sweeping surfaces is no different than sweeping protrusions, cuts, etc. The biggestdifference is that you don’t need to have a closed section. If you have an opentrajectory or closed trajectory, you can still have an open profile.

The biggest difference is that if the trajectory you are using is the edge of anothersurface, you may be asked to Join or No Join. If you select Join, then you areperforming a Surface Merge at the same time. If you select No Join, then the newswept surface will be separate from the surface whose edge acted as the trajectory,and a merge operation will still need to be performed to get them to be one largequilt.

SELECT TRAJECTORY

We will finish this lesson off with a demonstration of the select trajectory by pickingon an existing curve to create a swept surface. Let us look again at the following partthat we saw earlier.



If you recall, we have a copied curve that makes up the top left edge, the datumcurve in the middle, and the top right edge. We will use this curve as our trajectoryfor our surface sweep. NOTE: Sometimes copied curves do not work for regular sweeps if they lie in threedirections. The curve that we are using here is still a two-dimensional curve,because it is co-planar with the front surface of our part. We will start the sweep the same way, picking Insert, Sweep, Surface from themenu bar. When prompted, pick on Select Traj to select the trajectory. You will thensee the following menu.

Since we are picking a datum curve, we will use the Curve Chain option, then pickon the top left edge, as shown below.





If you recall when we sketch the profile, there is a horizontal and vertical referenceline on the sketch at the location of the start point. When you select a trajectory,Pro/ENGINEER wants to know which way to orient the sketch. It highlights anadjacent surface or part of the trajectory selected, and in the message window itsays. “Select upward direction of the horizontal plane for sweep section.” If we click onOkay in the menu manager, then the front surface of our part will be facing up in thesketch. You will want to pay close attention to which surface it is pointing, because itmay make it easier or harder to sketch your profile. We will click on Okay to accept the default direction. Had there been more than onepossible surface to pick, it would have prompted us to first pick the surface that weare going to face upwards before picking the direction. With a surface feature, we are given the option to create end surfaces or leave themopen. The menu that comes up gives us these options, as shown below.

We will leave the ends open, so click on Done to continue. We are then placed intosketch mode to sketch our profile. We will sketch an open profile (which if youremember was not allowed for a solid protrusion). The figure at the top of the nextpage shows our profile.



We just sketched a straight line at an angle to the vertical reference. Once we aredone, we accept the sketch then click on OK to complete the feature. Our modellooks like the following.

LESSON SUMMARY

The sweep tool is used to pass a profile along a trajectory that you either sketch orselect. Depending on the section for the trajectory (open or closed), you will have restrictionson what type of section you can have in the profile. For a closed trajectory, you can add inner faces or leave the part hollow. Forsurfaces, you can also create end surfaces as well.



EXERCISES

Create the parts shown on the following pages. Use a combination of extrude,revolve and sweep features where applicable, and create any datum geometrynecessary to complete your model.

Dash_Pot_Lifter



Basket_Prt (Continued) Open up the Basket part that we started in lesson 8. Create a swept surface usingthe inside trajectory. For the profile, sketch a line angled inwards from the trajectoryby 5 degrees to a depth of 18 inches, as shown below.



Lesson

120

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the Blend Feature.



BLEND DEFINITION

A Blend feature creates a single feature by blending sections of varying size, shape,and orientation. There are three types of blend features.

• Parallel – All sections are parallel to each other separated by a blind depthfor each section.

• Rotational – The sections are offset each other by an angle around acentral axis of revolution, and a distance along the axis itself.

• General – The sections can be rotated in the X, Y, or Z direction as youcreate them.

To create a blend feature, we must use the menu commands Insert, Blend, thenselect one of the feature types shown in the following menu.



As with the sweep feature, the method for creating a blend is very similar from typeto type.

PARALLEL BLEND

To demonstrate the parallel blend, we will create a part called Parallel_Blend. Wewill start by going to Insert, Blend, Protrusion. This brings up the following menu.

In the top portion of this menu, we are defining the type of blend we are going tocreate. We will keep Parallel as the option. In the middle portion of this menu, weare defining how the section will be handled. There are two options.

• Regular Sec – The section will be sketched on a plane or planar surface,and remain there when blended together with the other sections.

• Project Sec – The section will be sketched on a plane, but it will beprojected onto a surface as part of the blend.

For now, we will keep the default option of Regular Sec as our choice. In the thirdsection, we only have Sketch Sec available. For a Rotational or General blend, wewould have the ability to select sections instead of sketching every one. Once we have all of the options picked, we will click on Done. We will now beplaced into the definition of the feature, and we see the following window.

We are currently defining the attributes, which are in the following menu.



There are two attributes to choose from: Straight or Smooth. If our blend featureonly has two sections being blended together, then this will make no difference. Ifour blend feature has three or more sections, then a straight attribute connects themlienearly, almost like a connect the dot with straight lines. A Smooth attribute connects them as a spline would going through points. You get acontinuous, tangent edge from section to section. To start, we will keep Straightselected, and click on Done to continue. We are now prompted to select or create a sketching plane. We will select the TOPdatum plane. When we pick this plane, an arrow appears, as shown below.

Unlike all of the other times when we were asked to accept the direction of viewing the sketching plane, we see the following prompt in the message window: “Arrow shows direction of feature creation. Pick FLIP or OKAY.” We know we are still going to be looking at the TOP plane, but for a protrusion, thefeature always comes towards us in sketch mode, while for a cut, the feature alwaysgoes away from us in the sketch. It will take a little getting used to, but eventuallyyou will understand just how the sketch is going to orient based on what you pick. Therefore, click on Okay to accept the direction as up, then face the FRONT datumplane towards the Bottom. We will now be placed in sketch mode.

We are going to sketch three rectangles to blend. We start by sketching the one thatwill eventually lie on the sketch plane, as shown below.



I am taking advantage of symmetry by using two centerlines. That way I only needto use two dimensions. I want to note where the start point is on this sketch. I willdemonstrate why this is important a little later. For now, we just want to make surethat the start point is in the upper left corner for all three of our sketches. Once I am done sketching this profile, I need to toggle to the next section usingSketch, Feature Tools, Toggle Section. The first rectangle becomes grayed out,and I can start sketching my second profile. The figure at the top of the next pageshows this sketch with the second rectangle.

Note how the start point on this rectangle is equivalent to the location on the firstone. Now we are ready to make our last rectangle. Once again, we will useSketch, Feature Tools, Toggle Section. Now both our rectangles are grayed outfor us to sketch the third, as shown below.



Once again, we are keeping the start point the same on all three. When we arefinished with this rectangle, we will accept the sketch. In the message window, weare prompted for the depth of section 2. In other words, what is the blind depthbetween the sketching plane and the second rectangle that we sketched. We willenter 8.0. We are then prompted for the depth for section 3. This is the depthbetween section 2 and 3 (not the distance from the sketching plane to section 3).We will enter 5.0. We are then back at the window, where we can click on OK tofinish this feature. The model looks like the following.

You can clearly see what the Straight attribute does, it makes sharp edges betweensections. We will go to the model tree, right mouse click on this feature, and selectEdit Definition to go back in and redefine this feature.



We are placed back at the window where we see the different elements we defined.The first one on the list is Attributes. If we double-click on this, we see the menuagain where we originally picked Straight. Now, this time, we are going to selectSmooth, followed by Done, then click on OK in the window to finish out theredefine. The model will regenerate, and look like the following.

This is quite a difference. Now, we have tangent edges going through the threesections. This makes for a more pleasing part. Now, we will edit the definition ofthis feature again. When we see the window pop up, we will double-click on section,followed by Sketch in the menu manager. This will bring us back into the sketch, which now has the first rectangle active whilethe other two are grayed out. We will turn off the display of dimensions andconstraints using the icons in the system toolbar for easier viewing of the sketch, asshown below.

We will toggle to the next section, and change the start point. To change the startpoint, click on a different vertex to highlight it, the right mouse click and select StartPoint. We want to use the next corner in a clockwise direction, as shown below.



Toggle to the third section, and change its start point to the one shown in the figurebelow.

Once we have changed this last start point, accept the sketch, and then click on OKfrom the window to finish the redefine. The model will regenerate, and it should nowlook like the following.

There is a twisting effect going on here. The start point location is used to definehow the entities are connected. Imagine that the sketch starts off by connecting allof the corners that have the start point, then it goes to the next clockwise corner foreach section and connects those, and so on. This is how we got the twisting,because each section was connecting 90 degrees clockwise from the previous one.



ROTATIONAL BLEND

A rotational blend takes advantage of a sketched coordinate system. Instead ofsketching all the profiles in a single sketch like we did with the parallel blend, we onlysketch one, however, we must include a coordinate system in each sketch to tie the

sections together. This will make more sense in the following demonstration. We will begin by creating a new part called Rotational_Blend . Once inside, we willgo to Insert, Blend, Protrusion from the menu bar. When the first menu comes up,we will pick on the following options: Rotational, Regular Sec, and Sketch Sec.This will bring up the following window.

We are currently defining the attributes. In addition to Straight and Smooth whichwe had in the parallel blend, we have two other choices: Open and Closed, asshown at the top of the next page.

We will see the difference between these two during this example. For now, we willkeep the default of Open, select Smooth from the top choices, then click on Doneto continue. We are prompted to select a sketching plane. We are going to pickFRONT. When we do, an arrow appears on the front plane, as we have seen it do

many times before.





so the one before that numerically is the last one that you did. Retrieve or sketchthe following for the second section.

You will notice that there is a coordinate system in this sketch, because it is whatties this section’s location to the first one. Once we are done with this sketch, acceptit. Down in the message window, we are asked if we want to continue on to anothersection. We will type Y for “Yes” and hit the enter key. We will now be asked for the rotation angle for the next section about the Y axis.This will be the angle between section 2 and 3, so we will enter 60 degrees. We will

be placed into the sketch, where we will create the figure at the top of the next page.



