thicken outlines
thicken outlines
(OP)
Where I work we want to make the outlines of the part in our drawing views a heavier line weight than the rest of the lines. So far the only way I've been able to do this is by creating a curve at the intersection of surfaces in the part, changing the lineweight of the curve and putting it on a layer, then showing that layer in the drawing. It starts to get confusing when there are multiple views, with different layers for each view, the intersection not being the same as the silhouette, yada yada. I haven't found any way of selecting the outline in the drawing and changing lineweight.
Is there some other way to do this? Perhaps in the drawing and not the part?
Is there some other way to do this? Perhaps in the drawing and not the part?
Mike





RE: thicken outlines
My question would be why do you need to do this? Is it required by some drafting standard (or company standard) that you are using? Does it improve some downstream workflow or is it someone's preference that is held over from the pencil & paper days? It may be time to ask if the benefit is worth the extra work.
RE: thicken outlines
Mike
RE: thicken outlines
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: thicken outlines
I'm being 1/2 serious and 1/2 cynical.
RE: thicken outlines
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
RE: thicken outlines
John, all our stuff is proprietary, but I threw together a quicky part and drawing. Not sure how obvioous it will be when you look at it. The 'outline' of the view is a heavier weight than the inside horizontal lines. I use the thickest setting for the outlines, and actually created custom lineweights because the default wasn't a big enough difference between the middle one, IMO.
EWH: ASME standards? I dunno. When I got here they gave me an internal standards book and said "This is how we want our drawings to look." It was that way at every previous employer of mine too, now that I think of it. And that goes back a ways!
Mike
RE: thicken outlines
However, if this shape is indicative of the types of models that you're creating, why not, under the View Style, just set the 'Visible Lines' to Wide and the 'Smooth Edges' to Thin, as I did in the attached picture of an example I built similar to yours.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: thicken outlines
Mike
RE: thicken outlines
I very much think that your boss needs to listen to some common sense that this just isn't a good idea in NX. He's making a rod for his own back or maybe pushing an agenda of some kind. At any rate NO is the better answer because this is just going to be a waste of time and money.
Good Luck
Hudson
RE: thicken outlines
QED
Cheers
Hudson
RE: thicken outlines
Mike
RE: thicken outlines
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: thicken outlines
I feel your best bet will be to change your View Preferences default settings like John Baker pointed out earlier. Those settings should control the majority of the model edge displays on your drawings.
The Hidden Lines tab sets the preferences for lines that are hidden.
Visible Lines tab sets the preferences for all visible edges that are not concealed (or Hidden) by other geometry. I believe you will want this set to either Normal or Thick....probably Thick just to make sure you can see a difference without having to zoom in like on your PDF that was attached in a previous post.
Smooth Edge tab sets the preferences for smooth edges, or what I like to refer to as tangent edges. I believe you may wish to set these to Thin, and maybe even add a different line font like Phantom. This might give a person viewing your drawing a sense of a softer transition between surfaces than a Solid line font.
These 3 settings should take care of the majority of what you're wanting, however there will still be instances where you have no choice but to rely on View Dependent Edit. Most of this can be controlled by making sure all tangent edges are in fact tangent. The reason for this is because if you set your Smooth Edge display to a Thin line weight, and the edges aren't tangent, then they will revert to Visible Edge settings and display with a Normal or Thick line weight (depending on how you've got that set).
I would recommend setting up your Customer Defaults to whatever it is that is required so you don't have to do this every time you create a new drawing.
Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.
www.enkei.com
Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.
RE: thicken outlines
RE: thicken outlines
Thanks to all for the suggestions.
Mike
RE: thicken outlines
RE: thicken outlines
Yes, more than likely you will have to use a combination of the View Preferences and then fall back on View Dependent Editing for uncooperative edges.
We use this same method for wheel drawings, with our Wireframe Smooth Edge display in Modeling set to Thin Phantom lines. If a Smooth Edge doesn't appear in Modeling correctly, then we'll know that it probably won't display like we'd prefer in the Drafting view.
Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.
www.enkei.com
Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.
RE: thicken outlines
Go into DRAFTING add a view. Change the object display preferences I just set it to thick lines. Then pick the view and "Expand Member View" then Insert>Curve from Bodies>Extract>Shadow Outline. You don't need to select anything it just applies itself.
I tested on components and assemblies in NX-5.0.4.1 and it worked fine. I used an isometric view and I changed a couple of things finding that updating the views caused it Shadow Outline to update so I was satisfied that it can be made to work.
You have to go into each of your Drafting views individually, but you don't have to spend all that time messing about in Modelling.
TIP use monochrome display with line widths turned on.
Cheers
Hudson
RE: thicken outlines
I have our site setup to Plot our drawings with 3 different line weights when using the Plot command. Look for the Color and Width section. Use the Custom Three Widths option. Open the Custom 3 Widths command. Set your line thickness for the Thin, Normal and Thick line charactoristics.
These settings can be predefined in the Customer Defaults, Gateway, Plotting, Widths tab so they will always be preset.
See if this helps.
Cheers
NxPerson
RE: thicken outlines
Mike
RE: thicken outlines
Cheers
Hudson
RE: thicken outlines
On another note, I tried the various methods listed above on a couple of drawings I'm working on now. It seemed that changing the Visible Line and Shadow Line states worked out the best for most views. I then went back using View Dependent Edit to fix the handful of shadow lines that got picked up as visible lines, probably because of tangency issues. (This was an imported file and it's pretty complex.) It worked out pretty good and didn't take me too long at all. The majority of our stuff is not as involved as this one, so this will probably work the best for most drawings.
Mike
RE: thicken outlines
In brief testing I was able to find that this both occurred and gave be grief with a few errors in the process. One would hope and urge that you avoid using that setting altogether when you add views if you insist of pursuing these shadow outlines. I'm fairly sure this technique isn't strictly intended use of the system so it probably hasn't been tested and finessed to the point of being really robust.
Cheers
Hudson
RE: thicken outlines
Mike