Wave Link Transperency problem

[antonynealrobinson]

Hi,

I'm creating a cylinder block using 16 core parts which are wave linked to the main cast part.

For the cores that create the outer walls I have made the colours of the bodies 50% transparent.

When the wave links are updated in the cast part the new geometry only comes in as 100% opaque.

I then have to manually change the affected faces back to 50% transparent again.

At the moment I've half resolved this by creating a macro that changes all of a certain colour back to 50% transparent.

I have the following options:

Prefs, modeling - boolean faces from tool body & linked geometry from parent object.

Also in each wave link feature I have turned on the option to use the colours of the parent body.

So my question is are there any other settings to stop NX changing the transparency of wave link bodies?

 

[JohnRBaker]

Have you ever gone to...

Preferences -> Modeling -> General

...and played with the 'Exacted and Linked Geometry From' settings in the section of the dialog titled 'Display Properties for New Geometr'? Note that these settings need to set BEFORE you start to create your 16 WAVE linked 'core parts'. If you use the 'Parent Object' option then you have to assign the desired final colors and transparency levels to the original model(s) that the WAVE linked parts are coming from. However, if you use the 'Part Default' setting, then you will need to go to...

Preferences -> Object -> General

...and set the desired color and Translucency for Solid Bodies.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[antonynealrobinson]

Hi John,

Yep I've investigated these two settings for a number of months now.

It's been a while but I think the wave links were created before I finally settled on the correct colours & transparency.

One problem I have found with NX is that the colour object setting seems to reset itself in every session. It means that new bits of geometry sometimes have a mixture of clear and solid appearance due to not remembering to change the object colour transparency setting to 50%

Ant

 

[JohnRBaker]

Those settings are PER PART FILE. Meaning that when you create a new file, that file inherits what Customer Defaults were set as, not the last time you messed with the Preference settings. If you've set up a modeling template file, you need to open it and set these preferences and save the file. Now be warned, this could effect more than just the WAVE linked bodies so be careful, it might be better to just write a macro (Preferences -> Object does not support Journalization) and just play it whenever you wish to see this behavior in the part file that you're working on.

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.

 

[antonynealrobinson]

John,

Whilst on the topic of wavelinks do you know if it possible to stop a part being a linked part. I want to turn it back into a normal part but still keep all the wavelinks that are in it so far.

Reason is that I've done the following:

Created a skeleton
right clicked on skel, wave-create linked part
In new part, grouped all the features from the skel & called it links. Created another group with all redudndant wavelink features suppressed.
continued to model the part using the wavelinks as references

When I add new features to the skeleton, the link part updates and includes the new features automatically although this works great for my final machined part I am now finding that some of my smaller cores could do with just having a few wave links in it.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Well you can select any WAVE-linked object, press MB3, select 'Edit Parameters' and when the dialog appears, toggle OFF the 'Associative' option. Now the object will remain a 'feature' just that it will no longer be linked to it's parent and it's status will be listed as a 'Broken' link. This means that it will no longer update even if its parent is modified. Note that later on, if you'd like to reestablish the link, or even link this feature to a different parent, you can simply edit it again, toggle on the Associative option (if you want it to an active link) and select a new 'parent' object, or you could leave the 'Associative' option OFF and it would simply update this one time based on the new 'parent' object. These unlinked feature would remain as WAVE-linked objects just without 'parents' so they will never update unless re-parented at some leter date.

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.

 

[antonynealrobinson]

John

I still want the wave link parts to be associative as they are already.

I just want to stop the part acting as a linked part where it automatically includes new features added in the skeleton part.

Antony