This sketch has different dimension values for the arc and the horizontal dimensionat the top. If you choose to re-use a previous sketch, you will need to make theseadjustments before moving on to the next section. Once you are done, accept thissketch, answer Y to create another section and then enter 60 for the angle. Create the following sketch for the fourth section.







We can see the sections in the order in which we are going to pick them. Thesesections are already sketched datum curves. When creating general blends, it isoften easier to create your sections as curves before you create the feature.

We will create the blend by going to Insert, Blend, Protrusion from the menu bar.At the first menu, we want to select the following options: General, Regular Sec, andSelect Sec. We will hit Done to continue. The window for the general blend opens up as follows.

This is the same window that we saw for the rotational blend, but the options we picka little later will be different because we chose to select the sections. For theattributes, select Smooth, followed by Done. The following menu comes up.



We are being asked to select the first curve. We want to select all four edges of eachrectangle, so we are going to select on the Sel Loop option in the lower part of themenu, then pick on the first section curve, as shown below.

We can see that all four edges of this curve were selected, and we have a start pointin the upper left corner. As we rotate our model around to select the other entities,we want to make sure we pick the same corner or we’ll get that twisting effect we sawearlier. Once we have the curves selected, pick on Done. We should see the samemenu again (almost as if it didn’t take our previous selection). This is normal,because we have to specify at least two sections.

We are going to pick the Sel Loop menu command again, and this time we will selectthe second rectangle. When we pick it, it looks like the following.

All four edges were selected, but our start point is not in the right place. Therefore,click on the Start Point menu command, and pick the upper left corner. Once we dothis, our sketch will update as follows.

Even though the arrow is pointing in a different direction, the fact that it is on theupper left corner is all that we care about. Pick on Done to finish this second section.



In the message window, we are asked if we want to continue on to the next section.Type in Y for yes. Repeat the process of picking using the Sel Loop command untilall of the remaining three sections have been picked and the start points for all ofthem is in the correct orientation. On the last section, we want to make sure that the point selected when looking froma top view is the lower left corner (because we want the part to rotate up 90 degreesat this point. Once all of our sections are done, answer N to the last prompt about creatingadditional sections, then click on OK in the feature window to complete it. Our finalfeature looks like the following.

If the general blend fails, it is most likely that one of the start points was in the wronglocation. Go back into the sections to fix any that were failing.

LESSON SUMMARY

Blends are a great tool to create complex transitions between different shapes. Youcan accomplish with a single blend feature what you might take dozens of surfaces,datum features and other entities to create, so don’t be afraid to try them. You can either select sections or sketch them. Parallel blends will only let you sketchall of the sections in a single sketch using Toggle to go between them. Always check the start points in the sections. Arranging them in different locationscan cause twisting to occur, or feature failure.

EXERCISES





Lesson

13

0

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about Rounds.



ROUND USAGE

Rounds are used to remove sharp edges/corners in your model. They are generallyvery easy to create, but very easy to fail. For this reason, they should be modeled assome of the last features in your part, unless they are needed to complete anotherfeature (other than another round). Rounds that add material should be created separate from rounds that removematerial, especially if they potentially intersect each other.

There are basically two types of rounds: Constant – the radius value is the samealong the entire length being rounded, and Variable – the radius can change alongthe length being rounded. Both of these rounds are created using the same round tool.

CREATING ROUNDS

To create rounds, click on the following icon in the feature toolbar.

Specify references to round. The thing to keep in mind is the concept of round sets.A round set is a single, tangent edge, or multiple, tangent edges that all have thesame radius value. You can create as many round sets as you need (following therule about adding/removing material). To pick multiple edges to be in a single round set, use the Ctrl key on your keyboard,then pick the edges. To create a new round set, simply pick a new reference withoutholding down any keys on the keyboard.



You can still use the Shift key to get a chain of edges.

CONSTANT ROUNDS

SELECTING EDGES We will start by demonstrating how to create round sets with constant radii values.To do this, we will open up a part called Headset, which will initially look like thefollowing.

We will start creating rounds by picking on the round icon. In the dashboard, we willclick on the Sets slide-up panel to see its contents. The dashboard looks like thefollowing with the panel open.



We can see a column in the upper left. This column will keep track of the differentround sets that we create. To the right of this column are several fields that definethe shape of the round. The default, and most commonly used settings are shownabove (Circular cross-section for the round, and Rolling Ball for the type of millingoperation that would create such a round). There are other settings, but since theyare not widely used, they will not be discussed in this guide. In the References field, we will see a tally of entities that we select for the currentactive round set. Below this is a field that lists the radius values used for the active round set. We willsee this field in more detail when we talk about variable rounds. Right now, there areno references picked (hence the “No Items” text in the References field). We will start by picking on the sharp edge at the top of the model. When we pick onit, it will highlight in a bold red, and a preview of the round with its current radiusdimension will show up, as we can see in the figure below.

We can drag the white squares to dynamically update the radius value, or we candouble-click on the radius dimension itself and enter a new value. We are going tochange this radius to 0.7. The model will update, as shown below.

If we look back at the Sets panel, we can see the first round set listed, and we cansee the references field includes the single edge that we picked. The radius valueappears in the lower field, and in the icon bar at the very bottom of the dashboard.



Now, without holding down the Ctrl key, we will select one of the vertical edges at theother end of the rounded surface. Once we have one of them selected, we will holddown the Ctrl key to select the other. With both selected, modify the radius value to1.2. Our model should look like the following figure.

The Sets panel now shows the second round set, the two edges used for this set,and the radius value applied.



It is currently the active round set because it shows up in red and yellow on themodel. The first round set should be a muted cream color (when using the standardcolor scheme). In my illustrations, it appears as a dark gray outline of the dynamicpreview for the round. Now, we will create a third round set and pick the bottom two vertical edges.Remember to start the round set by picking on one of the edges without holdingdown any keys on the keyboard. Once you have the first edge selected, use the Ctrlkey to select the other. Initially, they will take on the radius value of the previousround set, as we can see in the following figure.

What we actually want is to remove the surface at the bottom with a full round thatgoes all the way around, forming a semi-circle. We could enter a radius value that isequal to half of the width of the part, but if we later change the width, the round mightfail, or at the least, no longer be a full round. To preserve design intent, we will turn this round set into a full round. Looking at theSets slide-up panel, we can see the third round set highlighted.



To the right of the sets list, we can see a button that is called Full Round. It will onlybe available if the current round set has two edges that are across from each otheron the same surface. Picking on this button gives us the following result on the model.

We can see that the radius value has disappeared. If we look at the sets panel, theradius value is dimmed here as well.



Now that we have all three round sets defined, we will click on the accept icon tocomplete this round feature. The model looks like the following.

If we were to look at the model tree, we would only see one round feature listed. Thissingle round feature contains three separate round sets. We will create one additional round for this model at this time, and that will be alongthe entire top edge of the model, with a radius value of 0.4. To create this, we willpick on the round icon, and then select one of the edges. It will automatically assumethat any tangent edges to the one that we selected should also be rounded. This is agood assumption, because 99% of the rounds created are intended to round anentire tangent chain of edges.

The preview for this round looks like the following.



Accepting this gives us the following model at this time.

We will save this model and come back to it later. SURFACE TO SURFACE ROUND In addition to selecting edges to round, we may also select two surfaces that share acommon edge. Look at the following model (Round2.prt).

We are going to round the front, top edge by selecting two surfaces that share thisedge. Therefore we will go into the round tool. Instead of picking on the edge (whichis probably the easiest thing to do), we will pick on the left front surface, and thenhold down the Ctrl key and pick the top flat surface. We will see a preview of theround, as shown below.



We will modify the radius to 0.5, and then accept this round feature. Our round willlook exactly like an edge round, as we can see below.

ROUND THROUGH CURVE Another type of round is one that rounds an edge chain, but the radius is controlledby a datum curve or set of nearby tangent edges. We will continue with the same

model as the previous section to demonstrate this. We can see from the figures on the previous page, that we have a datum curvesketched on the top surface. We are going to use this datum curve to define theradius for an edge round on the back edge.We will start by clicking on the round tool. We will pick the edge that we want toround first, as we can see in the following figure.

Then, we will expand the Sets slide-up panel to see the options, as shown below.



In this panel, we see a button entitled Through Curve. We want to pick on this.When we do, the panel will change slightly, as we can see below.

Instead of the field at the bottom with the radius values, we now have a field used todefine the curve that we are going to follow. We will pick the datum curve on themodel, and when we do, we will see the dynamic preview of the round.



We will accept this round, and our model will now look like the following.

THROUGH VERTEX/POINT ROUND The last constant round we will demonstrate is one that uses a nearby vertex ordatum point to define the radius value. Look at the figure below to see the model that we are going to work with(Round3.prt).

We are going to round the front edge at the base of the rim that sticks up from the topof this part. But, we want the round to come up to the front edge. We could measure





dimension value for the radius. This is the most common way to specify the radius,and that is why it is the default value. If we pull-down this field, we see another option, called Reference. Reference allowsus to specify the location by picking on existing geometry. The following figure showswhat we are going to pick.

Once we select the vertex, our round should update, and the dimension value shoulddisappear. We see a reference to the vertex instead.

In the lower right corner of the dashboard, we will click on the preview button (the

eyeglasses) to see what this would look like if we accepted it right now.



VARIABLE ROUNDS

A variable round is one that changes in radius value as it traverses its edge. Todemonstrate this, we are going to open the Var_Round model, which looks like thefigure below.

We want to round the top edge where the extruded and the revolved protrusionsmeet. We notice at the very right end of this edge, we come very close to the side ofthe plate. We could create a constant radius around this entire edge, but it will createa very ugly condition at the end, because it won’t be able to maintain its nice shapeall the way to the endpoint. Therefore, we are going to taper the round at this point. To do this, we will go intothe round feature, and then select on one of the segments of this tangent chain ofedges. Initially, the radius may come in very large. We want to modify it to 0.075,which will be our primary radius value for this edge. The round will initially look likethe following.



