Containment Boundary Problem

[bmilford]

I am having trouble getting a good chain, I have drawn a boundary at a Z depth that is higher than the surfaces. The problem I am having is that I have drawn the boundary by selecting endpoints, if you look at the picture you will see that the endpoints do not touch. If I try to draw a line from endpoint to endpoint I get an error "zero length line", Trim does not work, nor does Fillet. Does anyone have any idea on how to get a good containment boundary if I cannot draw a closed box?

 

 

This is using X4 MU3 on a machine running Win 7 64bit.

[K2csq7]

Check into your tolerances, under settings, configuration... also you may be able to just use "create" "rectangle", but i think you need to fix your tolerances. If you analyze the lines are all the endpoints at the same Z height?

[bmilford]

OK, the upper line endpoint is;

X=52.7027

y=-14.4782

Z=85.0012

 

And the lower line endpoint is;

X=52.7026

Y=-14.4779

Z=85.0001

 

The lines where drawn by snapping to the endpoint of the previous line, if I delete one of them and re-draw it I get the same result.

 

Also the lines where all drawn in 2D at a Z depth of 85.0

[K2csq7]

If your snapping to endpoints and you want them to actually connect at the endpoints... you need to use 3d mode.

[bmilford]

Keith, if I draw the lines in 3D how do I get them to be at a Z depth of 85?

 

I got a good boundary, what I had to do was use the multi-line line creation instead of the single line, even with using that the start and end wouldn't close with out using trim after the box was made.

 

The funny thing is this isn't the first time I've done exactly the same thing for a containment boundary, I've been doing this since we first started using Mastercam X and now we are on X4 and I'm just now having this problem.

[Tyler Robertson]

hey brian - feel like sending it my way? [email protected] I can just quickly try it and see if I get the same thing

[K2csq7]

That is a funny problem..did you look into your tolerances? I normally draw the boundary at Z zero then X-form it to the Z height I want (shift click to pick the chain). You have the golden ticket with Tyler willing to take a look!!!

[bmilford]

Tyler, I've already worked around it, but I'll see if I can re-create it.

[SKIR68]

create curve on edges and transform to your desired height. ???

[bmilford]

Tyler, you should have mail.

[Thad]

Looks like curves created from surface.

 

You could shorten each segment by .100 or .250, depending on how long they are, then Create Blended Spline to join them.

 

It appears that the gap is less than .001. You could also change your chaining tolerance to .002 when selecting the chain and it should work as is.

 

Thad

[Tyler Robertson]

Looks like curves created from surface.

 

You could shorten each segment by .100 or .250, depending on how long they are, then Create Blended Spline to join them.

 

It appears that the gap is less than .001. You could also change your chaining tolerance to .002 when selecting the chain and it should work as is.

 

Thad

 

I tried it out - I could trim the lines together and it worked fine, but if I drew my own lines nadda - but projecting it to a plane didn't work either. I submitted as a bug - will see

[bmilford]

Thad, That is what I would think too but they are straight line segments drawn one at a time in 2D at a Z depth of 85 inches, they just didn't connect to the end of the previous line segment when drawn.

 

Tyler, Thanks for looking at that, I have switched to creating a multi-line boundary and then sometimes having to trim the ends closed, the trimming sometimes would work to join the ends together on the file I sent you and sometimes not. Originally I projected the wire frame to the z depth I wanted and then used it for the containment, and I had the same type of problems, but some of the projected entities where splines which I thought caused the problem, so I switched to drawing lines for containment.

[Nils N]

I use lots of containment boundaries here. I usually start out (all in 3D) ‘create curve all edges’ of a surface then project the curves to a distance above my work (I like to get it out of the way so I might use 80 inches above the work) Using project keeps everything in plane to lessen any problems you might have if you just moved or copied the geo.

 

I then might re-size as needed using the top view or which ever view is appropriate to see if it is what I want. You might want to use ‘Analyze Chain’ have to make sure all curves are joined. In 3D you shouldn't have a problem joining ends. Also check your tolerances as noted in the previous threads.

[Tyler Robertson]

Brian can you re-create this issue? I tried to do it in a new file, and it's snapping fine. if I go back to yours.. problems.

 

can you find the steps to recreate it? I just made a new plane in space, switched to 2-D and started drawing

[bmilford]

I can try, I'm working on something else right now, I'll let you know when I get a chance.

[bmilford]

Ok, I gave it a try with a new file, I didn't have any trouble with creating lines until the lines started getting long over about 100 inches long.

 

Here's what I did, I rotated my view to an odd view and then created a new plane and saved it, then I made that view current, I set my z depth to 85 inches and drew a polygon.

When I analyzed the chain it looked good, so I tried drawing a larger polygon and then the chain would not analyze properly. I don't know why a larger line would be harder to snap to the end of, but this is what I'm seeing.

 

Brian

[Tyler Robertson]

That's strange - I can't break it now doing the same thing :\