Adaptive Parts

S:

SolidWorks has "incontext relations". These are relationships in a sketch or in the definition of a feature that go between parts. Also called "top down". Check out the help.

"Stephen Woolhead" wrote in news:j1v_b.9047883$ snipped-for-privacy@news.easynews.com:

Basically you are talking about top-down design where you have a starting sketch, or some parts driving others. A simple example would be a part with bolt holes in it. The mating part's holes could then be put in "in-context" with the master part. That way if you change the hole spacing in the master(parent) part, the child part follows along.

Hope this is what you are looking for. WT

Stephen,

When Autodesk first released Inventor they were playing catch-up with existing parametric modelers.

In order to give their VARS something to sell the marketing gurus at Autodesk decided to "rebadge" a feature that almost every other parametric modeler was all ready capable of.

Voila, instant sellable feature which can be prominently displayed on all the fancy new product sheets.

And since we coined this term -- we can honestly claim that no other parametric modeler has this feature - just don't ask us about the functionality.

Marketing hoey at its best - same thing as the SW collabrative effort from a few years ago. Creating a market for a problem that doesn't exist.

Do you suspect I do not like marketing types (every software vendor has them).

Just my very biased opinion.

Len

Len,

So....tell us what you really think !!!! (I happen to agree by the way)

There was an artical in C.A.D. Report awhile back that explained Adesk's approach vs everyone elses. I don't remember the details, suppose I could look it up, but the bottom line was it was a variational approach. It has allot of disadvantages compared to SW "direct" relationships, and is much more involved to set up.

Regards

Mark

OK, I can see how to base a part off projected sketch geometry, but not how I could control the length of the extrude feature.

In the example below I control the length of the inner cyan cylinder, and would like the length of the outer (dark grey) cylinder to be calculated for me.

I have looked through the SW help, but can't find out how to do this, any help would be appreciated

Thanks,

Stephen.

"in-context"

Seeing as you are so knowledgeable, could you answer my question in my reply to Wayne.

Stephen

In the assembly, select the outer cylinder and edit part. Then extrude it up to the surfaces that you want to define the ends.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems

Stephen,

There is no special attribute like "adaptive" in SW. You do things differently, and more directly. The type of behavior you're describing can be achieved by creating a new part "in place" in the assembly (start the outer part on an end face of the inside cylinder and extrude "up to face" referancing the opposite end of the inside piece. Or create the outer cylinder seperate, bring it into the assembly, mate it, and assign the ends to the ends of the inside cylinder. Pretty much what Jerry said

You could also tie the length of the outer cylinder to the inner one with equations. There are several other ways as well.

Regards

Mark

Thanks, it's so simple I could not see the answer for looking!

Much appreciated!

Stephen

Thanks, I understand now!

Stephen.

Stephen,

Happens to me all the time. Sometimes the harder I look, the blinder I get.

Regards

Mark