David Thomas

Here is an example, default IC blank drawing size 2k image 7k blank drawing + image 1.8M i tried both methods of import and they result in the same problem template.icd

what's the best way to put the logo in? create->object->create from file

I am creating some new templates for use with version 8.0 PU1 Hotfix#2 and when I add my company logo, a 250kb jpeg, the size of the template file jumps from 90kb to 23Mb! Any ideas how I can keep this size down? And why so big anyway?

aaahhhh, I think the order that you perform thoses steps is important as I had virtually done most of that but it still was'nt playing ball. Ta very much.

How do you link the spin angle of separate parts. That is to say I have a model consiting of ten parts all of which are spin shapes. For various reasons and mainly making some nice picture I wanted to change the revole angle , but at the moment I have to go into each of the intellishapes and set the angle , surely there must be a way to link them all up. I did try to create a parameter and enter this in the angle dialouge box but it wasn't happening.

its starting to look like it , in the meantime my RSI is coming along just nicely

IK yeah thats the idea , aslong as every hole points back to the centre of the sphere were cookin. Carlo, my triball did start life in the centre of the sphere but the step up comand just moves each intellishape in a linear fashion, i.e its not rotaional , ie. copying it around the sphere centre in the second direction.

IK :no, it just happened that one time this morning, now everything is fine. I have just realised that my problem is little bit trickier than the item posted above, my real model is very subtly curved. I need my holes to radiate out from the centre of a sphere essentially, I need helical holes in the manner above but the step up command, rather than be a linear translation, becomes an angular step. It essentiall a spherical pattern that I 'm after except that I don't want a grid of holes just a line. Am I making myself clear? The following image shows the holes radially copied with the step up command, which is not quite what I'm after.

whooaaa, straight after doing that I got a Smart heap library error , complaining about insufficient memory. Then my models disappeared from the screen ! , the scene remained open though.

Cheers ! , that will save me some time.

I exported some iges the other day and it exported all my 900 section tools as surfaces !!!??? . That was really helpful. I could't really suppress them in the original model , so I had to import this iges into Ironcad delete these 'section surfaces' and then re export the model.

How do you pattern/copy , holes around the face of a cylinder in a helical fashion? I have manually copied the holes in the picture but for my real model I have about 50 to do. In the linear copy dialogue box below the number and distance boxes there is an angle box, what does this do, as mine is greyed out.

When dragging a block into the scene , I freely push and pull the size box to match some existing geometry but forget to position the block such that extruded profile is in the right orientation. Is there a feature to redefine the orientation of the profile of the block onto another face, I know its not that great a deal but it would be quite handy. This got me thinking, what if there was a special block such that three of the faces had editable profiles on them and you could control the extruded shape in all three axis of the block. It might be handy , some of the time.......

I create my nice assembly feature that cuts a hole , in several parts at once, I then want to draw a 3d curve around some of the edges, but alas upon selecting the 3d curve tool the effects of the assembly feature dissapear ! Can you do this , I suppose there are many workarounds but is this known about , is it a bug, a plane or our red caped hero....

Having created a loft with 12 profiles in it , naively (how do you spell that word) I consumed my profiles , never to see them again.... The next stage of the design called for modifying the profiles to take into account some new 3d geometry , so I thought easy ! just create a section tool (at the same axial location as the each of the loft profiles) on the new geometry and project the edges onto each of the loft profiles.... hmmm not so. There seems to be no way to snap onto the consumed loft profiles and hence position the section tool. Am I missing something, my work around was to write down each of the loft profiles axial coordinates and then position the section tool to correspond to this. There must be better way.......

ok , imagine two simple blocks in a scene, one is sat ontop of the other. The bottom one has a Ø8 mm hole in it, such that its pointing vertically upwards towards the other block. I use the H Cylinder tool to cut away a new hole in the top block. (so then I could use a bolt to bolt together the two blocks). I use the triball the orientate the H Cylinder, aligned with the existing hole , ok. I then click on the sizebox handle of the H Cylinder to match the size of the existing cylinder, and I click, TO POINT, and pick the existing edge of the hole in the bottom block. But what happens, not a matching of the existing hole, what is meant to happen? It caught me out , because it goes very close, to the existing hole size, ie. it will create a cylinder of 7.97865 mm , not the 8 mm as desired.

Mike How do I make a part into a negative part and make it subtract from another part without doing a boolean operation. Even when you drag a hole pattern out of the catalogue it goes into the part as a shape. I have attached an example. I want to get the shape "subtracting" back out of this part to use elsewhere. Or, for my next drawing, make it subtract from the block without doing the boolean. example.ics

I just tried to drag the shape into a catalog. It won't let me do it though. It seems that you can only drag from the drawing and not the part tree. Subtracting shapes cannot be drilled down to in the drawing so I am unable to drag it into the catalog. Any ideas?

Is it possible to extract a shape back out of a part? For example: You have two blocks in two parts - one part is marked for subtract material Do the boolean so you have one part with two shapes in it. If I have forgotten to make a copy of the subtracting part which I now need to subtract from another part, what can I do? Thanks

We use the Plate-n-sheet development software for all our duct work, very cheap and simple to use, www.plate-n-sheet.com, I think that it sits under the Merrymech software ? One very handy feature is the ability to export 3d dxf surfaces from it, of duct work, so suddenly you have a parametric capability to generate ducts that we often start from and then build upon them in CAD.

Beat Yeah I kinda suspected this, I am so used to positioning and optimizing a 2d profile, then when it is all ok, create the 3d entity. I think that I am used to working differently than the way that Ironcad is setup. Nick

Hello, Thankyou for your replys. Yes dsulli, I am talking about moving 2d sections, I don't think that I made myself too clear though. I've included a jpeg, here's the creative process 1. Create a new 2d section and draw a circle and finish it 2. Create another new 2d sketch but clicking on the original circle such that they lie on the same plane. Draw a rectangle. Finish the sketch. So what we have now are two separate entities on the same plane but are separate sketches. What I want to do, is relate the two of them, i.e. position the circle in some specified point away or connected to the rectangle. Ans. 1. The project 3d edges tool will not pick up another sketch, i.e. while I'am editing the circle you cannot pick the rectangle. 2. The move tool again does not pick up any point on the rectangle while you are editing the circle. 3. The same again with the dimension constraints. 4. I have had some success with the triball, in that rather than editing the circle you pick it and turn on the triball, this does enable you to pick the corners of the rectangle. 5. Picking the circle and then clicking the central drag handle so it turns yellow, and then dragging it to the rectangle does give you some options but they are still limited, the handle snaps to the corners, but you can't snap to the middle point of one of the edges of the rectangle for example. I guess this does kinda solve the problem, I am used to TurboCad (is that considered swearing on this website?) where you only really have one sketch on a plane and you have full interactivity between objects. i.e if I edit the circle and draw a tangent line from it I could just snap onto any point on the rectangle, but you can't do this in Ironcad. Nick

Hello, We have just recently purchased ironcad and are getting to grips with it, slowly! But there is still one point baffling us. How do you relate 2 separate cross sections to one another? i.e. if I create a new 2d cross section of a circle in space somewhere and then finish the shape. I then create a new 2d cross section of a square, how do I then position the square with regards to the circle, I cannot seem to connect the two entities such that they are X mm apart. While you are editing the square you cannot snap to the circle with construction geometry to position it. Nick