You can see with the dynamic preview (shown above) that the round does not go allthe way to the end as a constant radius. Therefore we need to make this a variableround. In order to make this a variable round, we need more than one radius. Toadd additional radii, hold the right mouse button down over one of the white squares(drag handles) where you see the existing radius dimension. When we do this, we should get an option to Add Radius, as shown below.

When we select this option, the existing radius dimension will snap to one end of thetangent edge chain, and a new radius will appear at the opposite end, as we can seein the figure at the top of the next page.



We could change the dimension value at the end now, but it would create a gradualtaper across the entire length. We actually only want to start tapering as we comeacross the top of the rounded edge. Therefore, we will need another radius.

Holding the right mouse button over one of the drag handles on the leftmostdimension, we will select the Add Radius option again. It creates a new radius point,but places it on the same segment that the existing radius is on, as shown below.

We can see from the above figure that it has the same radius value as the original

(0.075), but it also has another dimension (0.200). This is the length ratio for thisradius. In other words, it represents how far along the current segment it lays interms of a percent of the length. If we wanted this radius to be exactly at themidpoint of this arc, we would change this dimension to 0.5 . To move the radius to its proper location, we could place our mouse cursor over thewhite circle (which sits on the edge being rounded), and slowly drag it across theedge. You must keep your mouse cursor over the edge as you drag it, otherwise itdoesn’t work.



For a very long edge, this could take some time. Instead, we are going to specify theexact location ourselves. To do this, open up the Sets panel. We can see the threeradius points in the field at the bottom of this panel, as shown below.

For points 1 and 2 (which are at the endpoints of the tangent edge), we can see aLocation called out as Vertex:Edge… For the third point (the new one that we justadded), we can see a location of 0.200 (which was our length ratio). Below this field,we can see the word Ratio in a pull-down field. To specify an exact location, we will use the pull-down to select Reference. Whenwe do this, we can pick the exact vertex or datum point where we want to place theradius. We will pick on the vertex of the round going across the top, as shown in thefollowing figure.



Now that we have specified all of the radius points, it is time to modify the values.The design intent for this round is to maintain the 0.075 radius until we get to therounded edge, then taper down to a 0.0 radius value at the small end. Therefore, we will modify the rightmost dimension to 0.0. Our dynamic preview willshow us the result.

This is exactly what we want, so we will accept this round. The nice thing about thedynamic preview is that you can use it as a gauge to let you know if the feature willwork or not. If the dynamic preview shows gaps across the edge, or is not visible atall, then the feature will not work. NOTE: Not all features in Pro/ENGINEER use a

dynamic preview, however, so don’t get confused if you do not see one. You canalways click on the full preview icon to test it before accepting it. Our final model looks like the following.



ROUND TRANSITIONS

So far, we have only been talking about round sets. When you create a roundfeature, you start by defining all of the round sets. In many cases, that is all you haveto do. There are some cases, however, where you will need to define transitions. A transition is generally needed when two or more round sets converge at a non-tangent location, such as a sharp corner. The transition defines how the shape of theround will behave at such a location. To demonstrate this, we will open up the following part (Round4.prt)

We want to round the three edges that converge into the sharp corner where the twoprotrusions meet. Each one of these rounds needs a different radius value per ourdesign intent. The following figure shows what we want to do.



We know that we can create three separate round sets, each with a unique radiusvalue, so that is how we will start.We will go into the round tool, then select the three edges as separate round sets,and give each their respective radius value. It will not matter which order we go in,only that we have three separate round sets. The following figure shows these threesets after their radii values have been modified.

We can see that the dynamic preview for the three do not meet at the corner. Theyeach have their own stopping point (at the ends of their segments). We will need todefine a transition to ease these three rounds together. The Sets panel at this pointlooks like the following.





We only need to worry about the transition where the three round sets meet. If youmove your mouse over the transition, it will pre-highlight. Select it so it becomesactive. When active, it will turn yellow, as shown in the following figure.

In the dashboard, we will see a field that lists the current, default transition type.

The default transition type in this case is a Round Only 1. That is what you see inthe preview on the model. If we use the pull-down arrow, we can see the othertransition types that would work for this intersection.They are shown in the following figure.

There are actually more transition types in Pro/ENGINEER, but you will only see the

ones that will work at this time. If we move our mouse over the transition in this pull-down list, and watch our model at the same time, we will see it dynamically previewthe transition in blue. If I move the mouse over the Patch transition type, I would see the following previewon the model.

You can see that there are still some gaps in this transition type, so I would not put alot of faith in the transition looking like it does above. If I place my mouse over theRound Only 2 transition type, I would see the following.



This looks as if it will bring my two larger rounds to a sort of chamfer, then round thetop edge with the smallest round. I will go ahead and accept the default Round Only1 transition type, then accept the round feature to complete it. Our final model lookslike the following.

Just in case you are wondering what the result is for the other two transitions, herethey are.

As I mentioned before, the Patch preview looked like it wasn’t working properly, so itdefaulted to a Round Only 2 condition. That is why they both look the same.

LESSON SUMMARY

It is very easy to create rounds in Pro/ENGINEER, but you should try to create mostof them as the last features, since they are primarily used to remove sharp corners.



The best reason for putting them last in the model is because they are oftensuppressed before exporting the model to an analysis package, such as ANSYS. Ifyou must create them early, it should be because you need them for downstreamfeatures. You should always avoid creating a non-round feature by tying it to an existinground. For example, you should not create an extrude feature and “Use Edge” on theround in the sketch. Of course, there are always exceptions in rare cases. Create multiple rounds into a single set if they have the same radius value. Use Ctrlto do this. Create multiple round sets if you need different radius values. Formultiple round sets that converge to non-tangent corners or edges, define transitionsto smooth out the round.

EXERCISES

Open up the Hand_Rail_Column.prt part that we created in Lesson 12 . Add therounds shown in the figure on the next page.





Open up the Dash_Pot_Lifter and apply the rounds shown below. HINT: The orderin which you create the rounds will have an effect on your ability to create them.



Lesson

140

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about Edge and Corner Chamfers.



CHAMFER USAGE

The chamfer tool is used to create a bevel on an edge or corner. I truly believe that itis an under-used feature. Many times, people will use an extruded cut or a swept cutto accomplish this, but you are adding complexity and regeneration time when asimple chamfer can be used. Just like the round tool, there are no sketches that need to be created, you only haveto pick on edges or corners to chamfer, then modify dimensions.

Also like the round tool, you can create sets with transitions.

EDGE CHAMFERS

To demonstrate an edge chamfer, we will use the following model (Chamfer.prt).

To access the Edge Chamfer functionality, click on the following icon in the featuretoolbar.



When we enter into the edge chamfer tool, we see the following dashboard (with theSets panel opened up).

The top of the dashboard lists the different chamfer sets we create. The middleportion is used to list references for each set. The next field down will list the valuesentered for angles or linear dimensions. Down in the icon bar, we can see the familiar Sets and Transitions icons, but thenext field over is new. This field is used to pick the chamfer scheme. There are fourschemes to choose from, as shown below.

These are:

• D X D – You only need to specify the edge to be chamfered, and thedistance away from that edge (D). It creates a chamfer that is symmetricabout the edge selected.

• D1 X D2 – You specify the edge to be chamfered, and then you edit twolinear dimensions. The chamfer is created with the ends of the chamfer atthe distances specified from the edge.

• Angle X D – You specify the edge to be chamfered, and then enter a valuefor an angle and a linear dimension. You can reverse the direction of thechamfer with a single click.

• 45 X D – This creates a chamfer that is identical to the D X D. Thedifference is how it reports on a drawing when dimensions are shown. Wewill see this in more detail when we cover drawing mode.

The following figure graphically shows how these different schemes work.



For now, we are going to keep the D X D chamfer scheme selected, and then pick onthe edge shown in the figure below.

Change the “D” dimension value to 0.500 so it looks like the figure above. When wego to our Sets panel, we see the following.

At the bottom of the sets panel, we have a few other things we can define. The first

field, that shows the word Value, can be used to switch to Reference. Choosingreference lets us pick a vertex or other entity to determine the distance “D”. The other field, which says Offset Surfaces determines how “D” is measured.Currently, it is set to go along the edge at a distance “D” from the surfaces thatintersect where the edge is being chamfered. This is the most common method fordoing chamfer dimensioning. You can also choose to determine the distance from atangent reference which you will pick. We will not demonstrate this, but you areencouraged to try it out for yourself.



We are going to continue to create additional chamfer sets. Just like we did in thecreation of rounds, if we hold down the Ctrl key, we would add more edges to thecurrent chamfer set. If we just pick a new reference without holding the Ctrl keydown, then it starts a new set. We will pick on the back edge of the model, as shownbelow.

Only after you start a new chamfer set can you change the scheme. Once we pickthe edge shown above, we select a D1 X D2 scheme, then modify our values to theones shown above. Now, our panel looks like the figure at the top of the next page.

We will create one more Chamfer set for this chamfer feature. Without holding downthe Ctrl key, select the rim of the topmost hole, then hold down the Ctrl key and

select the other rim. Once you start this round set, change over to an Angle X Dscheme, and modify the D value to 0.25 and the Angle to 60.0 degrees. Your modelshould initially look like the following.



The entire dashboard at this time looks like the following.

We can see the Angle X D scheme is selected, and the values of our angle andlinear dimensions. At the very far right of these icons and fields is an icon with a blueslanted line and two arrows. Use this to reverse the direction of the chamfer. Whenwe do this, our model will now look like the following.



We will accept our chamfer once we are done defining these three sets. Our modelwill look like the following.

We will now create one more chamfer feature. This time we will use the 45 X Dscheme, modify our “D” value to 0.25 and select the edge of the model shown below.

Once we have done this, accept this chamfer feature. The final model will look likethe following.



