Suggested Technique for Aligning to a Silhouette Edge in Pro/ENGINEER

This is a suggested technique for aligning to a silhouette edge. This example uses a rib feature to demonstrate the concept, but it can be used in other cases where alignment to a silhouette edge is desired. The edge used for alignment is created using a surface copy and a surface silhouette trim. See Figure 1 for a model where this technique can be applied.

 
Figure 1

• Create a datum plane offset from some known planar orientation, to which the rib feature is to be parallel. Click the datum plane DTM2, click , and then enter the offset value. Enter some value which will cause the datum plane to intersect the surface copy feature. In this example the plane created is OFFSET_PLANE. See Figure 2.

Figure 2

• Create a surface copy of the features to which the rib has to be attached. Click the surface highlighted in Figure 3 and click Edit > Copy, then Edit > Paste and finish the feature.

Figure 3

• Create a surface silhouette trim feature. Click , click the copied surface feature as the surface to trim and then the offset datum plane created above as the trimming object. Click the silhouette trim icon in the dashboard and finish the feature. See Figure 4 for result.

Figure 4

• Create a datum point at the intersection of the offset datum plane and the edge created by the silhouette trim. Click the OFFSET_PLANE and press CTRL to also select the edge created by the silhouette trim and click . See Figure 5.

Figure 5

• Now create the rib feature. Click and pick the OFFSET_PLANE as the sketching plane. After clicking the datum point and the opposite top and side faces as references, sketch the rib profile. See Figure 6 for the rib sketch, and Figure 7 for the completed model.

Figure 6


Figure 7

The offset dimension of the OFFSET_PLANE can be modified and the rib will update accordingly. After modifying the offset dimension of the datum plane, click Edit > Regenerate and the geometry of the rib will update as shown in Figures 8 & 9.


Figure 8


Figure 9


Figure 10

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