Strange 3d section behaviour???

[mmunzer]

Strange 3d section behaviour???

I am having a strange problem.

I have a model which was drawn in Pro-E. It has been exported to STEP and I have imported it into Alibre with no problems. The model looks fine. I can also do 3d sections where I select all the parts, a cutting plane and everything looks fine.

I then save the model as an alibre model and exit alibre. I later open the saved model and try to do a 3d section, ie I select all the parts and a cutting plane. However, when I activate the 3d section, half of the parts in the assembly are automatically hidden. When I manually unhide the parts that were hidden, then they are not sectioned...?!?!? If I try to do a 3d section on those parts that are automatically hidden, then instead of sectioning, they are hidden again????

However, if I open the problem parts in thier own window as parts and then do a 3d section, there is no problem... It is only in the assembly mode where there is a problem.

I can't remember something like this in 8.2?

Is anybody else having a similar problem?

Best regards,

Marc

 

[moyesboy]

In v8 I had some strange behgavious with imported step parts. These actually displayed differently in the 2D drawing than they did in the 3D assy.
Cure was a cntrl+shift+f5 "deep regen". Takes a while on a big assembly asit regenerates all the components.

 

[mmunzer]

Thanks for the tip. When I open the drawing and do a deep regen as you suggest, then I can do a 3d section no problem. So that solved half of my problem

Once I have done the deep regen I then save the assembly (all the individual parts are overwritten) and exit the program. The next time I open the assembly, the 3d section doesn't work anymore. I then need to do a new deep regen before the 3d section command works again.??!?!?

Furthermore, I can't make Drawings from the model. Everytime I try to do a drawing, I get an error "java.lang.Exception: hasSymmetryAxis not supported by LightFace". I think the two problems must be related. The deep regen is not being saved properly. Therefore next time I open the assembly I need to do a new deep regen. Therefore the deep regen is not being saved and I have problems with the drawings functions as well????


Best regards,

Marc

 

[moyesboy]

It sounds to me that there is a problem with the imported geometry in one of the components in your assembly.
You could try to identify that with a binary chop
-work on a copy of your assembly, delete half the parts - if you don't get the problem go back and try it with the other half, then delete half the parts from that - thus work your way quickly down to identifying the problem part.
It is more likely a part with some complexity - interacting fillets etc.
Now if you identified a part with a problem you can either model it in alibre from scratch, or you can try exporting it from alibre and importing it in again - eg if it was a step, export it as a sat and bring it back in to alibre and save it to get it one translation away from the problem. Alternatively try to bring that part from the other software as step203 vs 214 or sat - or maybe just as a separate part rather than in a step assembly.
Imports from PTC prodesktop as step seemed to go fairly well, mostly, for me.
good luck
Problems with imported assemblies are not unique to Alibre!

 

[mmunzer]

Thanks.

The problem was a bad sub assembly in the model. The model had an empty sub assembly which was causing all the problems. Once I had erased that, then the model worked fine.

Best regards,

Marc