Mike Allen

We haven't had any problems, but I tend to open the DXF in AutoCAD first, to make sure that the CNC programmer is getting exactly what I intend to send. I start from a new Blank drawing in IronCAD. When I open the DXF in AutoCAD, I change all line properties to "By Layer", move everything to the 0 layer & Purge All a couple of times to remove unused layers, etc. This gives me zero-width lines and assures that the file is at its most basic state. The extra steps may not be necessary, depending on your CNC software, but I like the extra control of being able to check the output. -Mike

Hi Robert, You could go to the assembly scene, select each part & "Save As Part/Assembly" to create new linked part files. Or, you could try making a catalog with links to your part files, as discussed in this topic: http://www.ironcad.com/support/community/i...?showtopic=2531 Then Ctrl-drag parts from the catalog onto the assembly parts. This would have the benefit of automatically positioning the parts, although it may take just as long to rebuild the assembly directly from the part files. Saving new linked files from the assembly would probably be the fastest route. -Mike

This works perfectly! Until I made the mistake of rebooting & opening Outlook - which promptly reclaimed the file type. Then I looked at Outlook's Tools>Options & thought I had the answer: So I unchecked the box, closed Outlook and all other applications, opened Windows Explorer & changed the file type for .ics back to IronCAD (by deleting & adding it back in.) Unfortunately, Outlook is a Microsoft product & Microsoft knows better than us - so as soon as I opened Outlook again, it reclaimed the file type (certainly for my own good.) The funny thing is that before I tried another round with the ics file type today, my only issue was that double-clicking an IronCAD scene always opened another instance of IronCAD. Now, I can only seem to fix it between sessions of Outlook.

Has anyone else noticed that occasionally, when you start dragging the TriBall for a rotation, it gives a negative value? Normally, if you start a rotation, it is positive (no matter which direction you start to rotate) - but if you then rotate in the opposite direction, you will pass zero & the values will become negative. However, since sometime after installing IronCAD 7 (maybe after PU1), the initial rotation direction will be negative on occasion. It will happen several times this way & then go back to the normal behavior. Anyone else notice this? -Mike

If you don't physically rotate the part when you are looking at it (orbit the camera instead), it won't affect your General Views. Selecting "From Scene" gives you the camera orientation in the scene at that momemt, but if you move the camera later, it won't affect existing drawing views when you update them. The view will only change if you physically rotate the part. We use General Views with the "From Scene" option all the time because it is usually easier to get a decent camera angle directly in the scene, rather than using the orientation tools in the General View dialog box. One tip we have learned is to use the Walk Camera tool to click once in the scene to straighten the vertical edges after orbiting the camera.

You can create a multi-page pdf (in Windows Explorer, right-click the drawing file and select "Export to ....pdf". Then you can print the pdf. Otherwise, there is currently no way to print multiple sheets in a drawing.

We have done this with some extemely complicated assemblies & it has worked perfectly. We put all the .prt & .asm files in the same place, then imported the main .asm file into IronCAD. I set my kernel to Parasolid before importing the files & it works without a hitch. You will be limited to face-edge modifications for existing features, but when I used this to move a hole in front of one of our Pro-E users, it blew him away. We haven't tried .g or .neu files, so I don't have any advice for you. Good luck!

I can see that it would be very useful to be able to change the distance in this situation. Suppose you want to move a part on a vector between point A & point B, but it needs to be 2 inches offset from point B. So you select the part at point A, right click the center handle of the TriBall, choose To Point, right-click at point B, select Move Here & subtract 2 from the distance value.

Tom, are you creating a new window, like Robert, or are you doing a split screen? A new window shares the same camera as the original window, so it rotates in sync (which is why you need to create a new camera.) A split screen will automatically create a new camera based on the current camera, so it will start with the same view, but will rotate independently.

I'm currently working on an assembly (34MB) with 2,989 parts (no external links, but many of the parts are linked internally). Many of the parts are quite complex - multi-shape parts that have been combined into a single shape. It's a bit slow to save (5-10 minutes), but workable. I'm using a Dell GX270, 3GHz processor, 3GB RAM & a nVidia Quadro FX500 video card.

Our normal drawing file sizes range between 25MB and 200MB (lots of photos and other OLEs) so you may need to try with bigger files.

