don_temple

While I understand Booleans can be very CPU intensive, a major benefit of CAD design is modeling your product once and using that model for downstream design and production. Using Booleans is often the only practical way to carry a design through the CAE pipeline. To be truly efficient CAD programs must allow re-use of models for many operations and the shapes must remain associated and editable. Given the current implementation of Boolean tools in IronCad its easy to see why we're so stuck on this issue. The "Set part operation" and "Perform Boolean" strategy is easy for novices to follow but it prevents advanced users from using models in the many ways they need to be used in tool and production design and it forces us to break associativity with our parent models. There was a poll a while back about a new feature for version 7 that seemed to allow Booleans with linked solids. Is that functionality in our future? Product & injection mold design. www.QuickCAD.biz

Thanks for the tips. I downloaded the Rhino demo and will give it a try. BTW, I think I figured out a way to model the knurl in IC (although very labor intensive). Use an H-Block to section the profile at the desired increments, use sketch to capture the resultant profile curves, convert the sketch to 3D line, and use that as a path to sweep the angled cuts. Would it work? Product & injection mold design. www.QuickCAD.biz

That's a great help for cavity / core separation. Thanks Robert Product & injection mold design. www.QuickCAD.biz

Does anyone know if Rhino can do this? Is anyone using Rhino / IronCAD integration for consumer product design or other complex contours? Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

Hello, Does IronCAD have a tool that can project a texture or 2D path to a 3D contoured surface? I need to model a knurled texture much like this handgun handle on a consumer product. http://makarov.com/graphics/Russian_military_Makarov_small.jpg I imagine a CNC program could do this with a command like "Project 2D profile to 3D surface" and then a 90deg or 120deg included angle cutter could trace over the 3D contour curves to cut the knurl to a consistant depth. Is there a way to achieve the same result in IronCAD? Thanks, Don Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

While the associativity between line endpoints and fillet radii is sort of neat in IronCAD, the 3D curve tool is a sort of limited and cumbersome solution to a simple need. Sometimes you just need wireframe. Some simple commands like points in space, lines, arcs, and the means to trim, extend and fillet them would be nice. Is there any chance a wireframe catalog could be added? Ooh, I'm getting some ideas how this could work. First, in addition to Sketch type entities we would need a "3D sketch" entity into which we could drop: Points that snap onto existing wireframe geometry or pop up a coordinate input box. Lines with endpoints that snap or are dragable in space or popup a coordinate box. Someone else on the board suggested a 3D sketch cube so we could manipulate the wireframe as it is projected onto orthagonal planes. Dropping in a fillet would be a no brainer. Does anyone else ever wish they had some wireframe? Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

ATI FireGL X1 128 I recently upgraded from an AI gamer card to the FireGL X1. It is deffenitly an improvement. System stability seems to be better but part edges and hidden edges still disappear durring part rotation and realistic rendering still takes the same amount of time. SpaceBalling in drafting is still jumpy and in modeling there is a greter tendancy for the renderer to flash to wireframe when I begin a rotation, then it renders the faces as it should. Also the X1 allows me to zoom in closer than the gamer card in modeling but zooming in too close still causes the model to "flip inside out", if it has happened to you you know what I mean. If anyone can suggest settings that will improve the card's performance I'm all ears. Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

Thanks for the tips, On the surface smoothness setting, My computer is having trouble with settings over 75. The error says something about reducing the number of facets. Do you think the error is caused by small features in my design (several .020 radii) or does the video card (mine needs upgrading) play a role in creating those facets? Thanks, Don Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

Is there a way to set tolerances and other parameters for STL / SLA export? Also if anyone has helpful tips for exporting to IGES I would be very grateful. (I know Parasolid, ACIS or STEP would be infinitely better but somehow the other party can't read them. Unbelievable huh?) Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

I've made some headway with Robert's procedure above but I think I'm having trouble creating a pixel density that IC likes. I've tried source files from 72 to 600 dpi and no matter what size block I apply them to the image either looks squished down (in a messy, all balck pixels bluring into each other way) or stretched out so there are white pixels filling in the gaps between balck pixels that have been stretched too far. It seems like a target pixel density would help to really lay the decal on the surface at a 1:1 ratio. Does the IC rendering engine want to see 72 pixels per inch (so a 1x2" block will accomodate a 72x144 pixel decal at a visually crisp and accurate 1:1 ratio) or should we use 150, 300, 600 pixels per inch? Or should we do something with the block to work better with the image on a 1:1 "crisp as Photoshop" basis? Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

Is there an experienced progressive die designer in the crowd? Please let me know what your turn around time and rate would be for a run of the mill, not too big, not too small progressive die design. (the size of the parts is such that the design should be doable in 2 weeks or less) Deliverables would be native, current version IronCAD scene and drawing files. You can reach me directly at don@qkdraw.com Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

I'm running v6.2 on a p4 with 1gig ram and occasionally getting the "your computer is running low on memory" notice. Task manager reports memory usage at less than 300mb. What do you think is going wrong? Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

Where is the command for insert spreadsheet? Is it working better in v6.2 or should I not get my hopes up? Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

I also direct my clients to the Cortona viewer at http://www.parallelgraphics.com/ but don't use the automatic install. Download it manually and use the"CAD like" skin for simple, familiar navigation of your model. (the active-x install lacks the CAD skin) Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

Gig of RAM! I had 512 and that always sounded like enough but with 512 sticks under $100 now I decided to add another. What an improvement, saving is faster, face modeling is faster, task manager even reports less CPU utilization. I don't know how that happened but I like it. Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

Mike, Thanks for suggesting that the spaceball controls the camera in drafting. The drawing behavior makes a lot more sense now, thinking of it from the camera's POV but I just can't get used to it. I also cast a vote for changing the drawing behavior to match the spaceball functionality in modeling, move the drawing, not the camera. Also it seems like the sheet behavior is bound in some way to the sheet edge. I see how keeps you on the page but its confusing to be zooming out and all of a sudden there's panning you don't expect. Also when the whole sheet fits within the viewport you can't pan. I see the logic in this sort of "assist" but in practice it diminishes the simple intuitiveness of the spaceball. Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

If upgrading should I consider one of the new 64 bit chips from AMD? Will IC perfomance increase with a 64 bit chip? Will future IC versions utilize 64 bits or will IC be a 32 bit program for the foreseeable future? Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz

Thank goodness for SpaceBall implimentation in IC. Now it really is the fasetet, easiest program I have ever used. Is the space ball's function in drafting the same as other programs in this range? The only other program I have used a SpaceBall with is UG and its performance in UG drafting is much more intuitive. The sheet essentially behaves like a model but with rotations disabled (push away, pull closer, pull up moves the drawing up, left or right push to pan). Is anyone else having trouble with the SpaceBall in drafting mode? Any suggestions? Injection mold, jig and fixture design. www.QuickCAD.biz