CORNER CHAMFERS

A corner chamfer creates a bevel on a corner of a part. To demonstrate this, we aregoing to open up the Corner_Chamfer part, which is a simple 5 x 3 x 2 rectangularblock, as shown below.

There is no icon in the feature toolbar to access this feature, so we must use Insert,Chamfer, Corner Chamfer from the menu bar, as shown below.

When we do this, it brings up the following window.



The first thing we are asked to do is select the corner to chamfer. We will pick thefront right corner. One of the edges will highlight, as shown below. (NOTE: Youredge may be different from my edge, and that is okay for this demonstration).

In the menu manager, we see the following choices.

Enter-input is used to type in an exact dimension value measured along thathighlighted edge from the specified corner. For quick creation of the chamfer, we caninitially use Pick Point and pick anywhere on the edge. We will use this option, andpick approximately halfway along the length of this highlighted edge. Once we select the first point, another one of the edges will highlight in a faint greencolor, as shown below.





We will click on the regenerate icon in the system toolbar ( ), and our finalchamfer will look like the figure below.

LESSON SUMMARY

Use chamfers when you need to create a bevel on an edge. It is better to use achamfer than an extrude or sweep feature (when applicable) because it does notinvolve any sketching. It will regenerate faster as well. Create chamfer sets just as you did with the round feature. Use Ctrl to add edges tothe same set with the same dimensioning scheme (D X D, for example). Or, select anew edge to create a new round set, then change the scheme for that set. Use Pick Point for corner chamfers as a quick and easy way to initially create thechamfer, then Edit the dimension values to get exact results. This is especiallyimportant if you don’t know the length of the line on which the corner chamferdimension is being measured, but you can always pick on that line.

EXERCISES Finger_Guide Create the model shown on the next page. NOTE: You may need to play aroundwith chamfer transitions if you create the cuts first.





Lesson

150

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the Draft Feature, including constant draft, variable draft, split draft, etc.



DRAFT USAGE

You create a draft feature to remove perpendicularity between model surfaces andthe parting line (for molded parts). This is such a critical feature for many of theproducts we design. At the end of this lesson, we will also see how to perform a draftcheck. Before we begin, we need to define a few key terms. DRAFT SURFACES These are the model surfaces that draft will be applied to. They can be solidsurfaces or surfaces created as actual surface features. There are only two rulesthat are applied to draft surfaces.

• They must be closed in on the top, sides and bottom. Therefore, you cannot extrude a single line as a surface, then expect to add draft to thatsurface, because there is no top, side or bottom surfaces.

• Any tangency with adjacent surfaces may cause the draft to fail. Forexample, suppose you have a rectangular block. You want to add draft tothe front of the block, but you already have a round at the top edge. Thisfront surface can not be used for draft.

DRAFT HINGES These are planes, planar surfaces, datum curves or model edges that act as the axisof rotation for the drafted surfaces. When defining the draft hinge as a plane orplanar surface, be aware of the distance from the surface being drafted, because it

does affect it. When defining curves or edges for the draft hinge, you must alsosupply another entity to define the “Pull Direction” or the direction the part comes outof the mold. The following figure shows the potential problem with choice of draft hinge whenusing planes or planar surfaces.



Looking at the figures above, there is a datum curve that shows the original surfacethat is being selected as the Draft Surface. In the figure on the left, we use the topsurface of the model as the Draft Hinge. In the figure on the right, we use a datumplane above the model. When the draft is calculated, it will project the draft surface up to the draft hinge, then

apply the angle at their intersection. We can see that the overall width of the top ofthe part on the left is still the original length, but we’ve actually made the part biggeron the right.

DRAFT ANGLE The draft angle is the dimension value applied to the surface. There is a maximum of30 degrees that can be applied as a draft. If you need more than 30 degrees, youwill need to use a different modeling method, such as extrude, sweep, etc.

CREATING DRAFTS

The draft tool is located in the Feature Toolbar, in the top most grouping of blueicons, and looks like the following.

To demonstrate the new draft tool, we will open up the model entitled Draft1.prt. Itwill initially look like the following.



We are going to draft all of the vertical surfaces in this model. Therefore, we start byclicking on the Draft icon in the Feature Toolbar. The dashboard (with the referencespanel open) looks like the following.

When creating a draft feature, the first thing you specify are the surfaces to bedrafted. This is the top field in this References panel, and is activated by default.That is why it is not a field at the bottom of the dashboard.

Therefore, we will select all of the surfaces (using the Ctrl key) that are shown in thenext figure.

Once all of these surfaces are selected, we need to click into the Draft Hinges field(either in the References panel, or by picking the first field in the dashboard). Withthis field active, we can pick a planar surface, datum plane, or chain of edges/curvesto act as our draft hinge.

Therefore, using selecting techniques learned in lesson 3, we will pick the chain oftangent edges that go around the top, as shown in the next figure.

Since we did not use a plane or planar surface as our draft hinge, we must pick adatum plane or other planar surface in the model that is perpendicular to the pulldirection. First, however, we must pick in the Pull Direction field to activate it. Once



activated, click on the TOP datum plane in the model tree. At this time, all elementsare defined, so we can see an angle on our model for the draft, as shown in thefollowing figure.

NOTE: If you don’t see the yellow arrow and angle dimension, you have not definedenough references for this draft feature.We can drag the handle for the angle dimension to dynamically see the draft previewupdate. We want to make sure we are drafting outwards as we go down from the topof the model. Once your draft is going in the right direction, enter 8.0 as the draftangle. Our preview now looks like the following.

Click on the green check mark to complete this first draft feature. The model will looklike the next figure.



Save this model for later, and then close it.

SPLIT

In Pro/ENGINEER, you can split a draft up with datum planes or sketch features. Todemonstrate how to split draft, we will open the model entitled Draft2.prt, which lookslike the following.

We will start by creating a draft feature. For our draft surface, we will pick thefollowing surface.

Once this surface is selected, click into the Draft Hinges field, and pick on theFRONT datum plane as our neutral plane. When we do this, our model automatically



assumes the pull-direction plane is the same as the existing draft hinge that wepicked. We can change this if we want, but we will leave it the way it is. Our modelnow shows the arrow and angle.

Change the angle value to 5.0, and our model will now look like the following.

So far we haven’t done anything related to splitting up the draft. The fact that weused a plane in the middle of the part as our draft hinge has only resulted in rotatingthe selected surface about that plane as draft was applied. We will now apply the

split. To do this, open up the Split slide-up panel, which looks like the following.

Currently, the Split Options field is set to “No Split”. We will use the pull-down toselect a different option. We have two additional options:

1. Split by Draft Hinge – Causes the surface to break at the FRONT datum plane,and each side will be drafted independently.

2. Split by Split Object – We can select or sketch a profile that splits up our part.The object must lie on the surface being drafted, and it must be planar. We cannot split using a projected curve on a non-planar surface.

We will choose the Split by Split Object option. This activates the Split Object field,and we will pick on the oval datum curve on the model. When we do this, our Split window looks like the following.



The model currently looks like the following.

We can see a clear independent oval surface in the middle of our existing draftedsurface. We can also see two dimensions, one that will control the draft on the largesurface, the other on the oval surface. We are not done yet. We want to remove the draft from the original surface, causingonly the oval surface to remain drafted. To do this, we go back to our Split panel. Atthe bottom, in the “Side Options” field, the current value is Draft sidesindependently. There are three other options in this pull-down field. These are: 1. Draft Sides Dependently – Both surfaces will have the same, but opposite draft

angle. Only one dimension will control both.2. Draft First Side Only – Only the large surface will contain draft, the oval surface

will remain flat.3. Draft Second Side Only – Only the oval surface will contain draft. The large

surface will remain flat. We will use the Draft Second Side Only to give the illusion that we are creating alight switch. When we select this option, our model will look like the following.

We will change the angle to 10.0 degrees, making our switch more pronounced, andthen click on the green check mark to complete this draft feature. Our final modellooks like the following.



VARIABLE DRAFT

The draft feature also allows you to make variable draft. It works just like the variable

round tool. You would right click on the angle dimension and use Add Angle. Thiscreates a second angle. The biggest difference is that both angles don’t automatically jump to other locations.You will need to drag these angles to the locations you want and then modify theirvalues.

DRAFT ANALYSIS

The Draft Check analysis is a little more streamlined in this release, as are many ofthe other analysis types. To perform a draft check on this model (Draft2.prt), wewould go to Analysis, Geometry, Draft from the Menu Bar. This brings up thefollowing interface.



We can run a quick check on the model, or we can retrieve a saved analysis that wehave already created. We will keep the Quick option selected, and the click on theDefinition tab at the top. This will bring up the following.

By default, we are being prompted to pick on the surfaces to check. To check anentire part, we hold the mouse cursor over the model so that one of the featureshighlights in blue. Then, we continue to click (slowly) with our right mouse buttonuntil the entire model highlights in blue, and we see our status window (or the tool tip)indicate SolidGeom, as shown in the following figure.

Once we see this condition, click with the left mouse button to select the entire part.Now, we will skip over the next field and go straight to the Draft Angle section in ourwindow. For this, we are going to pick on the icon that has the arrows going in bothdirections (this indicates the “Both Sides” option). Then, we are going to enter theminimum draft we are checking against. In this model, we are going to check against5.0 degrees.



Once we have entered this data, we will pick in the Direction field and select on aplane or planar surface that is perpendicular to the pull direction. In our example wewill pick on the top flat surface (not the oval surface). Our window looks like the following once we have done all of this.

Our model will be shaded in colors, as shown below.

These colors correspond to the legend that pops up at the left of our screen, asshown in the next figure.



There are three black triangles on the left side of this legend. The top and bottomrepresent the positive and negative draft that we are measuring (since we picked

“Both sides”). The max/min value is 5/-5 respectively. The center black triangle represents no draft (0.0), and this corresponds to the limegreen color. On our model, we can see that any surface in this green color has nodraft whatsoever. Any surface that is magenta or blue is at least 5.0 degrees, andany other colors are between 0 and 5 or 0 and -5.

