Steve Cole Posted July 20, 2002 Share Posted July 20, 2002 If you have read my other posts you'll know that I'm an Mechanical Destop user migtating to Ironcad. Heres a trick that I've used in MDT regarding printed circuit card layouts that I would like to know if there is an Ironcad method to do the same I have a 3D model of your standard circuit card substrate with all the typical mecahnical components on it such as indicators, switches and interconnects. All the items important to me becaust they interfance a panel or plastic housing. The elctronic component placement is typically decided on between the pc designer and the electrical engineer. When the card is layed out the circuit card designer outputs a DXF file of the traces and silkscreen for me. I can take this DXF file, insert it as an Autocad block into my 3D model drawing and place it on my 3D pc card. My card now appears to have traces on it. I can now place 3D models of the electrical components on the card using the silkscreen as snap targets for the components. Why is this important? If I have two pc cards with the component sides facing each other I can now do an interferance analysis to determine if any of the electronic components crash into each other. Is there a way that Ironcad allow me to paste a 2D drawing into my 3D model. Texturing the substrate with a bit map of the silkscreen and traces is useless to me since what I am lookin for is exact snap targets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest IronKevin Posted July 20, 2002 Share Posted July 20, 2002 Use the Insert 2D Shape command, click the face on the 3D model, then right click the grid and choose Import. That will allow you to place DWG or DXF file in a 2D Shape on the 3D model. You can then snap to points in the 2D geometry. IronKevin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest svangeldern Posted July 20, 2002 Share Posted July 20, 2002 Steve, Let us know if this works for you. We don't do PCB here but it sounds like a neat function that we could maybe apply to non-PCB applications. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tlehnhaeuser Posted July 21, 2002 Share Posted July 21, 2002 We have done this routinely and it works great. You can also use copies of the 2D shape with the imported AC data and create 3D parts from it. This works great for Electro-Mechanical companies using IronCAD/Inovate. A nice TIP is you can change your background color to green with the 2D dxf/dwg file and export image to use as a decal on the actual PCB outline 3D model for outstanding realism. I think also there is a program under "Custom Stuff" that will generate the 3D files directly from .brd and .idf files from the PC Design app. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted July 22, 2002 Share Posted July 22, 2002 check out what dave lalonde posted down in this post http://www.ironcad.com/support/community/index.php?showtopic=360 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tlehnhaeuser Posted July 24, 2002 Share Posted July 24, 2002 Steve, Heres an old topic with an image as I discrobed..Tom http://www.ironcad.com/support/community/index.php?showtopic=1869 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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