API: How have you handled Feature direction

I don't get it. How does SW decide which way to extrude, revolve, cut, etc.
How do you inteligently decide when to flip the direction while automating.
I have tried to use the sketches z coordinates for a positive direction but
it only works 60%. Is there a way to KNOW. Has anyone out there
successfully handled this. Thanks in advance.

Corey Scheich

 

Bob Hanson Wrote:

Corey, have you checked if the direction correlates to the sketch
construction face or plane normal?

Best Regards,


--
Bob Hanson
Centare Group, Ltd. - Custom
Software and Systems Integration
Specialists
http://www.centare.com

 

Robert is correct : the feature is created according to the sketch face or
refplane normal...
For some strange reasons, some sketches are "flipped" with respect to their
support.
However, it may be quicker to create a feature, then check if it is ok,
otherwise try again in the flipped direction...

 

does an extrude go normal. and cut would go reverse normal. this is
how i would see it working.

 

I guess I was assof-u-n-ming that the PlaneNormal would be the same as the
sketch on that plane.

I'll check into that over the weekend.

What about a cut. Say you sketch a single line strait through a part and
add a cut feature how does it decide which side of the line to keep.

 

I was assuming the same, and had bad experiences with derived sketches,
which tend to "flip" more or less randomly...

No idea. I can't remember exaclty the case, but I had trouble with an API
that didn't work the same across SW versions.
Brute force sometimes help. As I said:

 

How do you inteligently decide when to flip the direction while automating.

I ended up staying away from this, but only because I use configurations.
If you change the direction in one config, the others will follow :/

 

Ok over the weekend I noticed that in a revolve the direction is dependant
on the positive direction of the line you are using to revolve, it doesn't
seem to have anything to do with sketch or plane normals. I am going to
come up with something to help decide which way a sketch is going to revolve
I will post it when I am finished.

Corey Scheich