Construct Cylinder dialog box
PC-DMIS allows several methods for constructing a cylinder. The following table lists the various types of constructed cylinders, along with their necessary inputs. Some features may require no inputs while others may require six inputs or more. In the following table, the term "Any" indicates that the construction can take any type of feature as input for the construction. PC-DMIS allows you to select the features in any order.
CONSTRUCT FEATURE TYPE |
SYMBOL IN EDIT WINDOW |
# OF INPUT FEATURES |
FEATURE #1: |
FEATURE #2: |
COMMENTS |
Auto Cylinder |
- |
- |
- |
- |
See "Auto Cylinder Construction". |
Best Fit Cylinder |
BF |
At least 6 inputs are needed. See Notes below. |
- |
- |
Constructs a best fit cylinder using the given inputs. |
Best Fit Recomp Cylinder |
BFRE |
At least 6 inputs are needed. (1 must be a point) See Notes below. |
- |
- |
Constructs a best fit cylinder using the given inputs. |
Cast Cylinder |
CAST |
1 |
Any |
- |
Constructs a cylinder at the centroid of the input feature. |
Project Cylinder |
PROJ |
1 or 2 |
Any |
Plane |
One input feature will project the cylinder to the workplane. |
Reverse Cylinder |
REV |
1 |
Cylinder, Cone, Line, Slot |
- |
Constructs a cylinder with a reversed vector. |
Extracted Cylinder |
EXTRACTED_CYL |
1 |
COP or Mesh |
- |
Constructs an extracted cylinder from the COP or Mesh object at the specified diameter or height. |
You can construct Best Fit and Best Fit Recompensate Cylinders from two circles. The input circles must be of type Constructed Best Fit (BF) / Best Fit Recompensate (BFRE) or Measured circles. The total amount of hits in each circle must be at least three.
For Best Fit (BF) or Best Fit Recompensate (BFRE) constructions, while you can use any feature type for your input features, BF and BFRE fit types are typically used with point features or point sets (a scan of points, a feature set with points, or an expression that resolves to an array of points).
If you select inappropriate feature types, PC-DMIS displays this message on the Status bar:
"Cannot construct [feature]. Combination of input features not accepted."
To construct a cylinder:
Open the Construct Cylinder dialog box (Insert | Feature | Constructed | Cylinder).
From the Method list, select the method of the constructed cylinder. The available options are:
Best Fit or Best Fit Recompensate Cylinder
Cast Cylinder
Projected Cylinder
Reversed direction Cylinder
Auto Cylinder
Extracted Cylinder
If you select the Best Fit or the BF Recomp (Best Fit Recomp) method for this feature, PC-DMIS allows you to click the Select All Hits button to create the construction from the individual hits of the input features instead of their centroids.
To do this:
From the Feature list, select the feature or features that you want to use to create the constructed feature.
Example showing a selected feature prior to clicking the Select All Hits button
Click the Select All Hits button to display all the components that comprise the selected feature or features.
Display of items that make up the selected feature are highlighted in the dialog box and in the Graphic Display window
PC-DMIS displays and highlights all the components of the selected feature (or features) in the Feature list of the dialog box. You can select or de-select any of the features or feature components shown in the list to include or exclude them.
Click the Create button to create the Constructed feature based on the final features and feature components that you selected.
Constructed feature created based on selected items from the Feature list
Using the table above, select the features from the Feature list based on the selected method.
Select the In or Out option. For details, see the "In / Out Cylinder" topic in this documentation.
If you selected either the Best Fit or Best Fit Recompensate methods, from the Best Fit Type list, select the type of best fit algorithm to use. For details, see the "Best Fit Type" topic in this documentation.
If you want to change the feature theoretical values, select the Feature theoreticals check box and type in the values. For details, see the "Specifying Feature Theoreticals" topic in the PC-DMIS Core documentation.
Click the Create button.
The Edit window command line for a sample Cylinder Construction
would read:
feature_name=FEAT/CYLINDER,TOG1,TOG4,TOG5
THEO/x_cord,y_cord,z_cord,i_vec,j_vec,k_vec,diam,length
ACTL/x_cord,y_cord,z_cord,i_vec,j_vec,k_vec,diam,length
CONSTR/TOG2,TOG3,......
The actual Edit report displays in all capital letters.
AUTO is the default method of construction. This option automatically determines the best way to construct a cylinder using the input feature(s). See "Auto Cylinder Construction"
The following text is the basic format for cylinders.
TOG1 = POLR or RECT
TOG2 = CYLINDER
TOG3 = BF / BFRE / CAST / PROJ / REV
TOG4 = IN / OUT
TOG5 = LEAST_SQR / MAX_INSC / MIN_CIRCSC / MIN_SEP / FIXED_RAD (only for measured, BF and BFRE circles)
length = This value is measured between the first measured circle (first three hits) and the furthest point away from the first three hits.
The first three lines displayed in the Edit window will be the same for constructed cylinders. The fourth line will be slightly different, according to the type of feature you are constructing. You can switch between the different types of cylinders by placing the cursor on TOG3 and pressing F7 or F8. (See "Command Mode Keyboard Functions" in the "Using the Edit Window" chapter.)
When two or more features are involved, PC-DMIS automatically determines the necessary order of the input features. This improves the accuracy of the measurement process.
The following topics describe the available options for constructing a cylinder:
More:
Constructing a Best Fit or Best Fit Recompensate Cylinder
Constructing a Projected Cylinder