Tapping holes in 3D

[Guest]

Ron,

What version are you using? You may want to try using the Threaded Shaft - 3D object to create the thread form and subtract this from the 3D model.

Tom Urie

Nemetschek, N.A.

[Ron Kenyeri]

Tried that one, makes a huge file after a few hole. Also the threaded shaft is really user un-friendly. Last file I had two plates and 5 tapped holes, 5 c'bored holes, and 5 1/4-20 x 3/4 lg screws. File was 132 megs, dashed hidden line render took 54 mins.

Most progressive dies, will have 2 dozen tapped hole, c'bore hole, screw combo's. and 4-6 main plates, plus the die set.

I am running 10.5.1 Mac OSX, on a PB 400mhz, 640 meg ram.

Got the VW11 demo on the way. Maybe that will help.

Later,

Ron

[Ron Kenyeri]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to represent a tapped hole in 3-D?

Are you actually making a tapped hole?

Or are you making a simple hole in 3-D and then using the Hybrid symbol to place the correct image when the model is in the front-side-top views?

Thanks for your input,

Ron

[propstuff]

Hi Ron,

Hey your machine is older than mine ;-) You don't want to be using dome nuts: 375Kb EACH.... And they've got no thread!

The way I deal with this problem is to turn bloated objects into sort-of hybrid symbols and use classes to manage them.

I make a simplified duplicate (in the case of a thread, a 3D version of the standard 2D representation, ie; a series of alternately heavy and light NURBS rings concentric with a cylinder with no Fill). The simple version is assigned to the "simple" Class.

Then, with the thread object; Organise>convert the PIO to a Symbol and assign the result to the "complex" class.

Finally, editing the resulting symbol, insert the simple version co-incident with the complex version. By switching between classes you get either of the versions displaying.

Sheesh!

It doesn't save any on file size (but not much worse), but it does mean you get a reasonable representation which renders "fast", and will rotate well with the Flyover tool, and, if you need to get the "full effect" you can switch to the complex version and get up in the morning when the render's finished. ;-)

cheers,

N.

[ 10-08-2004, 07:59 PM: Message edited by: propstuff ]