LESSON SUMMARY

The draft tool is absolutely necessary when working with plastic molded parts (or anymolded parts for that matter). You will need to choose your Draft Hinge wisely toavoid growing or shrinking the model. Always perform the basic draft check outlined in this lesson to ensure you haveenough draft on your model.

EXERCISES

Open up your Safety_Key part file that you created back in Lesson 5. Perform adraft check to make sure you have at least 2 degrees of draft on every surface of the



model. Add draft where necessary. Assume the pull direction is perpendicular to thefollowing surface.

Lesson

1

60

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the Hole Feature.



HOLE USAGE

This is another widely underused feature that should be used more often. Manypeople use extruded cuts or revolved cuts instead of holes, but many of the straight

holes or even standard holes do not need to be sketched, and that will save time(both in regeneration and in the user’s time). There are two main types of holes:

• Straight – The profile is either a plain circle extruded to a certain depth, oryou can sketch a profile that creates a revolved cut.

• Standard – Select from industry sized holes (UNC/UNF, etc.) Once you pick the type of hole you are going to create, you can place the hole usingone of the following methods.



• Linear – Hole lies on a plane or planar surface and is located from tworeferences (similar to a datum point on surface).

• Radial (Cylindrical) – Hole lies on the outside of a cylindrical surface,measured from a reference that is perpendicular to the cylinder’s axis, andlocated about the axis by some angle reference.

• Radial (Axial) – Hole lies on a plane or planar surface, but is located about

an axis normal to that surface. Dimensions are radius or diameter around axis, and an angle through the axis.

• Coaxial – Hole lies along a datum axis and starts from a specified plane orplanar surface to a desired depth.

CREATING A HOLE FEATURE

The Hole feature is located on the Feature Toolbar in the same group of blue iconsas the round, chamfer, rib, shell and draft, and represents the last of the pick-and-place features covered in this guide. The icon looks like the following.

To demonstrate the hole functionality, we will open up the Hole_Definition part,which initially looks like the following.

When you create holes, you generally have four types of placement: Linear, Radial,Diameter and Coaxial. We will use the next sections to show these different types.

LINEAR HOLE

We will start by clicking on the hole feature, and then we will click on the model in thelocation shown below.



A preview of the hole appears on the model, as shown in the next figure. For a linearplacement, there are a number of different drag handles that appear on the holefeature. They are shown in the figure.

Our dashboard looks like the following.

Depending on the type of hole you are creating, you will see different options in thedashboard. For a straight hole (circular cross-section along the entire length), theoptions represent the following.



For this first linear hole, we will change the diameter to 0.625 and change the depthoption to Through All. Our preview will look like the next figure.

We still have two drag handles that need to be addressed. We will drag the twohandles over to the following references.

Once we do this, we will see two dimensions on the model.



In the dashboard, we will click on the Placement slide-up panel, which looks like the

following.

We can see the two references and the respective dimensions. We can also see amiddle column that defines the relationship to the references. For the FRONT datumplane row, we will click on the word “Offset” and change the option to Align, andchange the remaining offset dimension to 1.000, as shown below.

This will make the center of the hole line up with the FRONT datum plane, as we cansee on the model preview.



Now we will click on the green check mark to complete this first hole, which will looklike the following.

COAXIAL HOLE

We are going to create another straight, simple hole. The first thing we are going todo is turn on the display of axes. Next, we will create a new hole and pick on the axisA_10 that is going through the large circle on the end. You will see an outline of the hole that is lined up with the axis that we selected. We

will change the diameter value to 1.0, and the depth to Through All. When we dothis, our preview looks like the following.

The “depth” of the hole seems to have gone to zero – even though it isn’t. Thereason it does this is that there still is not enough information to fully define this hole.To see what is left, we need to expand the Placement panel, which looks like thefollowing.

With a coaxial hole, the primary reference is the axis that we picked. The hole knowsit is lined up with the axis, but it doesn’t know where it starts from. This is theSecondary Reference. Therefore, pick in the Secondary References field, and thenpick on the large, flat, circular surface. The preview now looks like the following.



Click on the green check mark to complete this hole. The model now looks like thefollowing.

RADIAL/DIAMETER HOLE

The next hole we create will demonstrate the Radial and/or Diameter placement, butwe will also shake it up a bit and switch from a straight, simple hole to a standardhole. Therefore, we will start by creating a new hole feature, and then pick on thefollowing surface.

The hole will initially preview like a Linear placement, as we can see in the followingfigure.



Before we start dragging handles, we should open up the Placement panel, and usethe pull-down field at the top right to change from Linear to Radial, as shown in thenext figure.

In the figure above, you can see the four placement options. In this example, we useRadial , but we could pick on Diameter and the rest of these steps would be identical.The difference between “Radial” and “Diameter” is how it is dimensioned for thedrawing. Once you pick on Radial, you must select additional references. Therefore, click intothe Secondary References field to make it active, and then pick on the A_10 axis thatwe picked for the last hole. This will create a radius dimension from the axis to thecenter of the hole, as shown below.



Change this radius dimension to 0.875, as shown in the above figure. The seconddrag handle must be tied to a datum plane or planar surface that either passesthrough the A_10 axis, or is parallel to an imaginary plane that would pass throughthe axis. Therefore, we will drag the reference handle over to the FRONT datumplane. When we do this, an angle will appear on the preview, as we can see in the nextfigure.

We will modify this angle dimension to 60.0. The Placement panel will look like thefollowing.

Now that we have successfully placed this hole, we will change it to a standard hole.NOTE: You could have selected standard to begin with, but I think it is easier to makethe standard hole once it is fully placed, otherwise, you won’t see the correct shape inthe preview. Click on the Standard Hole icon in the lower left of the dashboard. This will changethe dashboard to look like the following (with the Shape panel expanded).



For the Thread Type field, we will keep the UNC option. Other options include UNFand ISO. For the Thread Size field, use the pull-down to select a 10-24 thread. Forthe depth option, we will pick on the Through All icon. This will make the Depth Value disappear. At the end of the dashboard icons, we will keep the Tapping and Countersinkoptions selected. Up in the Shape panel, we want to change the depth of the threadto Thru Thread, so the threaded surface goes along the entire length of the tappedhole. We will leave the angle and diameter for the countersink alone, but we couldchange this if we needed. Our dashboard should now look like the following.

If we look at the preview on the part, we can see the shape and size has updated toreflect this standard hole. If we had not placed it fully, it would still look like a bigyellow cylinder.



If we expand the Note panel, we can see the standard not that it creates by default.We can edit and add to this note. This note can be shown in the drawing to save ussome time re-creating it.

We will now click on the green check mark to complete the hole. The model will looklike the following.

To hide the view of the note on the model, we can go to Tools, Environment anduncheck the 3D Notes option. Our model will now look like the following.

Save and close this model. We will come back to it in the lesson on Patterns.

SKETCHED HOLES



The last option we have for the hole feature is a sketched hole. It is created bystarting with a straight hole. In the dashboard, use the first pull-down field to changefrom Simple to Sketched. When we do this, the dashboard looks like the following.

The sketch must meet the following requirements:1. Must have a vertical centerline that acts as the axis of revolution2. Must only be a half-model of the hole (one side of the centerline)3. Must be closed

The “vertical” centerline is important to remember. Even if you are making a hole inthe side of a block, where normally you would sketch a horizontal profile, you stillmake it vertical in this feature. The following figure shows the correct and incorrectway to do this.

LESSON SUMMARY

Hole features should be used over extruded or revolved cuts. Placing the hole issimple and straightforward once you know what you need to select, and you can pickfrom standard, industry sizes and take the guesswork out of knowing the exact threaddiameter to use. As you saw in this lesson, you can mix and match hole placement types and holetypes. But perhaps the biggest benefit to using the hole feature is when you go topattern, which we will see in a later lesson.

EXERCISES

Open up the Hole_Exercise.prt part and add the three holes shown on the figure onthe next page.





Lesson

170

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the Shell Feature.



SHELL USAGE

The shell feature is designed to take a solid part, and hollow it out to create a thin-walled part. Any exposed surface that is not selected to be removed will get auniform thickness applied to it. Some surfaces can be specified with non-default thicknesses if necessary. Todemonstrate the shell feature, we will open the Shell.prt part, which looks like thefollowing.

If we look at the default cross-section for this part initially, we can see that it is acomplete solid, as shown in the following figure.



We are going to hollow this part out so water will actually be able to fill it, and pourfrom it.

CREATING THE SHELL

To create a shell, click on the following icon in the feature toolbar.

We will instantly see a preview of the shell, and an overall thickness value. Ourthickness might be too large initially to see the preview, which means that if we wereto accept the default thickness, our shell would fail. We will modify the thickness to0.125, and then we will be able to see our preview, as shown below.



The dashboard for a shell feature looks like the following.

It is pretty simple. We only have a few things to define. In the icon row, we willdefine the overall thickness, and the side of the material the thickness is being addedto. We can actually shell outwards if we wanted to. If we open up the References panel, we will see the following.

Initially, no surfaces will be removed, and there are no “Non-Default Thicknesses”defined. In other words, if we accept the feature right now, we will have a completelyhollow, but closed part. We will accept it right now to show you what I mean. After we accept this, we will go to a FRONT view and look at the cross-section

again. We can see that the part is hollow, but we can also see that it is closed theentire way around the part. So if water were in this part, it would have to have beenpoured as it was molded shut.



We will edit the definition of this feature in the model tree to make some changes.The first change we will make will be while we still have a completely hollow butclosed model. In the References panel, click on the field for Non-DefaultThicknesses, then select the top flat surface of this part, as shown below.

We can see another dimension appear on this part. If we change the thickness forthis surface to 0.5, accept the part, and then look at the cross-sectional view again,we would see the figure at the top of the next page.



