Interference Check with 2005

Am I missing something?

The new interference detection has some good improvements. Being able
to treat sub-assemblies as a component is great. The Visual display of
the interference is far superiour than the previous boundary box of
past releases. But how do I measure the interference?

All I get is the total volume of the interference. While I can see
that the total volume may be useful in some rare instances, most of the
time I just want to know how far over to move a wall, and the volume
does not tell me that.

Am I missing something, or has SW only half-assed improved a feature
again, just like the new and improved "Select Other" function. (...but
that's another beef.)


Rob

 

Rob,

You aren't overlooking anything that I know of.

I too find the interfence (X,Y,Z extents) volumes to be next to
useless. The only way to clearly visualize (and measure) the actual
interference(s) is to introduce a CAVITY feature.

Cavities aren't just for moldmaking. I often create them for temporary
use while dealing with the elimination of interferences.

They should be defined with ZERO scaling in order to avoid spatial
shifts and to provide a line to line result. (It helps to change the
Cavity feature to a distinctly different color, especially if the
area(s) of interference are quite small!)

Once the Cavity exists, the resulting edges on the "cut" part can be
referenced for use in creating a new modifying Cut feature (or more).

Be sure to eliminate the sketch (and/or plane) relations to the Cavity
and then the new feature(s) can be moved above it in the Feature
Manager.

After changing the feature order and rebuilding, the cavity will report
a DESIRABLE error, if no interference is found!

If the cavity still rebuilds without flagging an error, then you know
you still have parts competing for space.

Once you're happy with the features created to eliminate the
interference, you can delete the Cavity.

One handy thing is that multiple "cutting" parts can be used to create
a single Cavity, so you can get the result of numerous interferences
rolled into a single feature.

Per O. Hoel
__________________________

 

Per,

Thanks for the idea!. I've never done mold design, so haven't look at
the mold tools in SW.

I remember years ago when working with Mechanical Desktop, if you had a
interference, MDT gave you the option of creating a solid using a
Boolean intersection. You could then hide the two components you were
checking and see a solid of only the intersection. It was handy.

It seems that SW is incorporating old AutCAD/MDT commands and features
(i.e. object snaps). I was hoping that they had also adopted MDT's
interference check functionality.

Thanks again,

Rob

 

Dammit!, we don't need ANYMORE acad features in SWX.

Malcontent

 

It's not just an AutoCAD feature, it's a good idea! Other systems handle
interference in exactly the same way, automating Per's method. I miss it,
and I've always hated AutoCAD.

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"