I have, on rare occasion, also seen this. The other day, it happened to me for the first time in months. I was opening multiple drawings and quickly paging through the sheets to see what was on them. When I got to the 4th or 5th drawing (without closing any of the previous drawings), the title bar started flashing (and also the drive light on my computer.) After a while, I got a message that said something like "Error opening file", with about 100 more behind it, followed by a message that just said "Internal Application Error" (with another 100 behind it) and then IronCAD went away. There was no error log created & I pretty much put it down to my abuse of the program, since it's not a thing that happens more than once or twice a year. By the way, my machine has 3GB of RAM. This time the crash happened in WindowsXP, but the last time it happened, I had a Win2000 box.

Cary's right. Photoshop is the way to go. Try opening the image in Photoshop and selecting File>Save for Web. There, you can change the image to a GIF, select the number of colors (2-256) & set the transparent color.

We are using Dell GX270 (3GHz processor, 112GB hard drive), with 3GB RAM and Quadro FX500 (128 MB) video card. The system performs quite well - just don't try to use the nView Desktop Manager, as it will severely degrade IronCAD's performance.

We are using a Canon ColorPASS-Z400e (Graphics 1120) that works reasonably well. We lease it, which is good, since we have to call for service about once or twice a month. The best results come with the most expensive paper - which, if you use it, will cut down drastically on the service calls. The printing speed is excellent and the color is extremely good. Better paper definitely leads to better print quality, so whatever printer you get, be sure to feed it with good paper.

I'd just like to confirm for everyone that Steve is a thoughtful guy, who is giving IronCAD a fair shake, even when it frustrates him. The point is well-taken that sometimes constraints can be immensely useful in part design. I also know that the more we use IronCAD, the less we tend to see a need for constraints. The beauty of the program is that it allows for fully constrained sketches, parts & assemblies - but never requires them. The task of easily selecting parts to be moved as a group can be extremely complex & have many solutions - but I think in Steve's & my case, the Box Select tool provides the best solution, since it works across assemblies to select parts based on their location in space. If the same set of parts needs to be selected more than once, we also have a Group command (in the Shape menu) - although it doesn't work across assemblies, so some prior planning is involved in using it effectively. Part of the issue here, is knowing how a model will react in any particular situation. Whether you work with or without constraints, you tend to become reliant on your model behaving in a certain way. Since I almost never use constraints, I take that into consideration when manipulating parts - and almost always can make it work to my advantage. When I am working with a model that was designed with constraints, I also try to use that to my advantage - although constraints, by their very nature, allow for extremely limited manipulation. Each situation is what it is - complete freedom of motion or completely constrained motion - both can cause problems, but won't if you know what to expect.

IronCAD must be using a similar scheme - at least to the point of saving small temporary files. The ../Local Settings/Temp directory on the C: drive has many such files that are written by IronCAD & deleted when IronCAD closes (and stay behind when IronCAD crashes.) Any plans in development to use these for file recovery?

Since I installed PU1, I've been getting this message when I use the "Edit View Curves (Style & Layer)" tool. What does it mean?

I don't believe that the print settings have any effect on the Export to PDF tool, since it works outside of IronCAD by clicking the .icd file in Windows Explorer. It seems to ignore the settings for both the PDF Writer & Distiller print drivers, so I assume the tool works regardless of whether Acrobat is installed. The described behavior is how this tool has worked ever since it was introduced in IronCAD 5.5 - rendered views display "OK" in the exported pdf (except that they're at extremely low res - diagonal edges have a pronounced "stair step" appearance), but they often print with a black background, or completely blank. This could be due to the way a particular printer renders the pdf.

I have both Microsoft Photo Editor & Photoshop installed, so I don't know which is the OLE server. My guess is that Photo Editor is the necessary element, even though the Photoshop documentation says that it is also an OLE server. We always needed Photo Editor in the past to insert JPEGs into IronCAD, so I expect that is still the case with the drag-and-drop.

Yes, it's possible to drag a jpeg directly into an IronCAD drawing from Windows explorer (first thing I tried after I installed the update.) You probably have to have at least one program installed on your system that is an OLE server (such as Microsoft Photo Editor or Adobe Photoshop) to make the drag-and-drop work.

View->World Coordinate Axes If you turn the axes off and save the scene as a template, the axes will be off every time you use that template to start a new scene.

In the 2D drawing, the auto-drag box select doesn't work inside of a view boundary, so the hotkey comes in handy there, too.

If you program a hotkey (such as Ctrl+W - for Window) for the Box Select tool, you can immediately drag a selection box, instead of having to select the Select Tool first. Box-Select.gif

Mine says 656 MB. -Mike