|
Return to News
Working with Imported Parts Using
the New Direct Editing Toolset
Alibre Design 10.0 Professional and Expert customers will have access to a new toolset called Direct Editing. These new tools are available within the Part workspace and can be used to manipulate part geometry without manually creating or editing sketches or features. Direct Editing is particularly useful when working with imported parts that do not have an editable feature history. Previously, making changes to designs that do not have a design history could be cumbersome and time consuming. With these new tools, it is a quick and painless process that doesn’t require extensive CAD knowledge.
In our example, we are going to make some big changes to an imported part (Figure 1) that we received from a colleague that uses another CAD application. Our task is to redesign this smaller part that fits within a finished assembly. We’ll need to change the sizes of some holes, remove some design elements, move some faces up and down, and pattern some items – all without access to any design history. No worries.
If you would like to follow along, download the part here.
Figure 1
 Changing Hole Sizes with the Push Pull Radius Tool
Our first task is to change the size of some of the circular items in our model. This will be our first introduction to the Direct Editing toolset, and the tool we'll use is the Push/Pull Radius tool.
1. From the Direct Editing fly-out on the modeling toolbar, select the Push/Pull Radius tool . You will notice that an overlay pops over the top of your workspace (Figure 2) - this new and is used by all the Direct Editing tools. This replaces the traditional tool dialog box for these tools.
Figure 2
2. Now, we'll select the items we need to resize. Select the 3 internal faces for the holes, as displayed in Figure 3.
Figure 3
3. Notice as of the first selection, we see a ball appear (Figure 4). You can drag this ball with the mouse to resize things with a real-time preview.
Figure 4
4. Drag the ball towards the outside of the cylinder - you can enter a precise value in the overlay at the top but we will just drag in this example so you can try it out. You should see a preview that looks similar to the first picture in Figure 5 before you let go of the mouse button. When you let go, you'll see the actual 3D preview, similar to the second picture in Figure 5. When you let go of the mouse after dragging the hotspot, you can see the holes have been resized all at the same time.
Figure 5
5. Click Exit and the change is applied and the Push/Pull Radius tool disappears.
We've just made our first design change. Keep in mind we could easily have entered in a value into the overlay for a precise change. The picture below shows a change of .30", which we've typed in, as an alternate way of using this tool.
Removing Design Elements
Our second task will be to remove some incorrect features the previous designer created. We can do this using the Remove Tool. In just a few clicks, our unwanted geometry will disappear. Start by flipping the model over to expose the underside. The detail we will be removing is an extrusion, highlighted in blue in Figure 6.
Figure 6
1. Select the Remove Tool from the Direct Editing fly-out  .
2. Instead of selecting each face that needs to be removed, in this case 5 total faces, we're going to let Alibre Design select them for us by taking advantage of new inferencing technology. To turn this on, check the "Use Inferencing for" box and select Pocket or Boss, as in Figure 7. If we were removing fillets, we would select Fillet Chain.
Figure 7
3. Now, when we select a face, Alibre Design will try to figure out our intentions and make the appropriate selections for us. Select any face on the extrusion and the entire extrusion will highlight. You will see the Selection box change to show 5 faces, as in Figure 8.
Figure 8
4. Click Apply, and the design item is removed, as in Figure 9.
Figure 9
We've just made our second design change. In just a few clicks, we've accomplished a lot. However, there're more to do.
 Patterning Imported Geometry
Now that we've removed the previous design element, we need to put a copy of the partial tube (2 are shown in Figure 9, above) where the item we previously removed was. Previously, there was no way to do this and we would have to create the item from scratch. Now, we can use a powerful new tool called a Topology Pattern. This tool patterns items without relying on features.
1. Select the Circular Topology Pattern tool from the Pattern fly-out on the modeling toolbar . Note: the blue icons are Feature patterns, the red icons are Topology patterns.
2. Now, we'll select the item we'd like to pattern. As before, we'll take advantage of automatic inferencing. Inferencing for this tool is automatic and cannot be turned off. Click anywhere on the item we are patterning, represented in blue in Figure 10.
Figure 10
3. Now, similar to the traditional Feature Pattern, just fill in the rest of the field in the dialog box. Select the Center field and then click the center cylindrical cut. Then, set the angle to 120 and the copies to 2. A preview will display similar to below in Figure 11. Press OK to finalize the change.
Figure 11
4. We've now patterned our design element and can move on to our last design change. The final pattern is shown below in Figure 12.
Figure 12
 Pushing and Pulling Faces
We're almost done with our design changes. The remaining things we need to do revolve around using the Push/Pull Face tool. This tool allows you to grab a planar (flat) face and offset it by some distance. There are two primary faces we need to manipulate, shown on different sides of the part in blue in Figure 13 below.
Figure 13
1. The first thing we need to do is to click on the Push/Pull Face tool from the Direct Editing fly-out.
2. The overlay pops up near the top of the work area. Select the face represented in the figure on the left in Figure 13 above. You will see a hotspot, similar to previously in the lesson, which you can drag to change the offset of the face.
3. Drag the hotspot up and down slowly and observe that occasionally, other faces will highlight, in addition to the arrow that is created between the hotspot's current and beginning location. This color change represents that, at that exact point, the face you are dragging and another face are coplanar. Use this inferencing as an easy way to make things level. Drag the hotspot until the upper face of the part turns blue, as shown below in Figure 14.
Figure 14
4. Let go of the mouse and you will see the face jumps locations to replace the preview. Your figure should now look similar to the one below in Figure 15.
Figure 15
5. Now, turn the part over and select the face colored in blue the figure below in Figure 16. Then, click on the Depth field and enter in a precise value of -.450 cm. Notice that again we could drag the hotspot or enter a precise value. After entering in the value, press Tab or click the Refresh button to update the preview.
Figure 16
6. Press Apply and the change is made. Our modifications are complete, as shown in Figure 17.
Figure 17
Congratulations! You've just done some fairly large model modifications in only a couple of mouse clicks using the new Direct Editing toolset. The more you use the tools, the more you will get accustomed to how they work and what you can and cannot do with them. For a more in depth review of each tool, check the Alibre Design 10.0 Help in the Direct Editing section. This section can be found under Working with Models > Parts > Features > Creating Features > Direct Editing Tools.
Return to News
|
