Reference sets in NX6
Reference sets in NX6
(OP)
Hi there
Having some trouble with reference sets in NX6
1, How to add and delete components from the ref set? The "+" and "-" just not there anymore
2, When i clicked the new button all the components were highlighted automatically. How do I turn this off?
3, I had a neat macro in NX4 which generates a ref set called "SOLID". Is this still possible in NX6?
Thanks
Having some trouble with reference sets in NX6
1, How to add and delete components from the ref set? The "+" and "-" just not there anymore
2, When i clicked the new button all the components were highlighted automatically. How do I turn this off?
3, I had a neat macro in NX4 which generates a ref set called "SOLID". Is this still possible in NX6?
Thanks





RE: Reference sets in NX6
1 MB1 adds items, SHIFT MB1 removes.
2 Ref set dialog box. try unchecking the auto add.
3 Create a new "macro" but use Journal instead. Macros are now not editable. Journals are.
Happy hacking
RE: Reference sets in NX6
1, Only applies to the GUI. I wanted to MB1 or SHIFT MB1 from the navigator tree. Not working! The reason I have to use tree is what if i have a big assembly and it'll take for ever to turn everything on. Besides it worked perfectly in NX4!!!
2, I tried that. Did n't work either. Still dumps everything when I clicked new button. This is driving me nuts.
3, I'll definitely try that. But looks like journal requires some degree of programming. is it true? Dont have any though. anybody know where to start?
thansk
JP
RE: Reference sets in NX6
Exactly what is it that you're attempting to accomplish which you think having Components in a Reference Set will do for you?
Note that while we do NOT prevent you from including Components in a Reference Set (although some of us would be happy if we did), we do know that this can cause problems later on since Reference Sets behaves as a HARD filter based on an explicit list of objects. What this means is that if you include a sub-assembly in a Reference Set and later components are added or replaced in that sub-assembly, the Reference Set will NOT know that and they will NOT be included where that Reference Set has been used in the next-level assemblies.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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: Reference sets in NX6
So when i create assemblies and are creating subassy after subassy and the finally assembly them into one, it doesn't matter if the components end up as entire part/empty or whatsoever in the ref set SOLID of my subassy? I think you're going to have a real strange top level assy, because all my components will have datum planes, csys, sketches and so on sticking out of them?
In our company, in the past, it was the rule to create models with ref sets, like bending/cutting/... with different kind of features on each ref set. This was very tricky and difficult to change something afterwards, because you just couldn't get the ref sets right, and sometimes it was not visible in view or hidden, short saying, it s*cked!
Nowdays, we use just the model(solid) ref set to put features on in a part, then make some family members with them and put those members as Model(solid) (with the use of entire part to constrain them) in an assembly, where in that assembly again all the components are nicely collected under ref set solid as SOLIDS!
Maybey i misinterpretated your explination John, so can you clear out this a little more?
Thank you.
Best regards,
Michäël.
NX4+TC9 / NX6+TC8Unified / NX7.5 native
RE: Reference sets in NX6
thanks
RE: Reference sets in NX6
Maybe NX6 has a new way to do it?
Thanks
RE: Reference sets in NX6
RE: Reference sets in NX6
Best regards,
Michäël.
NX4+TC9 / NX6+TC8Unified / NX7.5 native
RE: Reference sets in NX6
However, as I stated, we have not prevented you from including Components in Reference Sets (although out-of-the-box, NX will NOT do this automatically, you'll have to change something first to have this happen or you have to do it manually, either way, it's not how we hope you're using the system) we are just warning you that eventually you may rue the day and then it will be very hard to undo your past activities since it also sounds like you've established workflows which were developed specifically around doing this and so it could proive messy someday.
