Hi all
I see that the feature recognition often fails to pick up some features, e.g., fillets, drafts, etc. Without these features identified, running analyses like draft and undercut, etc. become almost meaningless.
What is the best way to analyse for drafts and undercuts on STP/IGES files? Is Solidworks the right tool for the job?
Any thought appreciated.
Thanks
I can usually do fillets ok and drafts are a little more difficult. I always start backwards with my feature recognition so fillets are the first thing I select.
I don't think you need a "draft" to run the draft analysis, right? Just a face or plane to set as pull direction would do but I haven't run one in a while and it might have changed.
Steve C
Hi Steve,
You're right that the user only needs to select a face or plane to set the pull direction. But without draft features recognised, the analysis gives false positives. It'd think that the unrecognised faces have 0 degree draft angles.
I just did a test on a Step file. Blue is my requires draft. This is what I expected on this side of the part. The other side is all red which is ok because it is on the other side.
What am I missing here because we check draft from time to time and this never occurred to me?
Steve C
Hi Steve,
Say, if I run undercut analysis on the SLDPRT file below, I get 99 occluded faces:
If I run it on the IGS file (converted from the SLDPRT file), I get just 95 occluded faces:
So I wonder how the discrepancy could be resolved.
Thanks
Is the number of occluded faces what's throwing you off? The faces shown seem to be the same, right?
Steve C
I can usually do fillets ok and drafts are a little more difficult. I always start backwards with my feature recognition so fillets are the first thing I select.
I don't think you need a "draft" to run the draft analysis, right? Just a face or plane to set as pull direction would do but I haven't run one in a while and it might have changed.
Steve C