Robert Andersson

Maybe it could help if the 10 View icons shows the actuall part rahter than symbols like today. Or the "Current Front View Direction" window could be larger. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

One of my favorites is T for trim and E for extend a line in crossection. Often you want to switsh between the two button Extend line and Trim line, and a shortcut key makes this much smother. Other shortcut keys I use is: -S for hide/ show scenebrowser -A for move anchorpoint If you work with animations/ renderings it can be a good idea to hide// show cameras and lights with shortcuts. It is all done under Tools/ Customize/ Keybord IronCAD then shows your asigned shortcuts keys in the menus and as a tooltip over your button. It can still be a good idea to print down what you assign. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

IronCAD does not support XP home. I dont now if that may cause the memory problems. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

You can also SHIFT select several negative intellishapes and drag them all at once to a catalog. No blends or chamfers can be included in the selection do. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

Another metod is this: -Create a part with the shape and dimensions of the "Hole" that you want. -Make it REMOVE material as operation. -Make a boolean with the part and a simple block -Then select the "hole" shape at intellishape level, -drag to a catalog. This shape will cut trough any part, and it can have any shape. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

If you end up with a C: drive that is close to be full, you can change the location of "My documents" In Windows XP: Place a new hardrive in the PC. Then, in Windows explorer: Rightmouse "My documents" select Properties. Then brows to your new drive. This will give you more room on C: without reinstalling Windows. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

Tom, You cant animate transparancy (or colors and textures) in IronCAD directly. But you can do like this: -Create one animation with solid color and export color.avi -Change the parts transparancy and export the same animation to transparancy.avi -Use a animation editor and place the two anims in top of eachother.They should run at the same time. Then make the first slowly to be replaced by the second animation, over time. A great animation editor is Adobe Premiere. There is also a Adobe Premiere light edition that often is bundled with hardware (like Sony Vaio notebook.) -Also Quicktime can import imageseries. And export .MOV and perhaps AVI. In Windows XP there is a editor included as Cary mentioned. I think there is a uppgraded version to get from microsoft.com where more tools apear. To export an animation as a serie of still images, just do File/ Export/ Animation/ change filetype to PNG or TIF. If you use TIF dont forget to set nr of colors to 24 bit, wich you do under the button "Options" in the export dialog. IronCAD will add a serie of names to the imagefiles automaticly. Remember you can also animate Intellishapes (also negative) ,spotlights and cameras. Also, check you number of frames per second. 25 will be flicker free. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

And as one part: Robert Andersson Solidmakarna sheetMetcorner_2.ics

Trying again with the scene Robert Andersson Solidmakarna sheetMetcorner_1.ics

You may want to use this metod:See attatched .ics The scene with two sheetmetal parts: Robert Andersson Solidmakarna sheetMetcorner_1.ics

After founding a tip from Tom I run in to this viewer: http://www.modelpress.com/ You will need both the viewer and the publisher. Export from IronCAD and import to the publisher. Then export a file in a special, compact format. That format can be viewed in the viewer. Free of charge! Even have sectioning and mesuring. Dont forget to vote for naitive ICS support on modelpress website One advantage over a ICS viewer is that you dont risk to loose your sharp CAD data wich you do if you distribute your ICS files. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

ALT 0216 for Ø Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

If you are working with a part for a long time and you have done a lot of importing and boolean and maybe cutted the part with imported IGES surfaces, you might feel performance slowing. One solution that can fit in some cases is: -Use the Autofeature to create a surface shape. While the shape is selected with the Autofeature command, rightmouse and use "Create Surface Shape". IronCAD will now create a new part that only consist of the surfacedata of the first part. As it is closed volume, you can still perform solidmodelling commands on it. This new part is much smaller in filesize and faster to work on. To use the Autofeature tool, simply change the selectionfilter from ANY to "Faces by Autofeature" Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

If you dont have an image in .BMP format you can do this: -In IronCAD 2D, Create/ Objekt / New/ Bitmapp -OK MS Paint should start upp with a white background. Go to meny Edit and select "Paste from". Now you can browse to your JPG, TIF, PNG, ICO imagefile. Paint will insert your image. To go back to IC: - Menu File/ End Notes: BMP is the mosts OLE compatible format but it is large so it can be a good idea to keep down imagesize. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

IronCAD have a tool called Autofeture that can be useful in same cases if you are in to plastic. When the selectionfilter is set to Autofeature IronCAD recognice closed islands. Useful when it is hard to select in other ways. Example is shelled parts. Note that it have to be an island. Sometimes you may need to cut of any bridges. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna autofeature.gif

-There are TWO Hammericons. For this to work, use the Hammericon with small green/ red colors. -This tool is pretty upgrade safe. So if you upgrade your IronPRO to a newer version, it should retain your catalog sets. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

Robert Andersson Solidmakarna sneakInovate2D.gif

In Inovate you can create a simple "fake" 2D drawing with this tecnique. Se the attatched scene. Combine this with maybe black colorschema on smartdims. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna Sneak 2D in Inovate.ics

Look inside this attatched scene and look at the cameras. Play the anim. One of the cameras have a path setting called "Orientation" Right mouse a camera path to go to this dialog: Robert Andersson Solidmakarna alongPathDump2.gif alongPathDump.gif Anim Along path.ics

Those scenes can be used as templates for creating fast animations. Open and Save as Template. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna AnimScene2.ics AnimScene3.ics

This is a very powerful feature that can be activated in the fullversion of IronPRO. Once setup is done, it is easy to switch catalogsets very fast. Better than existing catalogsets in IC is the number of clicks and that this tool closes all already opened catalogs before applying the catalog set. If you are working a lot with catalog (and it is often reason to do that), using this tool you will have smother workflow. Activation: First, see to that you have a late version of IronPRO Go to Tools Customize Change "2D Constraints" to "Tools" in the dropdown. Drag the hammer icon to a toolbar of choise. Close dialog. Click on the new Hammericon Select the option ProCatalogSet from the dialog checkbox Ok A new toolbar is shown. You can go on customize and drag the second icon to a standardtoolbar of choice. The Dropdown dialog is pretty self explaining. The first trick is to put in a name of the first set and the hit Add button. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna DropDownCatalogsSet.gif

This should work without any mayor problems... If you can give us a example, please attatch the 2D drawing and the scenes that the 2D drawing are showing. (Dont forget any linked files) Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

Maybee IronCAD should ask the user "Click to place general view!" instead of just placing it. Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

Dave, I'm glad to help. The Surpress manager is included in a toolbox called "IronPRO" That is not included default in the IronCAD package. It is an extra cost. Ask you local IronCAD channel partner or go to www.ironcad.it This company is the developer of the IronPRO product. IronCAD does include a kind of "Light" version of IronPRO here: C:\Program files\IronCAD\IRONCAD6\IRONPRO\Catalogs Robert Andersson Solidmakarna

Robert Andersson Solidmakarna