idea for 'Shrinkwrap', enhanced "Wrap Geometry"...
idea for 'Shrinkwrap', enhanced "Wrap Geometry"...
(OP)
There are many situations in which one might wish to create a body by "shrinkwrapping" around a body or bodies. Some examples include:
1. CAE preparation (wipe out tiny edges, defeature, etc)
2. Simplified representations of parts (for example, redacting for sharing of "dumb" models, modeling the real-world surface transitions in laminated composite parts; also, creating good-looking Wrapped parts)
etc etc
As far as I can tell, the main functionality in NX for something like this is the Wrap Geometry (and Wrap Assembly etc) commands. But in practice, the resulting solids have very little detail. In particular, if the geometry you're Wrapping has any "sticky-outy" things, you're going to end up with a "simplified part" that looks nothing like the real part. In this sense, Wrap Geometry really is producing something like more of a "model envelope". It's like the current Wrap Geometry is wrapping the model with very stiff paper.
What would be VERY useful is an enhanced "wrap model" feature which would have much more fidelity to the real model... Think along the lines of Wrap Geometry with cellophane, rather than the current "stiff paper"...
As a precedent, I think that some commercial CFD codes have good implementations of comparable idea. Check out Star-CCM, for instance: http: //www.cd-a dapco.com/ products/S TAR-CCM_pl us/common/ surface-wr apper.html
Here's a quote from that page:
"The surface wrapper works by 'shrink-wrapping' a high quality triangulated surface mesh onto any geometrical model, closing holes in the geometry and joining disconnected and overlapping surfaces, providing a single manifold surface that can be used to automatically generate a computational mesh without user intervention."
I've seen this in action and it really does what it says. If NX had such a functionality built-in, I think it would find a large number of uses.
What do you think?
1. CAE preparation (wipe out tiny edges, defeature, etc)
2. Simplified representations of parts (for example, redacting for sharing of "dumb" models, modeling the real-world surface transitions in laminated composite parts; also, creating good-looking Wrapped parts)
etc etc
As far as I can tell, the main functionality in NX for something like this is the Wrap Geometry (and Wrap Assembly etc) commands. But in practice, the resulting solids have very little detail. In particular, if the geometry you're Wrapping has any "sticky-outy" things, you're going to end up with a "simplified part" that looks nothing like the real part. In this sense, Wrap Geometry really is producing something like more of a "model envelope". It's like the current Wrap Geometry is wrapping the model with very stiff paper.
What would be VERY useful is an enhanced "wrap model" feature which would have much more fidelity to the real model... Think along the lines of Wrap Geometry with cellophane, rather than the current "stiff paper"...
As a precedent, I think that some commercial CFD codes have good implementations of comparable idea. Check out Star-CCM, for instance: http:
Here's a quote from that page:
"The surface wrapper works by 'shrink-wrapping' a high quality triangulated surface mesh onto any geometrical model, closing holes in the geometry and joining disconnected and overlapping surfaces, providing a single manifold surface that can be used to automatically generate a computational mesh without user intervention."
I've seen this in action and it really does what it says. If NX had such a functionality built-in, I think it would find a large number of uses.
What do you think?





RE: idea for 'Shrinkwrap', enhanced "Wrap Geometry"...
I have used when I placed an engine in an assembly of a large riding lawn mower. Since I didn't really need all the detail of the components that were in the engine it gave me what I needed.
RE: idea for 'Shrinkwrap', enhanced "Wrap Geometry"...
RE: idea for 'Shrinkwrap', enhanced "Wrap Geometry"...
What we did use "shrinkwrapping" for is when we placed the large lawnmowers in a simple model of a semi-truck trailer to see how many we could fit in there.
RE: idea for 'Shrinkwrap', enhanced "Wrap Geometry"...
RE: idea for 'Shrinkwrap', enhanced "Wrap Geometry"...
RE: idea for 'Shrinkwrap', enhanced "Wrap Geometry"...
Assemblies > Advanced > Simplify Assembly
Walk thru the wizard and you end up with a nice single solid body... there are options to remove holes etc.
RE: idea for 'Shrinkwrap', enhanced "Wrap Geometry"...
RE: idea for 'Shrinkwrap', enhanced "Wrap Geometry"...
Note that it's very easy to start with a basic Wrap feature and just edit it by double-clicking and defining a 'Splitting Plane'. You can continue to repeat this process until you get a Wrap object with sufficient detail for your task.
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.