V14.1 Platinum 3D constraint orientation

James Matthew

When using the distance 3D constraint, I seem to have no control over which side of a face that I am constraining to.  Most of my assembly modeling experience has been with Pro/ENGINEER; with that, I think that there was a "flip" option or I was able to enter either positive or negative distance values.  Neither option is available in BricsCAD (that I am aware of).

My work-around now is to do a 3D Rotate if my component does not place as intended.  I think that there must be an easier method that I am unaware of - maybe the order in which the surfaces are selected.

Is there a more reliable way to do this?

Jason Bourhill

When you hover over the object you want to select, try pressing the TAB key. This will cycle through the available faces, edges etc. under your mouse.

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

James Matthew

Thank you for the response, but I didn't explain this correctly.

It's not that I am selecting the wrong faces, it is how the two faces are oriented to each other.  Going back to the Pro/ENGINEER analogy, there were two options for a coincident or distance constraint: Mate or Align.  When using Mate, the two selected surfaces would face each other.  When using Align, the two surfaces would be aligned but facing in the same direction.

I am accomplishing this currently by 3D rotating a component if it doesn't place as I intended but it seems that there must be a better way within the constraint operation.

Jason Bourhill

Hi James,

At this point the tools available in BricsCAD aren't as mature as you would find in applications such as Pro/E. What this means that you may need to perform multiple commands to achieve the same thing.

To achieve a Mate or Align, you might use coincident first, then use the _MIRROR command to flip the object to the correct orientation. Or use the _ALIGN command to roughly orientate the object first, then apply your constraints. Same story for offset mate and alignments. It's possible, but requires more than one command to achieve.

There where some videos demonstrating 3D constraints on youtube, but Bricsys have taken them down. Hopefully these will soon re-appear on the bricsys.tv site.

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

James Matthew

Jason,

Thank you for the response.  I agree that it is unfair to compare BricsCAD to software costing four times as much; I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't overlooking something.