Any external surface can have a non-default thickness as long as it is not tangent toany other surfaces. Had we had a round at the top of this model where the flatsurface met the side domed surface, then we would not have been able to performthis operation. Actually, we wouldn’t be able to remove it either.

We will edit the definition once more. Go into the References panel again. In theNon-Default Thicknesses field, right mouse click on the surface that is listed, andselect Remove. Then, in the Removed Surfaces field, click on the words “No Items”to activate this field. Pick the top flat surface, and the surface at the end of the spout to remove them, asshown in the following figure.

When we accept this part, and shade the model for better clarity, we can see that we

have a hollow part, as shown in the figure at the top of the next page.



If we were to go back to our cross-section and use the clipping tool (Select Display,Set Visible, and then select Clip Front, we would see the following.

LESSON SUMMARY

Use the shell tool to hollow out a complex part. The important thing to note is thatyou will want to use this feature later in the model, after you have defined all featuresthat will need to be hollowed out. If you create a shell early in the part, then you might want to consider using surfacesinstead, and thicken the surfaces later. We will see how to do this in an upcominglesson.



Select surfaces to remove unless you want to design a blow molded part, and selectnon-default thicknesses, as long as they are not tangent to other surfaces that mustbe at the default thickness.

EXERCISES

Draft1 Open up the Draft1 part that we created, and add a 0.1” round to both the top edgeand the middle edge, as shown below.

Next, hollow out the model, removing the bottom surface with a wall thickness of0.0625”, as shown below.

If we look at a cross-section through the middle of the part, it looks like the followingfigure.




Headset Open up the Headset part file that we created in Lesson 11, and add a Coaxial holeand Shell feature, as shown in the following figure.

HINT: You may need to create a datum axis first for the coaxial hole.



Lesson

180

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the Rib Feature.



RIB USAGE

The Rib feature is designed to create a thin walled protrusion between two or moresurfaces in the model. The unique behavior of the rib as it can adapt to changinggeometry better than an extrude feature makes is a great, but underused feature.

CREATING THE RIB

The rib feature is located in the Feature Toolbar in the top grouping of blue icons, andlooks like the following.

To demonstrate this feature, we will open up the Draft1 part that we have beenworking with. We will create a support/stack rib for this model. Therefore, we willstart by clicking on the Create rib icon. The dashboard appears as follows.

We need to start by sketching our rib profile. In the References slide-up panel, wecan see a Define button. When we click on this, we see the familiar sketching

window.



We will pick the RIGHT datum plane as our sketching plane, and accept the TOPdatum plane facing towards the top. When we get into the sketch, we will pick theinside elliptical edge as a sketcher reference, as shown in the next figure.

We are going to create the following sketch. NOTE: We will use an ellipse for the arcportion of this sketch, centered on the vertical reference line, located 0.464” belowthe horizontal reference line.



When we complete the sketch, we should see a preview of the rib. If the yellowarrow is not facing into the rib geometry, we will need to click on it to flip it. Thepreview should look like the following.

We will change the rib thickness value to 0.1”. Rotated, our final preview will looklike the following.

Just like the shell feature, we have an icon next to the thickness field that is used toflip which side of the sketching plane our rib is added. By default, it wants to be

symmetric about the sketching plane (0.05” on each side in this example). You canflip it to either side as well using this icon. We will click on the green check mark to complete this feature. Our model looks likethe following.



Save this model and close it. We will return to this in the lesson on patterns.

LESSON SUMMARY

Use a rib feature when you must add a thin wall between existing surfaces of amodel. This is preferable to extruding a protrusion on both sides of the datum plane,because the rib feature will follow curving geometry where an extrude just goesstraight out from the sketching plane. Use Cross-section datum curves when necessary to snap to the geometry at thelocation where you want the rib, especially if the geometry is curved.

EXERCISES

Open up the Headset part that we have been working on. We are going to add a ribwithin the shelled out area. After we add the rib, we are going to add some rounds tomake it look nice. Use the figure below as a guide for this.





Lesson

190

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about Patterns.



PATTERN USAGE

Patterns are used to replicate a feature (or group of features) multiple times in arepetitive manner. Patterns can be as simple as three holes with equal spacing in arow, or one-hundred bumps on a surface to create a non-skid texture. There are three primary types of patterns. These are:

• Dimensional – You want to pattern an entity in a certain direction. Adimension is selected that already goes in that direction. You provide theincremental spacing between entities, and the number of entities that willresult.

• Table – You create a table based on selected driver dimensions. The tablecan indicate non-uniform patterns. You can put as much or as littleinformation into a pattern table as you need.

• Fill – You create a feature, then pattern that feature within a boundary thatyou sketch. You can change the shape, spacing, angle and visibility of theinstances in that pattern.

Within a Dimensional pattern, you also have the ability to define one of threeattributes. These are:

• Identical – Each instance is completely identical to the one that is beingpatterned. The pattern can not intersect itself or leave the current surfaceboundary that the lead entity is located on.

• Varying – You can vary different aspects of the entity, such as depth,diameter (for a hole), etc. for each instance in an incremental fashion. Theinstances are able to leave the current surface boundary, but they can notintersect themselves.

• General – There are no restrictions on this type, but it takes longer toregenerate than an identical pattern. If you can’t get an identical or varyingpattern to work, try setting it as a general pattern first. If this does not work,then there are bigger issues at work.

CREATING PATTERNS



The pattern tool is commonly activated using the right mouse button (either on thefeature itself or on the model tree). You can also get to patterns through the Editmenu, or using the following icon in the Feature Toolbar.

You must start by picking on a feature to pattern, otherwise the tool is not active. To

demonstrate the pattern tool, we will start with the Hole_Definition part that wesaved from lesson16. It will look like the following.

We created three different holes in this part in lesson 16. The first (Hole 1) was alinear hole. The second (Hole 2) was a coaxial hole, and the third (Hole 3) was aradial/diameter hole. The following figure shows these holes.

We will start by clicking on the Hole 1 feature in our model tree (or the hole thatcorresponds to “Hole 1” in the previous figure). Once selected, click on the Patterntool. The dimensions for the hole feature should appear on the model, as we can seein the next figure.



The dashboard appears and looks like the following.

By default, most features will assume a dimensional pattern type. This is thecommon one in 2001 – which requires you to pick a dimension that drives the firstand second directions. Other pattern types exist in Wildfire 2.0, but we will start withthe standard Dimensional pattern.

Therefore, we start by picking on the dimension that drives the first direction of thepattern. We will pick on the 1.000 dimension. When we do this, a field appears rightbeneath the selected dimension, as we can see in the next figure.

We will use this field to specify the increment between holes. Type in 3.25 and thenhit the <ENTER> key on your keyboard. You should now see little black circlesindicating where the holes will be when completed as shown in the next figure.



If we open up the Dimensions panel, we will see the following.

We can see the dimensions and increment values defined for the first and seconddirections. We can also see that we can define the increment by relations. Currently,we have defined a single driving dimension for direction1, and the spacing is 3.250.If we go to the Options panel, we can see the three different classifications ofpatterns.

We will leave these alone right now. Click on the green check mark to complete thispattern, and you will see the following.

Next, we are going to create a radial pattern using Hole 3. For this pattern, we will

use a reference instead of an actual dimension to drive the pattern. Therefore, startby picking on the hole in the model tree and then click on the pattern tool. We cansee the dimensions show up in the next figure.



We could select on the 60.000 dimension to drive the angle, but we will demonstratea different type of pattern, called Axis. In the dashboard, use the first pull-down fieldto change the option from Dimension to Axis, as we can see in the next figure.

Once we select Axis, we must select a datum axis or edge that will act as the patternreference. We will turn on our datum axes and select the A_10 axis. Once we dothis, we can see a different look on the model.

There are now two arrows, one for the first direction (maroon arrow labeled “1”) andone for the second direction (yellow arrow labeled “2”), as we can see in the figureabove. We can also see the default increment is currently 90.000 degrees, and thereare four black dots representing four holes.

In the dashboard, we can see the following.



There is still a section for first direction and second direction. We will change thetotal number of instances from 4 to 3, and the angle from 90.000 to 120.000 , asshown below.

This change is also reflected on the model itself.

We will now click on the green check mark to complete this hole pattern. Our modelwill now look like the following.


FILL PATTERN

The next pattern type that will discuss is the Fill pattern. This is new in Wildfire, andoffers a huge benefit to users that create very large identical patterns that fill in a gridon a model. For example, suppose you are creating a non-skid surface with all of thelittle diamond shape bumps on it. This would be one way of doing that. The advantage of a fill pattern over an identical dimensional pattern is the fact that

you don’t have to stay within a rectangular grid, and the second is that the leadfeature doesn’t have to have any dimensions associated with it, nor do you have toeven keep the lead pattern. To demonstrate this pattern type, we will open up the model entitled Boat. It willinitially look like the following.



This is a bath mat, and requires suction cups along the bottom to prevent it fromsliding. If we turn the model around, we can see one of these suction cups that wecreated.

If we zoom in close on this model, we can also see a sketch feature. This sketchfeature defines the area that is going to be filled. We can either use a sketch feature(as we are in this example), or we can sketch a shape once we get into the patternitself.



If we look at the model tree, we can see that we created the suction cup as a revolve

feature, and we used an “on-the-fly” datum plane, which caused the features to begrouped together.

With a regular dimensional pattern, this would be necessary to include the offsetdimension for the plane to be tied to the feature being patterned. In a fill pattern,however, we don’t need the datum plane at all. We could even ungroup this currentgroup and pattern the revolve feature all by itself.

Instead, we will simply pick on the Revolve 1 feature in the model tree and then clickon the pattern tool. When the dashboard appears, switch the pattern type to Fill, asshown in the next figure.



When we do this, the dashboard will change to look like the following.

We must start by defining the fill boundary. If we needed to sketch a boundary, wecould right click in the working window and use the Define Internal Sketch option.Instead, we will pick on the sketch feature on the model.

