Clearance Analysis Exclude Sheet Bodies? 1

[CNSZU]

Hello,

I want to do a quick check to see if any components in an assembly are intersecting with one another (hard interference). Now, some of the components have sheet bodies (used as helpers for constructing a solid body) which I hide from view. I do not want these sheet bodies to be included in the analysis. So I set up the Clearance Analysis dialog box as such:

Clearance between COMPONENTS
Collections ONE
Collection one ALL VISIBLE OBJECTS

I assume that "all visible objects" means that the analysis will only include everything that the eye can see, however this is not the case since the hidden sheet bodies are still included in the analysis.

One solution is to do a clearance between solids, then select all the solids in the graphics view. This will exclude sheet bodies from the analysis, but my question is, how can sheet bodies be excluded from a components analysis (preferably in an automatic manner)?

NX9 Win8.1 64bit i7-3770K 16GB Quadro2000

 

[SDETERS]

Could you use a different Reference set for you components? Make these special reference sets in your model to show only the geometry you want to do your clearance check on?

 

[CNSZU]

I've just stumbled upon something, I realize now that I need to right click in the Clearance Browser, then click Clear Results before editing the clearance set and performing another analysis. Otherwise, the results get accumulated it seems. Then it is true that All Visible Objects does only apply to objects that are visible to the eye, but there seems to be a bug: if in a component, one of the bodies is hidden, the whole component is then removed from the analysis. See attached image for proof. When one of the bodies in A.prt is hidden, the clearance analysis reports no interference, but when all bodies is A.prt are visible, it correctly reports the hard interference between the blocks in A.prt and B.prt.

SDETERS, with your method I would have to before a clearance analysis create a reference set for each part and select every body that should be included? This is the sort of time consuming labor that I'm trying to avoid.

NX9 Win8.1 64bit i7-3770K 16GB Quadro2000

 

[JohnRBaker]

If the sheet bodies were, as you stated, "used as helpers for constructing a solid body" then why would you ever want to include them in your final Assembly in the first place? Therefore you SHOULD be using Reference Sets, as suggested by SDETERS since 'hiding' those sheet bodies in the Assembly is just a waste of time and as you've already learned, is NOT how NX is expecting you to be using NX. Reference Sets ARE the PROPER way to remove unwanted items from an Assembly which started out in life as part of the model which is then added as a Component to the Assembly.

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

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

 

[CNSZU]

Thank you John for your guidance, I'll try to incorporate reference sets into my workflow.

NX9 Win8.1 64bit i7-3770K 16GB Quadro2000

 

[JohnRBaker]

To help automate this process, you can go to...

Customer Default -> Assemblies -> Site Standards -> Reference Sets

...and in the area labeled 'Contents', toggle ON the 'Solids Priority' option and toggle OFF the 'Add Components Automatically' option.

This way, sheet bodies will automatically NOT be included in the 'Model' Reference Set unless there are NO solid bodies in the model. Also, it's recommended that you NOT include any Components in a 'Model' Reference Set. If you make these changes to Customer Defaults then your workflow should be much more 'automated' in the sense that the downstream applications and functions will behave more consistently as well as in line with the way they were designed to behave in the first place.

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

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

 

[CNSZU]

Thanks, that setting is just what I was looking for (but never knew)! I often use the MODEL reference set in assemblies because it hides all the sketches and datums and stuff, but eliminating the sheet bodies as well is going to make my life so much easier. A nice Christmas present!

NX9 Win8.1 64bit i7-3770K 16GB Quadro2000