Dimension Association WIZO

[wiabggwin]

Hi All
I have been desiring a way to put many many holes into sheet metal panels in alibre design for some time now. Dealing with, at times, 25, 50 ..... 100 holes at unique locations, To do this parametrically is soooo time consuming. I have a Third party 2D CAD that I will use since I can use it's circle tool, which is modal, and enter the x, y and dia. values on the fly, save it as a dxf import it into Alibre and make my sheet metal panel from that. That works fine but again time consuming AND the sketch is not dimensioned so all the entities are floating in space. Of coarse a work around is to lock all the entities but this makes fixing mistakes or revision changes cumbersome. So I came up with this script in WIZO which works great and save a lot of time, but again the entities are no defined. The point of all this comes down to a question; is it possible to associate parameters to the WIZO created entities? Looking over the documentation my little pee brain cannot see away to do this. Thanx

 

[ajayre]

It seems to me the reason to associate parameters with a WizoScript generated sketch is so you can change aspects of the sketch later without re-running the script and re-generating it from scratch.

What parameters therefore do you want to define and use and how do you want to use them in the sketch?

 

[wiabggwin]

Normally one would open a sketch on a plane and put, say, circles on it and then dimension them as needed. So they are tied to that entity , D1, D2, D3..etc. At that point should I need to alter an entities position, just open the equation editor and do so. With this script the entities are there and (if I put in the correct data) in the correct position. I have missed a digit or wrongly entered data so the only recourse is to,as you say re-run the script or open the sketch and then dimension the errant entity, I choose the later. If however there is away to attach parameters to the entities as the script runs, like dX10, dY10 dD10 for a circle then one would have to merely open the equation editor and change the data as needed without even opening the sketch. I fear, however that script-ually this is not possible.

 

[HaroldL]

Isn't this something that could be driven by a spread sheet?

 

[ajayre]

Normally one would open a sketch on a plane and put, say, circles on it and then dimension them as needed. So they are tied to that entity , D1, D2, D3..etc. At that point should I need to alter an entities position, just open the equation editor and do so. With this script the entities are there and (if I put in the correct data) in the correct position. I have missed a digit or wrongly entered data so the only recourse is to,as you say re-run the script or open the sketch and then dimension the errant entity, I choose the later. If however there is away to attach parameters to the entities as the script runs, like dX10, dY10 dD10 for a circle then one would have to merely open the equation editor and change the data as needed without even opening the sketch. I fear, however that script-ually this is not possible.

OK, I understand. I don't see support in the Alibre API for defining sketch figures using dimensions, only entering the actual values needed. I've submitted a support request.

Andy