NOTE: If you are going to use a pre-defined sketch (as we are in this example), itmust come before the feature being patterned in the model tree. This is because themodel is rolled back to the time just before the feature was created for the pattern. When we pick on the sketch feature, we will see the following in the model. Go to aBOTTOM view for the rest of this example.

A grid of black circles appears on the model. This is the preview for the pattern. Inthe dashboard, we have a variety of options to chose from for defining the shape ofthis pattern. The first field to the right of the sketch definition is the shape of thepattern. The default is Square, which gives you the effect above. There are othershapes, such as Triangle, Diamond, Circle, Spiral, Curve, etc. that give you differentresults. Try each one until you find the one you want. In our example, we are going to stay with the Square option. The next field to theright is the spacing between instances. We are going to change this value to 0.750.

The next field is the distance from the boundary that we sketched/selected. We willuse a value of 0.300 for this fill. The last field is used to rotate the entire grid aboutthe lead instance. We will use a value of 57.000 degrees to line the suction cups upwith the long angled edge. The dashboard, when completed will look like the following.



The preview of the pattern will look like the next figure.

If we wanted to remove one or more of the instances from the resulting pattern, wewould click on the black circle and turn it white. We, however, are going to keepeach of these instances. When we click on the green check mark, each of the instances will regenerate, andthen we will be left with our final pattern, as shown in the next figure.


TABLE PATTERNS

The next pattern type that we will look at is the Table Pattern option. We willdemonstrate this functionality with the Plate3 model, which looks like the following.



We are going to start by picking on the hole and then select the pattern tool. Whenthe dashboard appears, change the pattern type from Dimension to Table, as shownin the next figure.

When we do this, the dashboard will look like the following.

The first thing we must do is select any dimension we want to control in the table. Ifind it best to pick them in the order you want to see them in the columns of thetable. Therefore, we will pick the 0.625 “x” dimension, followed by the 0.750 “y”dimension, and lastly the 0.750 diameter dimension. Once all three dimensions are selected, we will click on the Edit button next to the“TABLE1” field. This brings up the table editor, which will look like the following.

We can see four columns. The first is used to identify the hole by a uniqueincrementing number. The first hole that we selected represents “1”, therefore, wewill start with “2” in the second row.



The remaining columns are our three dimensions that we selected, in the order inwhich we selected them. I always find it easier to sketch out the hole pattern on paper prior to filling out thetable to make it easier to fill out. My sketch for this hole pattern might look like thefollowing.

Using this information, I will fill out the table as follows.

Once the table is filled out, I will select File, Exit from the menu at the top of thiswindow. This saves and exits the table. Back in the model, we will see the previewof this pattern, which looks like the following.



At this time, we could create more than one pattern table for this hole. The reasonyou might do this would be for different family table instances, or to try out differentpatterns until you know which one will work for you.

We will click on the green check mark to complete this pattern. Our final model willlook like the following.

Save this model for the next pattern type.

REFERENCE PATTERNING

A reference pattern is a feature pattern that follows an existing pattern. In order tomake this work, the feature you are trying to pattern must be tied to the lead featureof the existing pattern in such a way that it could be translated to each of theinstances of that pattern. To demonstrate how this works in Wildfire 2.0, we will continue to work with thePlate3 model that we have open. We are going to add two features that will both bereferenced patterned. The first will be an extruded thin protrusion. Start by going tothe extrude feature, and be sure to select the solid and thin material options, as

shown below.

Change the wall thickness to 0.125, as we can see in the above figure. Next, useyour right mouse button to Define Internal Sketch. For the sketching plane, use thetop surface of the plate, and accept the RIGHT datum plane facing towards theRight . Inside the sketch, use the “Use Edge” tool to select both halves of the leadhole (the one in the lower left corner), as shown in the next figure.



Once we complete the sketch, be sure to flip the material side to the outside of thehole, and change the depth to 0.25. The preview will look like the following.

Click on the green check mark to complete this feature, which looks like the following.

Now, select the extrude feature and then click on the pattern tool. Since this featureis already tied to the lead hole in the hole pattern, the default type listed isReference, as shown in the next figure.



Click on the green check mark to complete this pattern, and our model will update asshown in the following figure.

Notice that the diameter was controlled by the hole pattern, so it got bigger aroundthe center hole as it should. The next feature will be a round at the base of the extrude feature on the lead hole.The radius will be 0.05, as shown below.

Once you finish this round, select it in the model tree and click on the pattern tool.This time, the dashboard will not open. Instead, it will automatically pattern the roundto all of the instances.

Rounds and Chamfers do this automatically. The following figure shows the resultingmodel once the reference pattern is done.



LESSON SUMMARY

Patterns are great tools to reduce the amount of repetitive work you might incurotherwise. You need to build in the proper dimensioning scheme so you havedimensions available to drive pattern directions, sizes, etc. In dimensional patterns, you define the instance spacing and number of instances. Intable-driven patterns, you spell out exactly the location and size based off ofreferences that the lead entity used. In a fill pattern, you sketch a boundary that thefill resides within, and then you indicate size, shape and orientation. To successfully group or reference pattern, all entities must be tied only to the leadfeature being patterned first (or first in the group). If they reference stationary, non-moving references, the pattern will fail.

EXERCISES

Open up the Headset part that we have worked with in the past, and pattern the rib

and all of its rounds, as shown below. The spacing for the ribs is 1.25 inches.



HINT: Since we have not learned how to create a group by combining alreadycreated features, you will not be creating one for this exercise. You will, howeverneed to find out which feature drives the 1.25 spacing dimension and pattern thatfirst.



Cup_Washer Create the part below.



Lesson

200

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about Variable Section Sweeps.



VARIABLE SECTION SWEEP DEFINITION

A variable section sweep is an advanced sweep feature that, instead of maintaining aconstant section shape and size along the length of the trajectory, is varying alongthe trajectory by specifying additional trajectories that push or pull the section as itgoes.

CREATING A VSS (Variable Section)

To demonstrate this functionality, we will open up the Variable_Section1.prt file,which initially looks like the following.

In this example, we are going to create a cut out of the block that is rectangular inshape, but changes size according to the datum curves/sketches that are on themodel. To create a variable section sweep, click on the following icon in the Feature Toolbar.



This will open up the variable section sweep tool, and its dashboard looks like thefollowing (with the References panel open).

By default, variable section sweeps start out as surfaces. Therefore, we will need tofirst click on the Solid icon (first icon in the dashboard). Once we pick on this option,select the Remove Material icon. Our dashboard should now look like the following.

We are now ready to start selecting our trajectories. One of the big differences inWildfire 2.0 is that we don’t have to specify whether it is a curve or an edge chain.We can simply pick on the reference, and it will be smart enough to know whether itis valid or not. We will begin by picking on the origin trajectory. The first trajectory that we pick in aVSS feature is always treated as the origin. The best trajectory in our model to use

as the origin trajectory is the dark blue straight curve on the top of the block.Therefore, we will pick on it. The model will highlight the curve, as shown.



There is a label on the curve that identifies it as the “Origin”. In addition, there aretwo dimensions and two yellow arrows. The two dimensions can be used to extendor shorten the trajectory for our origin even if the selected trajectory is longer/shorter.It does not change the length of the original curve, only the origin trajectory in thisfeature. The yellow arrow that is pointing down the trajectory is the start point. If we were toclick on it, we could change the start point to the other end of the trajectory. The second yellow arrow is used to identify the Horizontal/Vertical orientation whenno other trajectories are specified as the “X-Trajectory”. In a regular sweep feature,this would be used to help orient the sketch, as there is only one trajectory. Our References panel looks like the following.

We can see our Origin trajectory listed, and there is a check in the box in the “N”column, indicating that our section, when swept, will be normal to this trajectory. Wecould change the section plane control to Normal to Projection or Constant NormalDirection using the first pull-down field, entitled “Section Plane Control”. We will now start to pick our other trajectories. The order doesn’t matter once you

select your origin, but for consistency, we will pick the next curve shown below as oursecond trajectory. Be sure to hold down the Ctrl key when picking this secondtrajectory – otherwise, you will re-select the “Origin”.



We can see that this trajectory is labeled “Chain 1”, and since it is currently active inthe reference window, we can see the two dimensions used to extend/shorten it. We will now hold down the Ctrl key again, and select our third trajectory, shownbelow.

This trajectory is now labeled “Chain 2”. Hold down the Ctrl key once again, andselect our fourth trajectory, shown in the next figure.



It is labeled “Chain 3”. We now have all of our necessary trajectories. OurReferences panel looks like the following.

We can see all four trajectories listed with their labels. We can also see a columnentitled “X”. This column allows us to specify a trajectory from our list to act as our

“X-Trajectory”. We will click in the check box for “Chain 2”, so it looks like thefollowing.

When the check mark appears, you will notice that our Horizontal/Vertical control fieldhas changed to X-Trajectory. This allows the application to automatically line up theOrigin and the Chain 2 start points on the same horizontal when inside sketch mode. We are now ready to create our section. Therefore, we will click on the pencil andpaper icon in the dashboard (just to the left of the “Remove Material” icon). Thisbrings us into our sketch, which initially looks like the following.



The figure above illustrates the location of the different start points for thesetrajectories, based on the start point for the origin. It is upside down from how wewere looking at it before, but that is okay, because we can always rotate the sketch tosee how we are looking at it. We are going to sketch a rectangle that has corners that touch the end of “Chain 1”and “Chain 2”, and is controlled by the Chain 3 for its height, as shown in the next

figure.

If we go back to a rotated view, we can see exactly where our section sits with

respect to the trajectories.



When we click on the check mark to complete the sketch, we will see the profile ofour VSS feature, as shown below.

The downward arrow in this preview indicates the material removal side. We willclick on the green check mark to complete our feature. Our model now looks like thefollowing.

CREATING A VSS (Constant Section)

In this next section, we are going to see how to create a regular sweep using theVariable Section Sweep feature. To demonstrate this, open up theVariable_Section2 part, which looks like the following.



