Depicting welds

Joe Dunfee

 I have used SolidWorks in the past, and liked its cosmetic welds feature.  I am now on a project where I would like to depict welds, and am considering adding simple arcs to depict them.  Attached is an image of what I am considering.

In this case, I am avoiding drawing a lot of arcs. The reason is that with v14 of BricsCAD, you cannot turn off selection of objects that are hidden.  Thus, if I have a lot of arcs, those endpoints and centers are all going to make it impossible to select my intended target in the main assembly.

I suppose another approach might be to model the weld as a solid.  But, then I can no longer use legacy hidden, since it always depicts curved surfaces as a densely faceted object, and thus you end up with a drawing that shows curved surfaces as a black area.

Any thoughts, or ideas on this?

-Joe

Roy Klein Gebbinck

Here is one idea:

See attached image.

Create a block out of two arcs (on a non-plot 'Help' layer) and a number of dotted lines between those arcs (on a 'Symbol' layer). In the blockdefinition on the image there are 10 lines. But the number of lines has to be dialled-in so that on print the apparent dotted arcs seem continuous. By changing linetype scale of the lines you can change the number of arcs. It is important that the X size of the block is exactly 1 drawing unit. And when inserting the block you should use the 'XYZ' option. For the X scale you click the endpoint of the weld and the Y and Z scales should be 1.

When you are working on your model the 'Symbol' layer can be switched off, avoiding the problem of accidental selection. Because the 'Help' layer stays visible, you can still see where you have inserted the block. When you are ready to print you have to remember to switch the 'Symbol' layer back on.

Note: Because of all the dots a PDF created from the drawing will probably have a larger file size.

WeldSymbol.png

Joe Dunfee

 Thanks for the ideas,  That is a very interesting approach to making a series of arcs that automatically adjust to the length of the weld, but doesn't make the file size larger, even for long welds.  

In my case, the PDFs may not change file size much, since I use a rendered views   So, the viewports are pixelated anyway and create very large file sizes. ( I do wish there were a way to get a vector output that was better than the "legacy hidden" option)

-Joe