Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0 gives you the ability to embed manufacturing information in design feature annotations, which then allows NC programmers or manufacturing engineers to extract information to automatically create NC process steps. Here is a very simple example to get you started.
Create the template, annotation feature, and UDF:
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First, create the manufacturing templates that you’ll use. Open a manufacturing model containing the desired NC sequence(s) (or create them). Then in the Process Manager, make sure you are in the Process Main View, select the step or steps to include in the template, pick the “Create Template” icon, add the extraction priority, notes, and other optional information, and save the template (it will be saved to the folder defined by the mfg_process_template_dir config option). For example, create a template that drills and taps a ¼-20 hole. The template is saved as an .xml file (Figure 1)
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Next, open a part containing the desired geometry feature (for example, a ¼-20 hole). Insert an annotation feature with the “Manufacturing Template” element type. (Figure 2)
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Follow the prompts, selecting the .xml template file and any required references to place the template (in this example, just the hole axis). Select OK to finish the feature. (Figure 3)
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Finally, create a user-defined feature (UDF) containing the geometry feature, the annotation feature, and any other desired features such as datum planes, etc. In this example we’ll simply select the hole and annotation. Make it a stand-alone UDF that does not contain a reference part.
Apply the UDF:
The next time you create (for example) a ¼-20 hole, create it by applying the UDF. The annotation feature containing mfg template information is created along with it. (Figure 4)
Extract the NC process information in the mfg model:
Now the NC programmer or process engineer can easily create the necessary machining steps by extracting the information from the design model. This is done through the Process Manager by selecting the “Extract Manufacturing Information” icon. (Figure 5)
In the extraction dialog box, mark any options as desired (merging, etc.) and pick Extract. (Figure 6)
The drilling and tapping sequences are extracted for every ¼-20 hole in the model.
Experiment with this technique; there are many more options to explore.
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