We are going to cut out a special lip around the front top edge of this part, but weonly want it to be a certain location. Therefore, we will start by going into our variablesection sweep tool. Make sure that you select the Solid and Remove Materialoptions from the dashboard, as shown below.

Next, pick on the front, top edge so it highlights as shown in the next figure.

At the two ends of the highlighted edge, we can see the T=0.000 dimensions thatallow us to extend or shorten the length of our trajectory. We will shorten the

trajectory by 2” on each end, therefore, we will double-click on the 0.000 dimension,and change it to -2.0 for each end. The result is shown in the following figure.



Next, we will go to the dashboard and pick on the Options slide-up panel, and selectConstant Section, as shown in the next figure.

We actually may not need to do this to get our final result, but I would get in the habit,because there may be a time down the road where this feature could fail, because itmay be looking for more than one trajectory (Variable section option), and we onlywant a single trajectory (Constant section option). Now, we will click on the sketch icon, and when we are placed into sketcher, we willsee the following.

The intersecting dashed lines represent the start of our trajectory (where the yellowarrow was). If you are not sure how you are looking at the part, you can rotate it, andthen return to the sketch view after that.

We will sketch four lines and dimension as shown.



When we finish our sketch, and rotate our model, we can see the dynamic preview(another advantage of using a VSS over a regular sweep, which currently does nothave a dynamic preview).

The completed model looks like the next figure.



Had we needed more control over the end points of the trajectory, we would need touse the regular sweep feature and sketch our trajectory on top of the existing modeledges. The following figure shows an example of a case where a variable sectionsweep would have to be combined with additional features to accomplish what aregular sweep would do.

LESSON SUMMARY

The variable section sweep is a very powerful tool to take a standard swept typefeature, and stretch and pull it in different directions by defining datum curves that the

section will ride along. Be sure to create your datum curves ahead of time. If you happened to forget one,you could pause the feature and create one on the fly. Use the variable section sweep for regular swept features if you don’t need to addinner faces

EXERCISES

Open up the basket part in our ProETrain folder. It should look like the following.



We want to create a surface variable section sweep at the top of the existing surfaceas shown below.

The section for the rim profile is a semicircle that is normal to the top rim of theexisting surface as it goes around.



Lesson

210

Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about Swept Blends.



SWEPT BLEND USAGE

A swept blend is used when you must blend together several sections, but the paththat the blend takes must follow a specific trajectory. It is sort of a combinationbetween a general blend and a sweep feature. Unlike a variable section sweep, you can only use one trajectory, but you can varythe shape of the sections drastically along the trajectory, which you can not do with avariable section sweep. To demonstrate this, we will create the following swept blend protrusion.

We will open up the Swept_Blend.prt part file in our ProETrain directory. It willinitially look like the following.



The trajectory will be the long, open ended sketched curve, and the three sectionsthat we are gong to blend are indicated in the order in which we will pick them.

Like the General Blend, it is easier to select your trajectory and sections, althoughyou have the ability to sketch them. For this lesson, we will select the entities.

CREATING THE SWEPT BLEND

There is no icon on the feature toolbar for this tool, and like a regular sweep feature,you have to decide ahead of time what type of material condition are you creating(Protrusion, Cut, Surface, etc.). We will use Insert, Swept Blend, Protrusion from the menu bar, as shown below.



This brings up the following menu.

At the top of this menu, we will define how we are going to create the sections. Bydefault, the option Sketch Sec is selected. We have already selected Select Sec inthe figure above. This means that when we come to defining sections, we are goingto select them instead of sketching them.

The options at the bottom are similar to the ones we have seen in the variablesection sweep. These are:

• NrmToOriginTraj – Normal to origin trajectory. We will only pick onetrajectory with this option, which acts as the origin.

• Pivot Dir – Pivot Direction. Choose a datum plane or planar surface that thesections will be perpendicular to along the length of the trajectory.

• Norm To Traj – Normal to Trajectory. In this option, you actually will picktwo trajectories, but the sections don’t follow both. One of the trajectories willbe the one that the sections follow, while the other one determinesperpendicularity of the sections.

We are going to keep the first option by default, and then select Done. This will bring

up the Swept Blend window, as shown below.

We can see that we are defining the origin trajectory. We have the following menuoptions that appear.



To sketch a trajectory, you would use the Sketch Traj option. We, however, want toselect an existing curve or edge as the trajectory; therefore we will pick on the SelectTraj option. This will bring up a menu giving us options for how to select thetrajectory. We want to select the Curve Chain option, since we are picking on asketched datum curve.

We will then select on the straight portion of the trajectory, shown with the bold redhighlight in the figure below. When we do this, one of the ends of the trajectory willhave a bold, blue arrow, indicating the start point.

We want to start at the other end, so we will click on Start Point from the menu. Asmaller menu appears with the options Next and Accept. We want to click on Next,which will cause the vertex at the other end of the curve to highlight. We will thenclick on Accept to move the start point to this end, as shown below.





Click on Done for this section once it looks like the figure above. In the messagewindow, we are asked if we want to continue selecting sections. We will enter Y. Forthe third section, we will still use the Sel Loop, and we will pick on the flat edge.When we do this, the start point shows up on the following vertex.

We want to switch the start point to be on the other end of this edge, so it lies on thetrajectory. Therefore, we select Start Point from the menu, and then pick on theopposite vertex for this straight segment. It will now look like the following.

BLEND VERTEX If you look at the first two sections, there are four entities that make up these. Thereis a straight edge on the bottom, two edges on the sides, and an arc at the top. Thisthird section only has two entities, the straight edge at the bottom and the arc at thetop. We must have the same number of entities for this to work, so we will create twoblend vertices. A Blend Vertex is a selected vertex on the section that will force twovertices from the previous section to blend into this one. Since we are eliminating the



two side edges from the third section, we need to have the vertices from these edgesin section two blend into a single vertex in section three. So, we will pick Blend Vertex from the menu, and select the two endpoints of thestraight segment. When we do this, a large circle appears around the vertex, asshown below.

Once we have done this, click on Done. At the prompt to create additional sections,

type in N. We can now click on OK to complete this feature, as shown below.

There were two other options in the Swept Blend window. These were.

• Blend Control – Specify how the blend will be controlled. You can createan area graph specifying the exact smoothness of the blend. You can alsoask it to create more of a linear blend. The default blending method usuallygives good results, so we didn’t have to define other options.

• Tangency – If you have existing geometry at the ends of the trajectory, youcan specify whether the swept blend should be tangent to these entities.This is very useful if doing this as a surface feature. Since we don’t have anyother features in this model, we don’t need to define this option.

LESSON SUMMARY

A swept blend is a great tool to use if you must blend together multiple sections, andcontrol the shape between the sections by a trajectory.

You can select or sketch the sections and trajectory, but it is often easier to select. Remember to check your start points and number of entities. Create blend verticeswhere necessary.

EXERCISES



Open up the Swept_Blend2.prt part file, and create a swept blend cut around thebottom rim of the part, as shown below. Use the outside edge as the trajectory, anduse the existing datum curves as the sections.

Lesson

220



Lesson Objective: In this lesson, we will learn about the Boundary Blended Surface tool.

BOUNDARY BLEND SURFACE USAGE

None of the tools that we have used so far would help you take boundary curves todefine a surface, and internal curves to control the shape across the boundaries.This is what a boundary blended surface is all about. To demonstrate this, we will open up the following part (Boundary1.prt)



We are going to create a new surface by blending the outside curves together, butusing the internal curves to define the shape. DIRECTION CURVES When you define boundary blend surfaces, you define curves or edges in one or twodirections. It doesn’t matter what you consider the first or second direction, as long

as you keep track of it yourself. In our example, we are going to consider the following directions, and curves in thosedirections.

CREATING THE SURFACE

To create a Boundary Blended Surface, click on the following icon in the featuretoolbar.



The dashboard for this feature looks like the following figure. The fields at the bottomare not labeled, but they are used to pick curves in the first, second and approximatedirections.

The first direction curve field is currently highlighted in yellow, meaning that it isactive. We will select the first and third curve in the first direction, as shown below.NOTE: Use the Ctrl key to select both of these.

Once we select these, the first field at the bottom will say 2 Chains. We can see aplane highlighted, and we can also see two circles with little symbols in them. We willdiscuss what these mean a little later. Now, we will click in the second direction field, and select the first and third curves inthis direction, as shown in the figure at the top of the next.



If we look at a full preview, and rotate the model, we can see that our surface doesnot intersect the two curves in the middle of the part, as shown below.

Click on the full preview button again to return to the feature definition. We are goingto pick on the Curves slide-up panel. It will look like the following.

As you can tell, this panel is used to define the first and second direction curves.Currently, we are active in the second direction, so we will pick in the first field to

activate first direction curves. We are going to hold down the Ctrl key and pick on thesecond curve in the first direction. It will appear in this panel as the third chain on the

list.



On the model, the dynamic preview has disappeared, because it can not build thesurface in the order the curves were picked. We need to move the new curve to themiddle of the list so it acts as if we picked it second instead of last. To do this, we willselect on the 3 Chain item so it becomes highlighted, then select the up arrow thatappears, as shown below.

As soon as we do this, the dynamic preview appears again, as shown below.

Now, repeat this process for the second direction curves. We are going to hold downthe Ctrl key and select the middle curve in the second direction, then repeat theprocess of moving it up the list so it becomes the second curve listed. When we dothis, we can see the preview for the final surface, shown at the top of the next page.



We will now accept this surface, and it will look like the following.

If you rotate the model, you will find that it goes through all of the curves.

EDGE ALIGNMENT AND ADVANCED OPTIONS

One of the more common options you will adjust in boundary blended surfaces isedge alignment (boundary conditions) and advanced options (edge influence). Todemonstrate this, open up the Boundary2.prt part file. It will look like the following.

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ProE Fundamentals 0001