Adaptive Parts

I am hopping you all could give me some advice. I am just starting to use
SW after using Autodesk Inventor.

In inventor I use to be able to mark a part dimension or a feature parameter
as adaptive, so that when the part was placed in an assembly and the parts
where mated together, a dimension from one part could drive the others.

Now I know that I could do similar using parameters in an external file, but
the adaptive idea was a lot easier/neater.

If anyone knows what I am talking about could they help me out and point me
to the SW way of doing things.

Thanks

Stephen

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

http://www.perfectphase.com/Mousse/Pages/display/getImage.aspx?FileID=325

In Inventor, I can mark the extrude feature as adaptive, then mate the ends
of the outer cylinder to the closures and the length of the extrude will be
adjusted.

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

Thanks,

Stephen.

 

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.