Component face references in assembly

I know you can create a part within an asembly and reference faces from other components to aid creating a new part. Is there a way to then break the link from the reference faces without having to redefine the sketch of the new component ?

In Inventor this is called "adaptivity" and you can switch the "adaptivity off once you have referenced the faces etc. Is there a similar tool in ProE WF2 ?

Please let's not start a Inventor Vs ProE debate!

Thanks in advance, HB

Reply to
solid3ddesigns
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No, I don't think there is any other way to do this in Pro/E than to go and redefine the sketch (in Wildfire, right-click on the feature and pick 'Edit Definition' from the RMB menu). Once you are back in the sketch, delete all references to the external geometry and you are done.

As a matter of fact, you can delete the external references right after you have created the sketch, before you even exit the sketcher.

Of course, your new feature will no longer be driven by the external geometry after that.

Reply to
Alex Sh.

To add to what Alex has said and, hopefully, not confuse the issues too much....

There are ways, but differences. The whole philosophy is a bit different.

You'd do well to just "play" with it to get a feel for what's going on. You can project references (Sketch reference collector) and you can project geometry with the Use Edge tool (references are created automatically and can be seen and deleted with the sketch reference collector; Menu: Sketch / References at any time you are in Sketcher mode). You can also delete, trim, extend the "solid" (vs. construction or reference) curves without deleting the reference geometry. Deleting the underlying references will create dimensions and constraints which you can modify or simply "make strong".

Deleting reference geometry is similar to Break Link. There is not really a corollary to turning off Adaptivity. In IV it's recommended to turn Adaptivity off to avoid a performance hit (?) when you aren't actually using it to drive changes. In Pro/E you just leave the references alone and go on about your business unless you decide you don't want changes in the parent to drive the child.

There are a few other differences you might want to get familiar with. If you reference an edge that is later "consumed" by another feature (fillet, chamfer, etc.) the reference remains unaffected (e.g. the child isn't orphaned). If something does become orphaned (the parent is deleted), use the reference collector to delete the reference. You can query dependencies via Info / Parent / Child (handy when you can't remember what's driving what or to get an idea what the ramifications of making a change might be).

I'm not sure I understand the concepts in either program well enough to be really concise about the differences, and, like I said, it would be a good idea to do some experimentation to get a feel for them.

Debate takes two. Ignore what you want. 8~)

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Reply to
Jeff Howard

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