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Alibre Design, Catalog Features how-to.

Ken226

Alibre Super User
For any new Alibre users who would like to insert pre-modeled features into their parts.

Catalog Features

 

Stuart

Senior Member
How do you control placement of a catalog feature? I can freehand place it with cross cursor, but then when I edit, it's locked in place. The help doesn't even mention placement.

Also, what is the dropdown for the catalog path for? It never has anything in it other than the catalof feature selected.
 

Ken226

Alibre Super User
Placement of the catalog feature is similar to that used in the hole tool.

After you add the catalog feature, there will be a sketch associated with the catalog feature. Right click and select "edit sketch". Then you can project/add/sketch reference geometry and use standard constraints to constrain the associated sketch/catalog feature.


For the dropdown, you can navigate to and select multiple catalog features and add them to the dropdown list. Then you can add multiple catalog features simultaneously or use the dropdown and select one from the list. I think, the idea was that if you have several that you will be adding over and over, it would be more convenient to just select it from a list than to keep navigating to different file folders. Someone can correct me if i'm wrong here, i havn't used these features much, nor in a long time.
 
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Stuart

Senior Member
What I didn't realize is that the sketch you save as a catalog feature can't have its position constrained. It makes the inserted feature locked in position (all features are black, not orange).

I see now that if you browse to another catalog feature, it gets added to the list, but since they're only on the list while the dialog is open, I don't see how it really helps unless you want to alternate between them for some reason while placing multiple instances.
 
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