You can see the bounding box at times... But what is it good for if I can't select it or dimension to it?
I'm not even sure how to get it properly show up half the time.
Perhaps I need to be schooled.
Any insight as to how others use this would be great.
..needs a gif?
Just remind me big hit in early 90's what "hammer time" to be heard everywhere ...
and one day the guy broke from private jet, 10 mil dollars house ... and party friendsssssssssss
done
You can see the bounding box at times... But what is it good for if I can't select it or dimension to it?
I'm not even sure how to get it properly show up half the time.
Perhaps I need to be schooled.
Any insight as to how others use this would be great.
Yes, you can
I can't view AVI.
S. Casale wrote:
I can't view AVI.
Sorry, I tried but can't embed video clip here
by the way, did you download the video? if yes, then try open it with Windows Media Player
MP4? mebe?
S. Casale wrote:
MP4? mebe?
Go get VLC and you can view just about any video with it.
Official download of VLC media player, the best Open Source player - VideoLAN
Or, if you want the portable version (don't need admin rights on the computer and doesn't install, but unpacks to a directory of your choosing) go to :
VLC Media Player Portable (media player) | PortableApps.com
Always run any downloaded executable through virustotal:
More out of curiosity than anything, but what are you doing with bounding box that you would need to click on it? I use it all the time in weldments for getting overall sizes, which works unless you have an odd shape or your part is at an odd angle. I guess I've never used it for anything else and thus would not want anyone to be able to edit it because I want it tied to the size of the part.
Matt Juric wrote:
More out of curiosity than anything, but what are you doing with bounding box that you would need to click on it? I use it all the time in weldments for getting overall sizes, which works unless you have an odd shape or your part is at an odd angle. I guess I've never used it for anything else and thus would not want anyone to be able to edit it because I want it tied to the size of the part.
I guess my question was supported by the statement, "I'm not even sure how to get it properly show up half the time."
All I've ever used it for has been weldements. If you click on the weldment cut list folder and click "Update" and then "Create Bounding box" it creates the bounding box for all the cut list items. I'd guess there is a similar function for parts but sorry, I've never used it for that.
Matt Juric wrote:
All I've ever used it for has been weldements. If you click on the weldment cut list folder and click "Update" and then "Create Bounding box" it creates the bounding box for all the cut list items. I'd guess there is a similar function for parts but sorry, I've never used it for that.
That's an answer that helps answer the question. No need to be sorry.
You can link the bounding box measurements to properties.
This is especially useful for creating a correct BOM - i.e. you want to know a length of a specific side of the part for manufacturing, but you cannot dimension this length in a sketch or feature - or you have to change/delete a sketch/feature and still want the correct measurement in your properties for manufacturing - the bounding box gives you the correct outer measurement all the time.
I hope they add mating to the bounding box anytime soon. That would save a lot of time and solve many issues. (edited).
I find it extremely useful to apply stock sizes for tooling design, to use in an exported Excel BOM. it's a huge win even if it's still not quite perfect... I've not had a thought to select nor dimension from a bounding box, but certainly one can see it would be useful for other types of products.
-At first it was released (SW2018) not-ready-for-prime time, it could not be shown/hidden from assemblies, and the visibility in drawings was extremely difficult to control, which had the bad side effect of preventing the use of the so-handy TASK "save-as-pdf", because of the pdf's were filled with bounding boxes making the drawings unusable.
-It's been improved in the past few releases (although I've not yet found the multiple SPR's to be noted as fixed). Now the visibility is pretty-much controllable, and the component's feature can be controlled in an assembly tree. (although there are a few obscure times when it fails). The best strategy for me is to keep all bounding boxes suppressed - this enables the TASK "save-as-pdf" to be used again.
- BUT, now the bounding box sizes do not update unless the bounding box is both un-suppressed and visible. So now there is an added step before releasing a design of: unsuppress and view, then immediately re-suppress again the bounding box of every relevant component.
Maybe a #TASK function(s) can be created to unsuppress and view, then save, then suppress and save again. ???
Overall it's still a huge improvement compared to manually adding stock sizes. But it's a shame that it's not a slick as it easily could be.
One added thought - it sure would be nice to have an option to have the bounding box aligned to the component planes to avoid bounding boxes that do not align to natural planes of a machined part.
You can set up a template where the bounding box is aligned to a component plane or do it manually, that should solve your problem Scott Boerman
Hi Lauritz, thank you for the suggestion, that is a good point. Unfortunately the option for manually selecting the bounding box is limited to one plane, so the other 2 planes are controlled only to minimize the volume which results in planes which are not necessarily aligned to logical planes for machined components.
Which reminds me of the item brought up with VAR immediately when the bounding box was released (cannot recall is it is SPR or ER and it's too aggravating to go try to find it) which is to allow selection of 3 planes (or at least 2 anyway) rather than just one.
Thank you again
You can make your bbox selectable (this would also be dynamicalky updatable) with this macro: Create selectable 3D bounding box sketch using SOLIDWORKS API
Kewl, Thanks Artem!
I was one of the originator's if not the first person to put in this enhancement request probably 15 years ago. Other than populating custom properties which I cannot even find how to control the decimal accuracy of the out put value, I find this useless. I have used the weldment bounding box function for years and it allows you to dimension the wire frame box and I have inserted those values into my BOM's.
Try using the weldment BB it closely resembles what we need.
S. Casale - Great question - What is it used for... For me they can completely eliminate the option to show or not show, and just hide it forever, or make it easy to hide and have it stay hidden, with the ability to have it update in the hidden state. Now if you go to the Feature Tree and hide the feature, it doesn't update when you make changes. ?????