Reference Sets were design to allow user to filter out (note the word 'filter') objects which they did NOT want to include in a Component when that Component was added to an Assembly. It is only an architectural consequence that Part files and Assembly files have the same file structure and thus the same capabilities, but that is water under the bridge so now we just have to depend on good training and an understanding of what is and what is NOT a best practice and all we're saying is that this is NOT consider a best practice and therefore should be avoided whenever possible.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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: Reference sets in NX6
Having said that I will look at arrangement (why UG doesn't keep developing new stuff around the old stuff instead of making up something new and make loyal long time UG users suffer). Remember Vista? good example. Heard a lot of complaints recently about new UG - 6 and higher. No wonder my customers are pressing me to jumpt the ship - catia. Hope that day will never come.
My understanding is arragement is designed for ass/components. Now i have to throw 2 stones to hit one bird (if i'm lucky). But since this is the only way out...
RE: Reference sets in NX6
Even I decided to do it manually I still can't get this ref sets around. It doesn't allow me to pick and unpick from the navigator tree. I'm totally screwed this time.
John can you give me a solution in terms of how to block or filter unwanted componets in the top assembly?
I've just moved from NX4 to NX6. I anticipated some detour like i did from 2 to 4. But this is something that i couldn't get around!!!
thanks
jp
RE: Reference sets in NX6
And yes, Arrangements are designed to ONLY work with Components since that is what they are intended to do, control which and in what position will the components in a Sub-Assembly appear in the next higher level Assembly.
Reference Sets are intended for piece parts where I wish to filter out the no-relevant objects which I do not want to see when this part if added to an assembly and it then becomes a Component.
Now I'm not saying that if we were starting over from scratch that we would not have done things differently, but considering that Reference Sets have been around for 17 years (UG V10.0) and Arrangements, in their current fully implemented form for only 4 or 5, you can see that we didn't have the clairvoyance needed for being able to anticipate the future needs of the system when looking across a 12 or 13 year period of time.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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: Reference sets in NX6
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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: Reference sets in NX6
John I'm not aurguing the intention of the ref sets. Just can you give me a solution (like I have been asking in the first place) to filter the display? Apparently arrangemens is not going to fullfil that roll. And if there is no solution can you please forward this message to those developers to put that nice ref sets back the way it used to be?
thanks
RE: Reference sets in NX6
Now there's nothing stopping you from using Reference Sets, but if you have problems with them or they don't behave as you expected, please think twice before calling GTAC asking that an ER be opened requesting that the capabilities of Reference Sets be enhanced to support capabilities which we have already provided for elsewhere in the product.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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: Reference sets in NX6
Anyways thanks for your help John. I'm not going to waste too much time on this issue.
Another way to do this I'm thinking of is to make a Journal/Grip to retrieve the same old function. But that'll take a lot of learning curve. Do you know what's the best way to start? Or are there any good books you can recommend?
Loved NX2 - that's the best version of UG in history. Could get by NX4. But NX6 the changes are just too dramatic. Hope in the future the pain of moving on would be less and less.
thanks
RE: Reference sets in NX6
I'm still at a loss over exactly what it was about NX 2.0 Reference Sets that set them apart from what we are doing now?
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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: Reference sets in NX6
RE: Reference sets in NX6
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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: Reference sets in NX6
I have a part that is to be an injection moulding with multiple 'overmoulded' inserts.
Within this part i have created a reference set which is called 'NOSHELL' which contains only the overmoulded inserts (and thus excludes the main body).
Then in a subsequent part I want to do a post-moulding machining operation. So I have WAVE linked the main body from the solid ref set and done my cut operation on it. Rather than WAVE all the little inserts individually, I have just set the main part to 'NOSHELL'.
Would this be better done within 'arrangements'?
I've always worked on the assumption that 'ref sets' work at a component level to define what your part is.
And then 'arrangements' work at an assembly (or sub-assy) level to help you define different build configurations.
Jon S
Medical Design Engineer - Glos. UK
NX 6.0.4.3 / TCE V10.0.3.8.6
RE: Reference sets in NX6
I'm not sure I can make it any more basic than that.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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: Reference sets in NX6
there is some slight difference between NX4 part and fresh NX6 part. It's better if a new NX6 part is used. The components can be picked from the assembly tree. at least now i can use ref set manually with the same fuctionality.
still don't quite understand though. are the old and new parts supposed to be differenct fundermentally?
RE: Reference sets in NX6
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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.