Projecting SolidWorks points onto surfaces

Hello,

I have been trying to do something and I am not sure that SolidWorks
is capable of doing it.

I have a text file with x y z coordinates of points. x and y have
numerical values and z is always zero. (basiclly a 2D sketch on the xy
plane) I have a macro that imports the points as a 2D or 3D sketch
into a part.

Now what I need to do is keep the x and y coordinates and project the
points onto a surface to find out what the z coordinate is. I found a
macro that can add a coincident relation between the points and the
surface, but that also changes the x and y coordinates so it will not
work.

For example, lets say I have a point that has x=25 in, y= -45 in and
z=0 in. If I project that point onto the surface, the new coordinates
should be x=25 in, y=-45 in and z=30 in.

I have not been able to find a way to do this other than putting
points on the surface and manually changing the x and y coordinates to
find out what the z coordinate is.

I am really at a loss at this moment. We need to do this for
hundreds, maybe thousands of points and manually it would be out of
the question. I tried importing a curve from x y z coordinates,
convert entities and then project that onto a surface but that did not
retain the point coordinates so I was not able to export them out of
SolidWorks and find out what the z coordinate is.

I've heard some AutoCAD ideas on maybe drawing lines from the points
in the z direction and then using the surface to trim them and find
the intersection points but I am not sure how that would work for
SolidWorks as a macro.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as this has
completely halted my progress on this project.

Thank you again,

Vlad

 

To do it manually, you would use points in a 3DSketch that each have an
AlongZ relation to the corresponding point in the 2d skecth created by your
macro. To do hundreds or thousands, you will need some sort of macro. Such
a maro should be fairly simple for a pro SW macro coder (not me),
especially if the target surface is a single body. Perhaps the macro you
already have could be altered to do the job.

I'm guessing that points on the surface is not your end goal. Is there a
chance someone may be able to suggest another path to your goal that does
not involve projecting points onto the surface?

 

This is the macro that I found online that adds a coincident
relationship between the point and the surface. Any suggestions on how
I would go about modifying this would be appreciated.

Thank you again,

Vlad

Dim swApp As Object
Sub main()
Set swApp = Application.SldWorks
Set Part = swApp.ActiveDoc
Set Sketch = Part.GetActiveSketch2
If Sketch Is Nothing Then
MsgBox "The 3DSketch must be open", vbCritical, "Points on
Face macro "
End
End If
Set Sel = Part.SelectionManager
If Sel.GetSelectedObjectCount <> 1 Or Sel.GetSelectedObjectType(1)
<> 2 Then ' FACE
MsgBox "You must select the face", vbCritical, "Points on Face
macro "
End
End If
Set Face = Sel.GetSelectedObject(1)
points = Sketch.GetSketchPoints
For Each i In points
i.Select False
Face.Select True
Part.SketchAddConstraints "sgCOINCIDENT"
Next i
End Sub

 

I just had a thought although I am not sure how well this would work.
Could a macro that does this maybe work:

Import points with xy coordinates and z=0.

Create an axis for every point using the point and face/plane option.
Each point will form an axis with the help of a plane that is an
offset from the xy plane above the surface.

Next we import the points again in a new sketch with xy coordinates
and z=0 (because of the order of features created if we try to edit
the previous sketch, the axes will not be available - unless macros
work differently)

We set an intersect relationship between each point, its corresponding
axis just created and the surface. I know that the logistics of
writing such a macro may be difficult but at least I have some hope
that it may work.

Let me know what you guys think.

Thank you,

Vlad

 

ModelDoc2::RayIntersections is the API you need.
Do you have only 1 possible intersection for each points, or more
("folded" surface) ?
If you have some $ to spend on this, I might help you more ;-)

 

Just before this line:

Part.SketchAddConstraints "sgCOINCIDENT"

you would need to get the x,y coordinates of the point, and then reset the
coordinates to those points after that line. I don't know enough about the
API to tell you what functions you would need. If you have thousands of
these to do and at least a little VBA experience, you can probably figure
it out a lot faster than manually aliging the points.

If you don't get far with this, you should probably consult a macro pro.
There are several around who specialize in SW macros.

 

wrote in @p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:

A macro could do that, but a macro can also accomplish the same thing with
just the math, and not adding axes.

See Phillippe's reply. He's definitely a SW macro/API pro who's been around
for a quite a while, and he has identified the function that can find all 3
coordinates based on just the x,y coordinates and surface body (or maybe
face). Take his advice over mine on programming.

 

You said that you'd tried importing your coordinates as a curve, and
that had not worked. What about importing them as a series of line segments
or a single polyline? That should force SW to retain your original XY
coordinates.