Mike Allen

I always use Create>Object...>Create New (Microsoft Photo Editor.) You open the desired file and File>Exit from Photo Editor to return to IronCAD. "Create from File" doesn't work with JPEG & TIFF (you just get an icon.)

You can drag the shape into a catalog, then drag it onto a new part. I always make sure that the anchor for the shape is in a convenient place for positioning it (the center of a curve, an endpoint, or a midpoint, for example) before I drag it into a catalog.

It appears to be something to do with your drawing template. I had no problem exporting views from the "Blank Drawing" default template, although I got the same errors as you when I opened your original drawing and tried to export. You might try creating a new drawing template, starting with the "Blank Drawing" to make sure that you aren't carrying anything over that will cause problems.

How does IronCAD determine where to place a new General View in a drawing? After being frustrated for years at finding new views always seeming to come in on top of existing views, I finally took the time to find out if there is a pattern to the creation of General Views. It seems that they always appear at one of 5 positions on a given page size. (The attached picture shows an 8.5" x 11" sheet.) The first view always comes in at the middle of the sheet, with views 2, 3 & 4 increasingly close to the left edge. View #5 is located directly above view 4. Every view after 5 is in the same place as #5. I don't believe that I've ever had a new view come in on the right side or below the center of the sheet. Viewtest.gif

If you use a configuration to isolate your part, you may find it faster to create the new configuration before you suppress the other parts. That way the parts in your Default configuration remain unsuppressed. In the Configuration Properties, you will most likely want to check the first box (new parts added to other configurations won't show up in this configuration) and the third box (Configuration stores position of Parts/Assemblies.) The second box controls suppression of Intellishapes, such as holes, that you might want to show in the new configuration but suppress in the Default configuration (or the other way around.)

Thanks Chris!

id=quote> I must be missing something here. I can't quite figure out what to click to assign the IronCAD_Ext_Att1 attribute to the assembly components.

I can see two ways: 1) Select Sweep Surface, choose "Fixed" for the type and "2" for the number of sections. Turn "Select Smoothly Connected Edges" on and select the long curve as the guide curve. Turn the smoothly connected option off and select the two edges coming off the guide curve. -or- 2) Select Sweep Surface and choose "Two Guides" for the type. Turn off the smoothly connected option and select each of the short sections coming off the long curve as the guides (pay attention to the path direction - switch as necessary), then turn the smoothly connected option back on and select the long curve.

This is very cool! Thanks Tom, for the tip on using 3D curves - a very good real-world example.

I've seen it a few times. In the past, I've spent the better part of a day trying to create a part that doesn't generate this error (one part in particular had a perimeter made up of trimmed ellipses with holes in the center - never did get it quite right.) It seems to be associated with odd curves - sections of ellipses and splines. You're right that it can be extremely bad news when you see this error!

This is very cool! I notice that until you relock the dimension, the individual holes will still move relative to each other, but moving one of the parts (with zero distance) will snap the holes back together (to the position of the moved hole.) By the way, what codec are you using for the avi? I can't get it to play (Microsoft can't find the correct codec.)

It sounds sort of buggy to me, but I'm having trouble visualizing what you are describing. Why don't you post an example to the group?

SmartPaint the FACES of the splitting part the color that you want the resulting faces to be.

Nice! Very simple to do - no constraints necessary. I like it!

If you accidentally click on the wrong edge/face when using the Project 3D Edges tool, use DELETE rather than UNDO. This keeps the tool active so you can pick again.

One of my favorite time savers is to turn off the TriBall by selecting another part/assembly in the scene browser. That got me to thinking about which other actions will automatically cancel the TriBall (thus saving a precious keystroke.) Here's a quick list: - Activate any create/modify/dimension tool - Activate the eyedropper - Activate the scene properties dialog box - Change scene properties (show/hide cameras, show/hide lights, etc.) - Toggle perspective (perspective is the only camera tool that affects the TriBall.) - Click anywhere in the scene browser I don't include Esc, since it replaces a keystroke with a keystroke (actually "Click anywhere in the scene browser" is a similar situation, but if my pointer happens to be there, I figure a click is slightly faster than a keystroke.)

IronPRO - it's in ..\IronCAD\IronCAD6\IronPRO\Catalogs.

That works - thanks!

I'm trying to animate a camera revolving around a central object (counter-clockwise), always pointing at the object. When I get half-way around the circle, the camera does a clockwise spin. Is there any way to keep the camera focused on a point? Or at least, is there any way to insure that the camera turns the shortest distance between keyframes? Camera-circle.ics

Is there a difference between positioning the walkthrough camera with the TriBall and just looking through it and orienting it using pan, orbit, dolly, etc? Also, is there a way to look through the walkthrough camera at each keyframe?

I haven't been seeing those messages about another user having the catalog file open since we installed PU1. I had a user drag a part into a catalog that he had write-permission for, but told him not to save the catalog. Then I went to another machine and had no trouble accessing the catalog, I just couldn't see the new part (since the catalog wasn't saved.) Then I had him right-click a part in the catalog and select "Edit catalog item" and while he was editing, I still had no problem accessing the catalog on another machine. So aside from having to be the first one to click the catalog tab in order to make modifications to that catalog, everyone here has been pretty happy with the new catalog behavior. I just had everyone turn on the tab colors so there would be no surprises. If we absolutely have to share a part right this second, we can put it in a scene where everyone can find it. Worst case - I have to wait until people start shutting down for the day to get write-access to the most used catalogs. But read-access seems to be constant for all users with all catalogs now.

I have noticed that we no longer have the problem of accidental catalog edits! Dragging a part into a catalog (whether or not you have write-access) or even editing a catalog part no longer locks everyone else out. The down side is that if you need to save a part to a catalog, you have to be the first one to access that catalog. I can see that I'm going to have to plan ahead when I need to add parts (I actually came in today and clicked all of the tabs and got write-access to most of our catalogs, even though I wasn't the first one in to work.) Don't believe the colors that the tabs show when you start IronCAD. You have to actually click a tab before the program evaluates whether or not the catalog is read-only (unless the catalog file actually has the read-only attribute set.) I think that this is quite an improvement. The missing piece for me was knowing what triggered the read-only status for user catalogs.

I think that if you know what height you want, then the method that Cary described works pretty well. Select "Distance from Point" from the right-click menu and click a point on the bottom edge. This effectively resets the extrude height to zero. It does require one extra click of the mouse, which over the course of a day might add 30 seconds to my total CAD time. I'm willing to go with the IronDudes on this, because I think they have plans to make our lives easier in the long run. Right now, it's a partially implemented feature, so I look at it as a small detour while the road crew builds a bypass that will shorten my commute.

OK, I can live with that. The most difficult thing about new features is figuring out their implications. It can sometimes lead to a high level of frustration until everyone changes their work habits to accommodate the new feature. I really appreciate the value of this forum to quickly get answers on stuff like this. Thanks!

Prior to PU1, "Edit distance" on an extruded shape used to have a default value of the current extrude height. Now it reads 0. So if I want to know the current height, I have to go to Intellishape Properties and click the Sizebox tab. I can see that this makes the interface the same as Sheetmetal, but I'm not sure that's such a good thing. If I want to set the height of a shape to 23", I have to go to the Sizebox tab, rather than just right-clicking the handle and entering 23. Is there a setting that I'm missing that controls this behavior?