×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail
7

Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

(OP)
Curious if anyone else has any dirty tricks to obtain approx. radius values when NX analysis tools fail.

I place 3 points using "points on curve" and then create an arc segment using the "Start, End, Point on Arc" option and then measure the radius of the arc.

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

Could you try picking resize blend with the synchronous modeling this is if you are trying to find a radius of a surface?

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

When an analysis tool fails or returns strange results, the first thing I do is run "examine geometry". Usually it is a problem with the model that is causing the analysis tool to fail.

www.nxjournaling.com

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

(OP)
Thanks for the reply. In most cases, it doesn't detect the face as a blend.

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

So is the edge a tolerant curve ?

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

SDETERS ,
Nice trick, thanks!

MZ7DYJ

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

and to add what SDETERS did, I sometimes use resize face in synchronous modeling to quickly see the diameter size

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

This is also what the Synchronous Modeling function 'Optimize Face' can do for you, but it allows you to slect as many faces as you wish and offers an option to first 'clean' the faces before 'optimizing' them. Note however that this will remove all the features from the body so proceed with caution (you will be warned).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

"Resize face", (suggested by Jerry1423) doesn't always work.
Optimize Face is still a mistery for me; Unfortunately, the Help Menu doesn't provide any related info.

MZ7DYJ

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

'Optimize Face' is a sort of 'Heal Geometry' like function that you can use on-the-fly. Not sure that helps all that much, but...

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

2
I use Derived Curve - Isoparametric Curve and select the face. If it is a cylindrical or conical face you will get an arc you can get information on.

John Joyce
N.C. Programming Supervisor
Barnes Aerospace, Windsor CT
NX7.5, NX9.0, NX10.0(Testing)
Vericut7.3.3

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

Which analysis function are you using, and what sort of "failure" are you seeing? Are you measuring radius of a curve, or an edge, or radius of a surface? There are many radius analysis functions, and I can't imagine why they all would fail. If you can get a radius by constructing a little circular arc, then the code could do that, too. It ain't rocket science.

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

You are right BuubaK, but there are quicker was to do it; I guess just trying to find the path of least resistance.

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

Quote (BubbaK)


If you can get a radius by constructing a little circular arc, then the code could do that, too. It ain't rocket science.

Do you really think it's a good idea for an 'analysis' function to return information that is the NOT correct? After all, if an edge/face was NOT circular, giving you the impression that it was by reporting an explicit RADIUS value could lead to making assumptions which might result in problems down stream.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

I find extracting the edge then using the simplify function works pretty well. Tends to give you a bunch of different arcs that you can then measure the radius of pretty quickly

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

Mraddles90,

What do you mean by "Simply function" ?

MZ7DYJ

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

Under Curves, there is a function called 'Simplify Curves' which will try to replaces freeforms curves, like a Spline, with a series of best fit Arcs/Lines. It uses the Modeling Tolerance to determine how close the original curve does the new set of curves match. Note that this function does NOT produce an associative feature but rather a simple set of 'dumb' curves.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

Thanks, Mr. Backer.
I knew about the "Simplify Curves", but I thought that Mraddles90 were thinking about something else.
I have developed a habit of experiencing all the option for achieving a specific goal.......

MZ7DYJ

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

John R. Baker wrote:

> Do you really think it's a good idea for an 'analysis' function to return information
> that is the NOT correct? After all, if an edge/face was NOT circular, giving you the
> impression that it was by reporting an explicit RADIUS value could lead to making
> assumptions which might result in problems down stream.

Radius of curvature makes sense for *any* curve. The value computed from the little arc is an approximation of the true radius of curvature, but, if done properly, the approximation will be a very good one. NX (and other CAD systems) use approximations all the time, and I don't see anything wrong with it.

The user is asking "what's the radius of curvature", and that question can be answered by using the arc-approximation technique. The user is not asking "is this curve circular" -- that's a different question.

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

You're correct, however I took the suggestion as being that NX should, without doing anything special, return WHAT the radius WOULD have been had the edge actually been an arc. That to me would be misleading. Now if you're willing to accept the 'instantaneous' radius at some arbitrary point on a freeform curve, NX has a function for that named 'Local Radius'. You'll find it along with the rest of the 'Measurement' tools on the Analysis Ribbon tab.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Tricks To Obtain Radius Values When Analysis Tools Fail

If it's a surface you are trying to measure the radius on, Use Geometric Properties.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources