A Beginner’s Guide to Pro/ENGINEER (version 2000i 2 ) Tom Chase September 6, 2001 Contents 1 Starting and Exiting Pro / ENGI- NEER 2 2 Obtaining Further Information 4 2.1 On-Line Manuals .......... 4 2.2 Context-Sensitive Help ....... 6 2.3 Additional documentation ..... 6 3 Creating a Base Feature 7 4 Basic File Management 14 5 Changing the View 15 6 Printing from Pro / ENGINEER 17 7 Adding a Feature to a Base Feature 18 8 Creating a Second Part 20 9 Creating Assemblies 24 10 Creating Detail Drawings 27 11 Epilogue 31 Index of “User Tips” 1 What do I do if the menus “freeze”? 2 2 Exit Pro/ENGINEER regularly! . 14 3 Purge Your Account Regularly! . . 15 4 Check Your File Space! ...... 15 5 Delete Shaded View “.plt” Files After Printing! ........... 18 6 Use Trimetric Views to Select Ge- ometry ................ 19 Abstract Pro/ENGINEER is a feature-based, parametric, fully-associative solid modeling system. We uti- lize it in the mechanical engineering curriculum because it is representative of the best computer aided design systems that are currently available. As a side benefit, Pro/ENGINEER is popular in industry, so becoming familiar with it may give you a competitive advantage in finding employ- ment. This tutorial is intended to give you a rudi- mentary skill level in using Pro/ENGINEER in a short amount of time. We introduce only a small subset of the full capabilities of Pro/ENGINEER. Nevertheless, this tutorial should provide you with all the information that is necessary to com- plete and document simple designs. Starting and exiting Pro/ENGINEER from a workstation in the ME 308 IT Instructional Com- puting Lab is described first. Documentation that is available to enable you to learn more about Pro/ENGINEER on your own is described next. Creating the basic geometry of a new part, called the “base feature”, is then described. Sav- ing your Pro/ENGINEER designs, and managing the large numbers of files automatically generated by Pro/ENGINEER, is discussed next. Changing the way your part is displayed on your worksta- tion screen is then described. Next, creating a hard copy of your part is introduced. Adding to the base geometry of your part by adding new “features”, or geometric entities, is described next. The last three sections introduce more advanced, but very useful, capabilities of Pro/ENGINEER. First, we will create a second part with a slightly more complicated base geom- etry than the first part. Next, creating an assem- 1
1 What do I do if the menus “freeze”? 22 Exit Pro/ENGINEER regularly! . 143 Purge Your Account Regularly! . . 154 Check Your File Space! . . . . . . 155 Delete Shaded View “.plt” Files
After Printing! . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Use Trimetric Views to Select Ge-
ometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Abstract
Pro/ENGINEER is a feature-based, parametric,fully-associative solid modeling system. We uti-lize it in the mechanical engineering curriculumbecause it is representative of the best computeraided design systems that are currently available.As a side benefit, Pro/ENGINEER is popular inindustry, so becoming familiar with it may giveyou a competitive advantage in finding employ-ment.
This tutorial is intended to give you a rudi-mentary skill level in using Pro/ENGINEER in ashort amount of time. We introduce only a smallsubset of the full capabilities of Pro/ENGINEER.Nevertheless, this tutorial should provide youwith all the information that is necessary to com-plete and document simple designs.
Starting and exiting Pro/ENGINEER from aworkstation in the ME 308 IT Instructional Com-puting Lab is described first. Documentationthat is available to enable you to learn moreabout Pro/ENGINEER on your own is describednext. Creating the basic geometry of a new part,called the “base feature”, is then described. Sav-ing your Pro/ENGINEER designs, and managingthe large numbers of files automatically generatedby Pro/ENGINEER, is discussed next. Changingthe way your part is displayed on your worksta-tion screen is then described. Next, creating ahard copy of your part is introduced. Addingto the base geometry of your part by addingnew “features”, or geometric entities, is describednext.
The last three sections introduce moreadvanced, but very useful, capabilities ofPro/ENGINEER. First, we will create a secondpart with a slightly more complicated base geom-etry than the first part. Next, creating an assem-
bly by combining several parts is described. Fi-nally, creating a detail drawing of a part using theautomatic drafting facilities of Pro/ENGINEERis introduced.
1 Starting and Exiting Pro /ENGINEER
Starting Pro/ENGINEER is describedfirst. The basic screen layout used byPro/ENGINEER is then introduced. Finally,exiting Pro/ENGINEER is described.
This tutorial assumes that you will be runningPro/ENGINEER on one of the UNIX worksta-tions located in the IT Instructional ComputingLab housed in ME 308. Pro/ENGINEER alsocan be run on the “Windows” machines in ME308. This document utilizes UNIX system levelcommands rather than Windows equivalents, sowe suggest that first-time users start with a UNIXworkstation.
We will assume that you have successfullyopened a window on the workstation for enteringsystem-level commands. The Pro/ENGINEERsoftware is not immediately accessible1. To gainaccess, enter the command2
% module add mcad/proe/2000i2Pro/ENGINEER is started by simply typing
“pro”, in small characters, at the system-levelprompt:% pro
The workstation will pause for a few secondswhile the Pro/ENGINEER program is loaded toyour workstation from the “server” workstation.Eventually, a window will appear on your work-station similar to that illustrated in Fig. 1. Inaddition, a title page for Pro/ENGINEER is dis-played over the top of the normal windows. Thispage automatically disappears after a few sec-onds, leaving the normal screen display in place.
The initial display will not include the dynamicmenu nor the model tree illustrated in Fig. 1. Fur-thermore, the main work window will initially be
1Software on the ITlabs system must be partitionedinto modules because so much software is required by thedifferent IT departments.
2The “default” version of Pro/ENGINEER for ITlabs,which is usually one version below the most recent release,is accessible using the command:% module add mcad/proe
User Tip 1: What do I do if the menus “freeze”?If the menus appear to “freeze” while usingPro/ENGINEER; i.e., if Pro/ENGINEER un-expectedly stops accepting menu selections,check the message window! Pro/ENGINEERis probably waiting for you to input some datafrom the keyboard for it to be able to continue.
Also remember, the mouse cursor mustbe moved somewhere within an activePro/ENGINEER window while typing a re-sponse to a prompt. Otherwise, the charac-ters that you type will not be “seen” by theprogram.
empty. The additional contents shown in the fig-ure appear as a Pro/ENGINEER model is built.
All the windows used by Pro/ENGINEER arestandard UNIX-type windows that can be movedor re-scaled on the screen by manipulating thetitle bars at the top of the windows or borders atthe edges of the windows. However, the defaultlayout works very well for most users, so I do notsuggest resizing the windows.
The main work window is the region where thegeometry of your model is normally created ormodified. The top of the main work windowcontains a pull-down menu bar similar to mostWindows-based software. The menu tree visu-ally represents all geometric features used in yourmodel. The dynamic menu area displays pop-uptype menus for directing Pro/ENGINEER.
The message window, located above the dis-play region of the main work window, displaysprompts at times when Pro/ENGINEER needsyou to input data. At times, you may want torefer back to earlier message lines. A “scroll bar”at the right of the message window can be manip-ulated to scan back over many previous messagelines, if needed. If you scroll back to earlier mes-sages, remember to bring the scroll bar all the wayback down to the bottom of its range to make thelast prompt visible again.
A menu selection is made by moving the mousecursor over the desired entry and clicking on itwith the left mouse button3. Menu entries thatare dimmed are inactive for the current state of
3For the remainder of this document, “clicking” on ascreen entity is defined as moving the mouse cursor overthe entity and pressing and releasing the mouse button.
the program and can not be selected.The menu help line, at the bottom of the main
work window, is reserved for one-line descriptionsof menu selections from the dynamic menus. Ifyou move the mouse cursor over a dynamic menuselection, the description of that selection will ap-pear in this line.
Pro/ENGINEER is terminated by selectingthe “Exit” command from the “File” pull-downmenu. Pro/ENGINEER then opens another win-dow on top of the current display asking you toconfirm that you really want to terminate the pro-gram. Click on the “Yes” button to shut down theprogram4.
Once Pro/ENGINEER has terminated, all thePro/ENGINEER windows are closed and you arereturned to the normal workstation screen dis-play5.
2 Obtaining Further Infor-mation
A great deal of documentation onPro/ENGINEER is available in ME 308. Ingeneral, I recommend working through this tuto-rial first to develop a feel for Pro/ENGINEER’sconventions, then improving your skill levelby exploring the alternative documentation.However, the available documentation is de-scribed now to provide resources in the case thatyou have questions while working through thistutorial.
The most current documentation onPro/ENGINEER is only available througha web browser. The first two subsections belowexplain two different methods for accessing thelatest documentation. The last section describesprinted references, which are less up-to-date, aswell as short courses sponsored by the company
4If the system is set up to automatically start the “Ap-plications Manager”, you may still see a window entitled“PTC Application Manager” at the upper left of yourscreen. Click on the “Start” button, then click on “Exit”from the resulting pull-down menu, to shut down the Ap-plications Manager.
5If you are using an SGI workstation, remember thatyou must log out using a special procedure: move themouse cursor to a background portion of the screen, thenpress the right mouse button to raise a menu that includesa “Logout” entry. Simply typing “logout” at a systemprompt will not log you off the workstation!
which supplies Pro/ENGINEER, ParametricTechnology Corporation.
2.1 On-Line Manuals
The on-line manuals are accessed through a webbrowser. We will assume that you will be us-ing “Netscape” in ITlabs. You must start up“Netscape”, so that it is running at the same timeas Pro/ENGINEER, to access the help pages.The simplest way to do this is to open a newUNIX shell on your screen. Then, type:
% module add netscape% netscape
After “Netscape” has started, you can ac-cess Pro/ENGINEER’s online help by selecting“Help” from the menu bar at the top of thePro/ENGINEER window, then “Pro/E Help Sys-tem” from the resulting pull-down menu. Afterdoing this, your web browser window will appearsimilar to Fig. 2.
The upper right corner of the web browser win-dow will include a “Contents” button (see Fig. 2).Clicking on this button will cause a window witha Table of Contents to appear on the left of thebrowser window. A delay of a few seconds mayoccur between clicking the button and the ap-pearance of the Table of Contents.
The entries in the Table of Contents can beexpanded hierarchically by clicking on the “+”symbol preceding any topic. Similarly, an ex-panded entry can be contracted by clicking a “−”entry. For example, Fig. 3 shows the Contentswith entries for “Pro/ENGINEER Foundation”and “Using Part Modeling” expanded. You canobtain information on any topic in the “Table ofContents” by double-clicking on the topic.
The “help index” provides another useful wayfor locating documentation on Pro/ENGINEERfunctions. The index is invoked by simply click-ing on the “Index” tab to the right of the “Con-tents” tab in the Table of Contents window (seeFig. 3). The Index will take a few seconds to load.You can then locate information on the topic ofyour choice by scrolling through the index. Alter-nately, you can enter a keyword in the “keyword”field and press the “Display” button at the bot-tom of the index.
Figure 3: On-line help contents with“Pro/ENGINEER Foundation” and “UsingPart Modeling” expanded.
Figure 4: Obtaining documentation on the modeltree with the help index.
Figure 5: Start of context-sensitive help for the“Relations” entry of the “Part” menu
2.2 Context-Sensitive Help
You can instantly obtain documentation on anymenu entry in Pro/ENGINEER by utilizing the“context-sensitive help”. You must first open aNetscape web browser window to use context-sensitive help, as described in subsection 2.1.
The simplest way to obtain context-sensitivehelp is to click on the “?” button at the right ofthe tool bar (see Fig. 1), then click on the menuentry for which information is desired. The doc-umentation for the menu entry will immediatelyappear in your web browser. For example, Fig. 5shows the top of the browser window which is ob-tained by clicking the “?” tool, then clicking onthe “Relations” entry of the “Part” menu.
Context-sensitive help can also be invoked byclicking the “Help” entry on the top menu bar,then selecting “What’s this?” from the resultingpull-down menu.
2.3 Additional documentation
Printed documentation on Pro/ENGINEER isavailable for check-out from the ME 308 lab at-tendant. Unfortunately, Parametric TechnologyCorporation discontinued printed manuals follow-ing Version 20 of Pro/ENGINEER, so the printedreferences are somewhat out of date. Neverthe-less, they can still provide useful information.Short courses on Pro/ENGINEER are also de-scribed at the end of the section.
Please note that printed documentation cannot be removed from ME 308.
“Inside Pro/ENGINEER”, by J. Utz andW. R. Cox (Santa Fe, NM: OnWord Press)is a tutorial-style textbook for learningPro/ENGINEER on your own. You willfind it to be similar to the level of this tutorial,
but more extensive. This text is also availablefor purchase from the University Bookstore’sreference section.
Older printed manuals published by Paramet-ric Technology Corporation include: “Introduc-tion to Pro/ENGINEER”, “Part Modeling User’sGuide”, “Assembly Modeling User’s Guide”, and“Drawing User’s Guide”.
“Introduction to Pro/ENGINEER” providesa tremendous amount of information on thegeneral organization and functionality of thePro/ENGINEER system. Useful chapters de-scribe how to manipulate views of parts or assem-blies, arranging part or assembly geometry on dif-ferent “layers”, using “trail files”, and customiz-ing Pro/ENGINEER to fit your preferences.
Basic through advanced information about cre-ating parts, adding features, and modifying partsis provided in the “Part Modeling User’s Guide”.Creating and modifying assemblies of parts, asintroduced in section 9 of this tutorial, is fully de-scribed in the “Pro/ENGINEER Assembly Mod-eling User’s Guide”.
Part geometry is not defined on the basis of en-gineering drawings in Pro/ENGINEER. Instead,three-dimensional part geometry is defined first,then the two-dimensional drawings are derivedfrom this geometry. Creating conventional engi-neering drawings from a Pro/ENGINEER modelis described in the “Drawing User’s Guide”.
Parametric Technology Corporation offers a se-ries of short courses on Pro/ENGINEER rang-ing from learning the basics to utilizing spe-cialized modules, such as the sheet metal fab-rication module. Information on registering forPro/ENGINEER short courses is available bycalling the Parametric Technology Corporationlocal sales office at (952)820-0026. Some of thesecourses have substantial tuition charges, so youmay want to wait for your employer to send you!
3 Creating a Base Feature
A “feature” is defined here as a distinct geomet-ric entity of a part, such as a “hole”, “boss”,or “fillet”. The geometric entity comprising thebasis for all others, such as a “block” or “cylin-der”, is described here as the “base feature”. Inother words, you may think of the base feature asthe stock from which a machined part would be
Figure 6: The “New” dialogue box.
fabricated. Pro/ENGINEER follows the feature-based design strategy of establishing a base fea-ture, then superimposing the remaining featureson the base feature.
We will introduce how a part is created inPro/ENGINEER by defining a simple base fea-ture. We will call the base feature a “cubic”,which will be a rectangular block. Our “cubic”will be created by “sketching” a two-dimensionalrectangular cross-section, then adding depth by“sweeping” the cross-section along a line perpen-dicular to the sketching plane. A detailed proce-dure is provided below.
If you have not already done so, startPro/ENGINEER as described in Section 1. Next,select “New” from the pull-down “File” menu. Adialogue box similar to that shown in Fig. 6 thenappears. The default selections of Type “Part”and Sub-type “Solid” are applicable to our newmodel. You need only move to the “Name” fieldand replace the default name of “prt0001” with“cubic”. Press the “OK” button to complete thedefinition of the part name.
The model tree window, similar to that shownin Fig. 1, then appears over the main work win-dow. The model tree is useful for keeping trackof many features in a complicated part. However,we will simplify the display by closing it whilecreating the base feature. Do so by clicking the
model tree on/off button which is located on thetool bar (see Fig. 1).
The “PART” menu appears in the dynamicmenu area at this point. Furthermore, three or-thogonal “default datum planes” and a “defaultcoordinate system” appears in the main workwindow (see Fig. 7).
The datum planes are labeled “RIGHT”,“TOP”, and “FRONT”. The “positive” side of adatum plane is displayed in yellow. The positivesides of all three datum planes are visible in thedefault view, so they all appear yellow on yourdisplay. If the view were re-oriented to show the“negative” sides of any of the planes, they wouldbe displayed in red.
The default coordinate system appears at theorigin defined by the intersection of the three de-fault datum planes. This symbol is intended tohelp you establish your orientation while map-ping a 3-dimensional image to a two-dimensionalworkstation screen. The red arm indicates the x-direction, the green arm indicates the y-direction,and the cyan arm indicates the z-direction. Us-ing this assumption, the default datum planesare numbered so that the “RIGHT” plane isperpendicular to the x-direction, the “TOP”plane is perpendicular to the y-direction, andthe “FRONT” plane is perpendicular to the z-direction.
The positive direction of each axis is indicatedby a dot at the end of each arm of the coordi-
"RIGHT" plane (ye
positive ‘‘x’
coordinate frame symred arm of
Figure 8: Relating coordinate directions and da-tum planes.
nate frame symbol. Thus, the dot will alwayscorrespond to the “positive”, or yellow, side ofthe datum planes. The relationship between thecoordinate frame symbol, datum planes and as-sumed directions is clarified in Fig. 8.
The actual base feature geometry is now cre-ated in reference to the default datum planes. Se-lect “Feature” from the “PART” menu, then se-lect “Create” from the resulting “FEAT” menu.Menus “FEAT CLASS” and “SOLID” are thendisplayed. Note that “Solid” is highlighted onthe “FEAT CLASS” menu, indicating that thisis the default selection.
Select “Protrusion” from the “SOLID” menu.This raises a three-section “SOLD OPTS” menu,with default selections “Extrude” and “Solid”highlighted. Select “Done” from the third sectionof the menu to confirm these selections.
A new window indicating the status of the“Protrusion” feature that you are creating nowappears at the upper right of the screen. Youmay largely ignore this window until you becomemore familiar with the system. Nevertheless, youmay find it interesting to watch how the next fewmenu selections progressively fill up the table offeature data shown in this window.
in the regular menu area. Entry “One side” willbe pre-selected. Select “Done” from the bottomsection.
Three new menus now appear: “SETUPSK PLN”, “SETUP PLANE” and “GET SE-LECT”. However, more importantly, you receivea prompt in the message window to select or cre-ate a sketching plane. You will sketch a two-dimensional rectangular profile in the xy-plane,which is equivalent to datum plane “FRONT”.To ensure that you pick “FRONT” correctly fromthe work window, select “Query Sel” from the“GET SELECT” menu6.
Next, move the mouse cursor into the work win-dow and move it close to the label “FRONT”.Press the left mouse button to attempt to choose“FRONT”. The selected plane is highlighted inthe main work window. If your selection is suc-cessful at the first attempt, immediately select“Accept” from the “Query Bin” window, whichappears below the dynamic menu on the right ofyour screen. If you accidently select “RIGHT”or “TOP” instead, re-position the mouse cursorand press the left mouse button again. Using the“Query Select” option, you can repeat your selec-tion as many times as you like until “Accept” isselected from the “Query Bin” window.
Note that a small red arrow that points inthe +z-direction is added near the bottom ofthe outline of the “FRONT” plane. The mes-sage window now contains the prompt: “Arrowshows direction of feature creation. Pick FLIP orOKAY.” The arrow shown is consistent with thePro/ENGINEER convention of creating “Protru-sion” features so that they are swept “out” fromthe workstation screen. Therefore, select “Okay”from the “DIRECTION” menu.
You are now prompted to select or create ahorizontal or vertical reference for sketching. Se-lecting “Default” from the “SKET VIEW” menuorients the sketching plane so the positive side ofthe “TOP” datum plane faces up and the posi-tive side of the “RIGHT” datum plane faces tothe right.
You have now entered Pro/ENGINEER’s“sketching” tool for creating a planar cross sec-
6Once you have had some practice in making selections,you may prefer to use the default “Pick” option, whichenables you to select the desired plane immediately withthe left mouse button. However, “Query select” is stillvery useful if you need to make a selection from a cluttereddisplay.
tion of your desired solid7. The main work win-dow appears similar to Fig. 9. You are nowlooking directly into plane “FRONT”. Note thatyou can clearly see the “positive” sides of the“RIGHT” and “TOP” planes in yellow, and the“negative” sides in red, in this view. The redx-axis and green y-axis are oriented in their con-ventionally assumed directions.
Pro/ENGINEER provides an “intent man-ager” to facilitate the definition of sketches ofcross sections. You do not need to create ex-act profiles of the cross section of your intendedpart. Rather, you can sketch an approximationto the cross section and refine it later. The intentmanager makes reasonable assumptions about ge-ometric intent, such as assuming horizontal andvertical line segments. Do not worry about di-mensions at this time; simply sketch the shapeof your cross-section such that it fills the displaynicely.
The sketch is begun by specifying features inthe sketching plane to use as references for newly-sketched entities. The intent manager will con-strain sketched entities to these designated fea-tures if you sketch close to them. For example,we will sketch our cubic so that the left side isaligned along the “RIGHT” plane and the bot-tom is aligned along the “TOP” plane8. In otherwords, the cubic will be placed in the first quad-rant of the coordinate frame suggested in Fig. 9.
The sketcher knows that references are neededto constrain your sketch in the “X” and “Y” direc-tions. The sketcher assumes that the “RIGHT”and “TOP” datum planes will be used as thereferences, as no other geometry exists at thistime. The likely references are marked with or-ange dash-dot lines, as indicated in Fig. 9. Ac-cept these reference assumptions by clicking the“Close” button in the “References” dialogue boxat the upper right corner of the screen.
In general, sketcher versatility is maximized ifyour sketch approximately fills the work window.Since our cross section will be located in only thefirst quadrant, we will now change the view of the
7A “SKETCHER ENHANCEMENT - INTENT MAN-AGER” window may be displayed over the normal workwindow when the sketcher is invoked. If so, you can elim-inate this window by pressing the “Close” button at itsbase.
8This layout enables utilizing the datum planes as log-ical datum references for inspecting the actual part thatwould be created from this model.
sketching plane to “zoom in” on this area. Theprocedure is summarized in Fig. 10.
Hold down the “Ctrl” key. Press and immedi-ately release the left mouse button at a point alittle to the left of the “RIGHT” plane and a littleabove the yellow bounding box shown at the topof the sketching plane9. As you move the mouseaway from that point, a box indicating the zoomarea will be “rubber banded” from that point.Drag it to a point a little below the “TOP” planeand a little to the right of the yellow boundingbox at the right of the sketching plane. Pressand release the left mouse button a second time.As you do so, the area defined by the zoom boxwill be blown up to nearly fill the work window10.
The profile of our cubic is a simple rectangle, assuggested in Fig. 11. When drawing the rectangleby following the steps described below, remem-ber to make the width noticeably larger than theheight; otherwise, the sketcher may assume thatyou are drawing a square rather than a rectangle.
9Hold the mouse steady while clicking the left button,or an alternate “zoom” function may be invoked.
10If you make an error at this step, you can re-set thesketching window to its default size by selecting “View”from the menu bar at the top of the main work window,then “Previous” from the resulting pull-down menu.
1) Press ‘Ctrl’ key,hold it down,
then clickleft mouse button
here
2) Drag box to here,then click
left mouse buttona second time
Figure 10: Zooming in on the first quadrant ofthe sketching plane.
The sketcher tool bar is displayed to the rightof the sketcher work window (see Fig. 9). Themeaning of the tool bar icons is illustrated inFig. 12. Remember that you can obtain a briefdescription of each icon on the menu help line bymoving the cursor over each icon. Alternately,you can look up the meaning of each icon usingcontext-sensitive help.
You can choose to sketch different types of geo-metric entities, such as line segments, rectangles,circles, and arcs, by choosing the appropriate iconfrom the tool bar. The line segment icon is se-lected by default, as it is the most commonly usedsketcher entity.
Move the mouse cursor close to the intersectionof the “RIGHT” and “TOP” planes, as shown inFig. 11. Then, click the left mouse button. Thefirst point of the cross section will be attached tothe intersection of the specified references.
As you move the mouse cursor from the start-ing point, a line segment is “rubber banded” fromthe start point to the current cursor position. Ifyou keep the cursor close to the “TOP” plane,the intent manager will lock your line to the planeand indicate that it is horizontal by labeling theline with an “H”. Move the cursor horizontallyacross the “TOP” plane until it approaches theright border of the sketching plane, as shown inFig. 11. Click the left mouse button a secondtime. This completes the line segment represent-
ing the bottom side and initializes the line seg-ment representing the right side.
Move the mouse cursor to the upper right cor-ner until you have defined an approximately ver-tical line comprising the right side, as shown inFig. 11. The intent manager will indicate that itassumes the line is vertical by labeling the linewith a “V”. Make sure the right side is shorterthan the bottom side. Click the left buttona third time, completing the right side. Simi-larly, move the mouse cursor horizontally to the“RIGHT” plane and click the left mouse buttona fourth time, completing the top side. Finally,move the cursor back to the starting point andclick the left mouse button a fifth time, complet-ing the left side.
As the mouse cursor is moved away from thelower left corner of the sketch, a line segment isagain rubber banded from the previously selectedpoint. This undesired line segment is canceled byclicking the center mouse button.
The intent manager defines default dimensionsfor your cross section upon completion of yoursketch. The assumed dimensions are shownlightly on your display and in Fig. 11. In the caseof our cubic, the critical dimensions are the widthand height. If the intent manager did not as-sume the dimensioning scheme that you wanted,you can override its assumed scheme using the“dimension” icon in the “SKETCHER” tool bar(see Fig. 12). However, in our case, we needonly change the assumed dimensions to the val-ues that we prefer. The desired width and heightare shown in Fig. 13.
To change a dimension, first choose the “mod-ify” icon from the sketcher tool bar (see Fig. 12).Then, left click on each dimension that you wantto modify (239.97 and 180.19 in Fig. 11). Upondoing so, each dimension that you select will beadded to a “Modify Dimensions” dialogue boxthat will appear in the vicinity of the main workwindow (see Fig. 14). Move the cursor into thenumeric field for each dimension and change themto the desired values. The sketch will update im-mediately. Press the green check mark button atthe bottom of the “Modify Dimensions” dialoguebox to close the box when you are finished.
Your cross-section is complete when it is con-sistent with Fig. 13. Click the “done” icon inthe sketcher tool bar (see Fig. 12). You receive aprompt asking you to specify the feature depth in
Figure 13: Suggested dimensions for the rectangular cross section.
Figure 14: The “Modify Dimensions” dialoguebox.
the “direction indicated by the arrow”. Note thatthe blue dot representing the z-axis of the coor-dinate frame symbol is now highlighted by a redcircle. This indicates that the “arrow” is pointeddirectly out of the screen.
Additionally, a dynamic menu entitled “SPECTO” is raised, with option “Blind” as the defaultselection. Accept the default by choosing “Done”at the bottom of this menu. A prompt is thenissued to enter the depth of the cubic feature.This will become its z-dimension. Type “4.0”,followed by pressing the “Enter” key.
A prompt now states: “All elements have beendefined. Select element(s) or action(s) from thedialog box.“ You accept your definition of thecubic feature by clicking on the button labeled“OK” in the “PROTRUSION: Extrude” window.
Your base feature is now complete! You cansee the third dimension of your cubic part bychanging the view as follows. First, select “View”from the menu bar above the main work win-dow. Then, select “Default” from the “ORIEN-TATION” menu. Your screen should appear sim-ilar to Fig. 15. Additional view options are intro-duced in Section 5.
In review, construction of the base feature con-sisted of instantiating a set of default datumplanes, then defining a planar cross section, thenextruding the cross section to convert it to a solid.
The cross section was created using thesketcher. Use of the sketcher can in turn be sum-marized in three steps. First, identify the refer-ence features to constrain your sketch. Second,sketch the cross-sectional profile. Third, dimen-sion the profile.
4 Basic File Management
If you are working through this tutorial as youread it, you are probably ready for a break. How-ever, Pro/ENGINEER will not save any of yourpart or assembly definitions unless you specifi-cally instruct it to do so. This section beginsby showing you how to save files and safely exitPro/ENGINEER.
When you do save files, large files start build-ing up in your account quickly. Pro/ENGINEERprovides convenient tools for controlling the pro-liferation of these files. This section concludesby instructing you how to use these tools at thesystem level, then re-start the program.
Your cubic part part is saved by selecting “File”from the menu bar above the main work window,then “Save” from the resulting pull-down menu.You are then prompted for the name of the objectto be saved. Pro/ENGINEER suggests a defaultname, “CUBIC.PRT”11, developed from the basefeature name. The suffix “.PRT” is automaticallyadded to the file name to clearly identify it asa part file. Simply press “Enter” to accept thedefault file name. The message “CUBIC has beensaved” will be printed.
11While the prompt shows this name in all capital let-ters, the name of the file that is actually saved to yourdirectory is in all small letters.
User Tip 2: Exit Pro/ENGINEER regularly!If you work continuously on Pro/ENGINEERfor a long period of time, exit and re-startPro/ENGINEER on a regular basis. Half-hour intervals are suggested. This simplifiesrecovery in the case of a catastrophic error.
I highly recommend that you “Save” a part pe-riodically, parallel to the way you would periodi-cally update a text file developed on a word pro-cessor. This will protect you in the case of acci-dently corrupting a complicated part well into itsdevelopment, or a “crash” of the computer sys-tem.
If you would like a break, this is a goodtime. Pro/ENGINEER is terminated by select-ing “Exit” from the “MAIN” menu, as describedin Part 1.
The “Save” command creates a new version ofthe part file every time that it is issued. Further-more, these files may be large. Therefore, thesefiles can start consuming large amounts of yourdisk space. In addition, Pro/ENGINEER createsa “trail” file that keeps a record of all commandsthat you have input every time you run the pro-gram12. While useful, these files can also clutteryour catalog.
Pro/ENGINEER provides a system-level“purge” command to control the files associatedwith the program. The system-level purge com-mand eliminates all but the most recent versionof all part, assembly, and drawing files that itfinds on the current directory. Furthermore, thecommand deletes all but the most recent trailfile. The system-level purge is run by simplyexiting the Pro/ENGINEER program, thentyping “purge” at the command prompt13:% purge
You will want to retrieve your cubic part atthe time that you re-start Pro/ENGINEER. Thisis accomplished by starting Pro/ENGINEER asdescribed in Part 1, then selecting “File” fromthe menu bar above the main work window. Se-lect “Open” from the resulting pull-down menu.A dialogue box labeled “File Open” will appear
12These enable advanced users to recover sessions whenan error occurs. In addition, they can be used to set updemonstration sessions.
13The Pro/ENGINEER module must be loaded for the“purge” command to be recognized.
User Tip 3: Purge Your Account Regularly!Run the system-level “purge” command regu-larly to conserve your file space.
User Tip 4: Check Your File Space!IT students are allocated 100 Mb of file spaceon their ITlabs accounts. If you exceed thisallocation, your files may be automaticallydeleted!
You can check how much of your file spaceyou are using with the command:% quota -v
Use the “quota -v” command regularlyto see if you are nearing your disk quota.We strongly suggest that you delete unwantedfiles if your usage exceeds about 75 Mb. Thisis particularly important when you are work-ing frenetically to complete a project!
on your display showing all available parts in thecurrent catalog. You can re-open the cubic byselecting file “cubic.prt” with the mouse cursor,then pressing the “Open” button at the bottomof the dialogue box.
The retrieved part is displayed in the mainwork window in its default orientation14.
5 Changing the View
Pro/ENGINEER gives you many facilities formanipulating the appearance of the object in themain work window. They are accessed throughthe “View” selection from the menu bar above themain work window. The usage of several popu-lar viewing selections is introduced here. In par-ticular, creating a shaded view of the part, re-orienting the part, zooming in on a portion of thepart, and changing the color of your part are de-scribed. Try all these manipulations with yoursample cubic part.
The ability to create shaded views is one ofthe attractive features of solid modeling systems.The part appears “solid”, so you can develop abetter appreciation of its appearance before actu-ally manufacturing it. The default system set-upautomatically displays solids using shaded views.
14Remember, you may want to turn off the “model tree”to maximize visibility of the work window.
You can appreciate the visualization power ofthe shaded view further by spinning your cubicin the main work window so that you can see itsvarious sides. This is accomplished by selecting“Spin / Pan / Zoom” from the “View” pull-downmenu. This raises a dialogue box labeled “Orien-tation” at the upper right of your display. Thebottom half of this dialogue box contains a setof sliding controls labeled “H”, “V” and “C” toenable you to spin your part.
The sliding controls are manipulated with themouse. For example, place the mouse cursor onthe slider in the “V” scale, then press and holddown the left mouse button. Slide the mouse cur-sor back and forth. As you do, the cubic appearsto spin around the y-axis. When you have ro-tated the cubic to the position you desire, youcan “lock” it there by releasing the left mousebutton. You are then free to activate a differentsliding control, or make another menu selection.
If you want to bring your cubic back to its orig-inal position at any time, select “Default” fromthe pull-down “View” menu. You can zoom inon a portion of your part by manipulating the“Zoom” sliding control in the center of the “Ori-entation” dialogue box. The “Pan” sliders at thetop of the “Orientation” dialogue box enable youto move the display left or right (the “H” slider)or up and down (the “V” slider). Press the “OK”button to close the “Orientation” dialogue box.
Zooming in is done so frequently that a shortcut is provided for this operation15. The short cutdoes not require you to open the “Orientation”dialogue box. Hold down the “Ctrl” key. Clickthe left mouse button to define the first corner ofa rectangle defining the desired viewing area16.Move the mouse cursor away from this point tocause a rectangle indicating the viewing area tobe dragged across the screen. When you havethe opposite corner placed where you want, clickthe left mouse button a second time. The regionincluded in the viewing area rectangle is then ex-panded to fill your screen.
You can zoom in or out using a minor modifi-cation of this procedure. Again, press and hold
15This short cut was actually already used to zoom inon the sketching plane in Section 3.
16Be sure to hold the mouse steadily in one positionbefore clicking the left mouse button the first time forthis operation. If the mouse moves at the time the leftmouse button is pressed, the alternate zooming shortcutdescribed in the next paragraph will be invoked instead.
down the “Ctrl” key. Now, move the mouse up orto the right, then press the left mouse button afterstarting to move it. Your work window will con-tinuously include a larger viewing area; i.e., youwill zoom out from your current display. Movingthe mouse down or to the left in this operationwill zoom in rather than out.
The main work window can be returned to itsoriginal appearance at any time by selecting “De-fault” from the “View” pull-down menu.
The default color of your cubic is white, as isevident in the shaded view. You may want tochange its color, particularly if you intend to com-bine this part with others in an assembly. Thisis done by choosing “Model Setup” from the bot-tom of the “View” pull-down menu, then “Color& Appearances” from the right pop-up displayavailable from that selection. This raises a dia-logue box labeled “Appearances”.
A palette of currently defined colors is dis-played at the top of the dialogue box. Initially,the palette contains white and yellow. You canadd a new color by pushing the “Add” but-ton below the palette. This raises a dialoguebox entitled “Appearance Editor”. This windowhas three sub-sections: “Basic”, “Advanced” and“Detail”. We will use only the “Basic” section inour introduction.
The “Basic” section has an entry termed“Color” with a white pallet entry as a far rightbutton. Move the mouse cursor over this buttonand click on it. This raises a new window labeled“Color Editor”.
The Color Editor window contains two sec-tions: “RGB”, a concatenation of “Red-Green-Blue”, and “HSV”, a concatenation of “Hue-Saturation-Value”. These provide two indepen-dent options of defining new colors17. We use the“RGB” option in this exercise.
The RGB section contains a sliding scale foreach color. They are initially all set at a max-imum of 255, yielding white18. The color youdefine is reflected in a sample color block at thetop of the window.
Try moving the “R” (red) slider by holding themouse cursor over it and depressing the left mouse
17These options are discussed in the class ME 5241,Computer Aided Engineering.
18The scale of 0 to 255 indicates the number of colorgradations available using 8 bits of intensity control foreach color gun.
button. Lower the percentage of red included inyour new color to about 127. You will note thatthe color block at the top of the scale appearsturquoise. Use the RGB sliders to adjust the sam-ple color block to your satisfaction.
When your color definition is complete, click onthe “OK” button at the bottom of the “Color Ed-itor” window. Then click on the “OK” button atthe bottom of the “Appearance Editor” dialoguebox. Your new color is then added to the paletteshown in the “Appearances” dialogue box.
Now, you can change the color of your cubic toyour new color. A chip of your new color will bedisplayed in the “Set Object Appearance” sectionof the “Appearances” dialogue box. You can al-ternately select any other color in the palette byclicking on its button in the palette display. Thenpress the “Set” button at the bottom of the “Ap-pearances” dialogue box. The new color of thecubic will be reflected in the main work window.
You must save your part after changing its colorto permanently record its new color. A separateprocedure is used to save your new color on thepalette for future use in other parts. Click onthe “File” pull-down menu entry at the upper leftcorner of the “Appearances” dialogue box, thenchoose “Save As” from the resulting pull-downmenu. This raises another dialogue box, entitled“Save”, that enables you to save a file in your cur-rent catalog that contains your custom palette. Acommon name for this file is “color.map”. Clickthe “OK” button at the bottom of the “Save”dialogue box to create or update this file. Clickthe “Cancel” button to close the “Save” dialoguebox. Click the “Close” button to close the “Ap-pearances” dialogue box.
“Repaint” is another useful selection availablefrom the “View” pull-down menu. Repaintingcan often be used to “clean up” the main workwindow in the case that other commands havecorrupted the display.
The “View” commands can be applied at anytime without affecting the remaining functional-ity of Pro/ENGINEER. For example, you canzoom in on a portion of geometry while using thesketcher without adversely affecting your sketch.Experiment with applying the “View” commandsat any point where they might help in your de-sign.
Printing in Pro/ENGINEER is accomplished inthree steps. First, the view is set up to appearexactly how you want it printed in the main workwindow. Second, a print file is generated. Third,the print file is sent to the printer at your conve-nience.
The first step is accomplished with the “View”commands described in Section 5. However, youmay wish to print a “hidden line” image of yourpart rather than a shaded image to save diskspace on your account. Instructions to changeyour display from shaded to hidden line are sup-plied first. Generating a print file and send-ing it to the printer are then described. Fi-nally, advanced users are provided with informa-tion on how to modify PostScript files generatedby Pro/ENGINEER to enable importing them toother software packages.
The mode for displaying solids in the mainwork window is changed by re-setting the “en-vironment” for your Pro/E session. Select “Util-ities” from the menu bar, then “Environment”from the resulting pull-down menu. This raisesan extensive “Environment” window on the rightside of your screen.
The lower portion of the “Environment” win-dow includes a “display style”. This is set to“shading” by default. To change this setting toa wireframe image with hidden lines, click on thepull-down arrow to the right of “Shading”, thenselect “Hidden Line” from the four possible dis-play options. Click the “OK” button at the bot-tom of the window to close the “Environment”window and modify your display.
You can set the main work window display backto shaded views by repeating the procedure, butselecting “Shading” as the “Display Style”. How-ever, I recommend that you normally work in“Hidden Line” display mode. You can temporar-ily shade the objects in the main work window atany time by selecting “View” from the menu barthen “Shade” from the resulting pull-down menu.The display can be returned to hidden line wire-frame by selecting “View”-“Repaint”.
The “Print” dialogue box is raised by select-ing “Print” from the “File” pull-down menu. Ifyou wish to create a black-and-white plot, choose
a “Destination” of “postscript”. If you wish toprint to a color printer, choose a “Destination” of“Generic Color Postscript”19.
We recommend that you always create a filebefore sending your file to the printer if usingworkstations in ITlabs. This is recommended sothat you can check your print before paying toplot it. Furthermore, you can choose which ofthe many printers available in ITlabs you wish toreceive your print at any time. Pro/ENGINEERis instructed to create a file for printing by se-lecting “To file” and de-selecting20 “To printer”in the “Print” dialogue box. Initiate creation ofthe print file by pressing the “OK” button at thebottom of the “Print” dialogue box.
A dialogue box labeled “Print to File” is thenraised showing the default print file name. Thedefault file name consists of the object name withthe suffix “.plt” appended. For example, the de-fault name for a plot of the “cubic” part is “cu-bic.plt”. You may change this name if you wish.
Click on the “OK” button at the bottom of the“Print to File” dialogue box to generate the plotfile. If you accepted the default plot file name inthe “Plot” window, your catalog now contains aPostscript file named “cubic.plt”.
Since you are charged for all prints made inME 308, you may wish to examine your ploton your workstation screen before sending it tothe printer. This can be done after exitingPro/ENGINEER by using the “ghostview” util-ity21:% ghostview cubic.pltGhostview is terminated by placing the cursorover the “File” button at the upper left of thescreen. Press down the left mouse button, thenslide the cursor over “Quit” and release the leftmouse button.
If your plot file appears acceptable using“ghostview”, you can send it to the printer usingthe standard, system-level “lpr” command. Forexample, if you want to make a black-and-whiteprint on the Hewlett-Packard laser printer in ME308, issue the command:% lpr -Pme308 cubic.plt
19This is selected by default for shaded views.20A menu item containing a check mark symbol to its
right is “selected”. Clicking on a checked menu item will“de-select” the item, causing it to be “turned off”.
21You can examine your plot without exitingPro/ENGINEER by opening another UNIX shell touse the “ghostview” utility.
User Tip 5: Delete Shaded View “.plt” Files AfterPrinting!
Shaded image PostScript files are very large.To conserve your file space, delete all such filesas soon as you no longer need them.
For a color print in ME 308, issue the command:% lpr -Pme308-color cubic.plt
Please remember, you must pay for every printthat you make. The costs depend on the size,media and printer style; check with the lab at-tendants in ME 308 for details22.
By default, your plot files include representa-tions of datum planes, coordinate systems andaxes of any revolved features. You may want to“clean up” your print by suppressing the displayof these entities. This is accomplished by select-ing “Environment” from the “Utilities” pull-downmenu.
Display of the datum planes is suppressed byde-selecting “Datum Planes” from the “Environ-ment” dialogue box. Display of the coordinatesystems is suppressed by de-selecting “Coordi-nate Systems”. Display of axes of revolution issuppressed by de-selecting “Datum Axes”. Youcan also suppress display of dimension tolerancesand spin centers, if you prefer. The main workwindow will not reflect your changes until youselect the “Apply” button at the bottom of thedialogue box or “Repaint” from the “View” pull-down menu. Press the “OK” button to close the“Environment” dialogue box.
More advanced users may wish totake PostScript plots generated usingPro/ENGINEER and utilize them in othersoftware, such as the “xfig” drawing package orLATEXdocuments. You will have to edit three ofthe first 14 lines of the PostScript file to enablethis. Fortunately, this is easy to do with yourfavorite text editor, as described below.
First, open your “.plt” file with your favoritetext editor. The second line of this file will spec-ify the “bounding box”. Change the four integernumbers on this line to read:%%BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
22Large-format (“B”, “C”, “D”, or “E” size) plots canalso be made on the Calcomp plotter in ME 308. Instruc-tions on how to print to this plotter are available from thelab attendant.
Next, examine line 13, which declares the “Pa-geSize”. If the two integers following the “Page-Size” read “792 612”, reverse them. The correctline reads:<<PageSize[612 792]>> setpagedeviceNow, examine line 14, following the “PageSize”
line. This line will contain a closing curly bracketfollowed by the word “if”. Leave the closing curlybracket, but delete the word “if”. Your “.plt” fileshould now be well behaved when imported toother software.
7 Adding a Feature to a BaseFeature
Your base feature should be created to representonly the simple net shape of your actual part. Ad-ditional geometry, such as holes, cuts, fillets, andprotrusions, should be added as separate features.This section describes how to add a through holefeature to your cubic part as an example. Someother common feature choices are introduced atthe end of the section.
The finished hole is illustrated in Fig. 16. Con-struction of the hole can be conceptualized asfollows. We will place a circular profile on the“FRONT” datum plane. The profile will be lo-cated 2 inches to the right of the “RIGHT” da-tum plane and 2 inches above the “TOP” da-tum plane. We will then generate the hole by“sweeping” the circular profile forward for theentire thickness of the part. Note that manyPro/ENGINEER features are created by defin-ing a two-dimensional profile on a plane and thensweeping it into a third dimension.
Referencing features to the default datums isgenerally desirable to obtain good part structure.Therefore, we will reference the datum planes ofthe cubic to place the hole. If you turned the dis-play of the datum planes off while creating a printfile of your part, turn it back on before beginningthe hole feature. As explained in Section 6, this isdone by selecting “Environment” from the “Utili-ties” menu, then selecting “Datum Planes” in the“Display” options.
New features are added to an existing partby selecting “Feature” from the “PART” menu.Then, select “Create” from the “FEAT” menu.This raises the “FEAT CLASS” menu with“Solid” pre-selected. A hole is created by se-
User Tip 6: Use Trimetric Views to Select Geom-etry
Use trimetric views, such as provided by the“Default” view, to select edges, planes, da-tums, and axes for defining dimensions andpositioning features. The trimetric view en-ables you to ensure that the intended geomet-ric entity was selected. In contrast, if youattempt to select geometry from a parallelview with superimposed entities, you may ac-cidently select one of the superimposed enti-ties! For example, you may accidently selectan edge on a back face, instead of an intendededge on a front face, from a view that overlaysthe two faces.
Remember, you can always change the viewwithout affecting the part under construction!
lecting “Hole” from the “SOLID” menu. Thiswill raise a “HOLE” dialogue box similar toFig. 17. The paragraphs which follow explain howto change the default entries to the values shownin Fig. 17.
First, left-click on the arrow button to the rightof the “Primary Reference” entry of the “HolePlacement” section in the “HOLE” dialogue box.This will raise a prompt which reads: “Select aplane, cylinder, cone or point as the primary ref-erence for the hole placement.” Press the rightmouse button somewhere within the main workwindow in order to invoke the “Query Select” op-tion for selecting the reference23.
23As you gain confidence and skill in making selectionsin the main work window, you can immediately make a
Figure 17: Dialogue box for creating a “hole” fea-ture.
Select the “FRONT” datum plane by clickingon the “FRONT” label with the left mouse but-ton. If the “FRONT” datum plane is not imme-diately highlighted, try clicking the right mousebutton to scroll through multiple possible selec-tions. When the “FRONT” datum plane is high-lighted, confirm the selection by clicking the cen-ter mouse button.
You will now obtain a prompt to “Select thefeature’s placement location on the datum plane”.Pro/ENGINEER is asking you to approximatelyplace the hole on the “FRONT” plane with themouse. This enables Pro/ENGINEER to figureout the approximate relation of the hole to theother placement references. Position the mousesomewhere in the vicinity shown in Fig. 18, thenclick the left mouse button.
You will now obtain a prompt to “Select firstreference for hole placement”. Place the mousesomewhere in the main work window and clickthe right mouse button to invoke “Query se-lect”. Then, click the left mouse button near the
selection with the left mouse button. We are encouragingyou to utilize the “Query select” option at first until youare more comfortable in making selections. “Query select”is oftentimes invoked by advanced users when attemptingto make selections on a cluttered display.
Left−click mouse about hereon the ‘‘FRONT’’ datum plane
Figure 18: Approximately locating the hole posi-tion on the “FRONT” datum plane.
“RIGHT” plane label. If necessary, click the rightmouse button to scroll through multiple possibleselections. When the “RIGHT” datum plane ishighlighted, click the center mouse button to con-firm your selection.
Next, you will receive a prompt to “Select sec-ond reference for hole placement”. Select the“TOP” datum plane using a procedure similarto the above.
If you look at the lower left of the part, youwill see a red arrow pointing back from the partand dual yellow arrows pointing forward into thepart. We would like our hole profile to sweep allthe way through the part in the yellow direction.Since the hole profile is defined on the rear faceof the part, we don’t need it to extend in the reddirection at all.
We communicate our desires for sweeping thehole profile to Pro/ENGINEER by making en-tries in the “Hole Dimension” section of the“HOLE” dialogue box. First, left click the pull-down menu arrow at the right of the text field ofthe “Depth Two” descriptor (see Fig. 17). Select“Thru All” from the resulting pull-down menu.Then, left click the pull-down menu arrow at theright of the text field of the “Depth One” de-scriptor. Press the left mouse button and select“None” from the resulting pull-down menu. Youmay have to scroll to the bottom of the pull-downmenu to see the “None” entry.
Now, we will assign actual dimensions to thediameter and the position of the hole. Change the“Diameter” field in the “Hole Dimension” sectionof the “Hole” dialogue box to “0.75”. Then, setboth “Distance” fields in the “Hole Placement”
section to “2.0”. Finally, press the green check-mark button at the bottom of the dialogue boxto complete the definition of the hole. Your holeshould then appear similar to Fig.16. Remember,you must now save the cubic in the database tomake the through hole a permanent feature!
Pro/ENGINEER provides a multitude of otherpossible features. Most, if not all, of the featuresthat you will use in this class are accessible fromthe “SOLID” menu. Common selections may in-clude “Round”, “Chamfer”, “Cut”, and “Protru-sion”. Remember, you can obtain brief descrip-tions of these features by highlighting each withthe mouse and reading the menu help line.
8 Creating a Second Part
A second simple part, a “pin”, is now created forthree reasons. First, you will obtain experiencein creating a “solid of revolution”, rather than anextrusion. Second, you will gain more experiencewith the facilities of the “sketcher”. Finally, youwill need two parts to create a sample assembly inthe following section. Much of the procedure forcreating the pin is similar to the steps presentedin Section 3. The unique steps of creating the pinare explained below.
If you did not exit from Pro / ENGINEER fol-lowing the completion of Section 7, the cubic isstill displayed in the main work window. Themain work window needs to be cleared if youwish to create the new part in it. This is accom-plished by selecting “Close” from the “Window”pull-down menu.
The pin is initiated by selecting “New” fromthe “File” pull-down menu. This raises the“New” dialogue box with “Part” pre-selected.Enter “pin” in the “Name” field, then press the“OK” button.
As mentioned in Section 7, you can visualizecreation of many solids in Pro/ENGINEER asa process of sketching a two-dimensional cross-section and then sweeping it into a third dimen-sion. The features for the cubic were swept by“extruding” it along a straight line in the thirddimension. Pro/ENGINEER offers more elegantoptions for sweeping in the third dimension. Forexample, you can revolve a profile around an axisto create a circular or spherical shape.
this point. You could revolve a rectangular cross-section about an axis, or you could extrude a cir-cular cross-section. We will create the pin as arevolution to expand your domain of commandsin Pro/ENGINEER.
Note that “Extrude” is pre-selected on thethree-section “SOLID OPTS” menu. Therefore,you must change the selection in the top sectionto “Revolve”. Accept the pre-selection of “Solid”from the center section. Then, select “Done”from the bottom section of the “SOLID OPTS”menu.
Accept the pre-selection of “One Side” from the“ATTRIBUTES” menu. Then, choose “Done”from the bottom section.
The next few steps set up the sketchingplane, exactly as was done in Section 3. Se-lect “FRONT” as the sketching plane. Choose“Okay” from the “DIRECTION” menu whenprompted for the direction of feature creation.Select “Default” from the “SKET VIEW” menu.The sketcher grid should then appear in the mainwork window. “RIGHT” and “TOP” will be pre-selected as sketcher references. Close the “Refer-ences” dialogue box.
Revolved sections require definition of a centerline around which the section is revolved. Thecenter line is a distinct type of line segment whichmust be explicitly selected in the sketcher. Clickon the arrow to the right of the line segment toolin the sketcher tool bar (see Fig. 12), then clickon the vertical dashed line button to the right ofthe resulting menu. Define a center line on top ofthe “TOP” axis, as suggested in Fig. 19, using theleft mouse button. Then, re-set the line segmenttool to the normal line segment.
The complete profile to be revolved is suggestedin turquoise in Fig. 20. You will create the pro-file in three separate steps, itemized in Figs.21through 23, respectively. Each step is describedbelow.
Create the four line segments shown in Fig. 21.Align the bottom of the first vertical line segmentwith datum plane “TOP”. Align the third linesegment with datum plane “RIGHT”. These linesegments can be defined using the left mouse but-ton, as was done in Section 3. Remember, thecenter mouse button terminates the creation ofline segments.
Second, create the tangent arc at the right sideof the profile, as suggested in Fig. 22. Select the
Start centerlineapproximately here
End centerlineapproximately here
Figure 19: Creating an axis of revolution for thepin
Figure 21: Definition of initial line segmentsdefining pin profile. (Assumed lengths shown bysketcher aren’t important.)
“Arc” tool from the sketcher tool bar (fig. 12).Begin the arc by moving the mouse cursor closeto the right end of the fourth line segment createdin the previous step. Then, press and release theleft mouse button. The arc is “rubber banded”from the cursor as you move the mouse cursordownwards and to the right. Move the mousecursor so that the center symbol of the arc falls ontop of plane “TOP”. Then, press the left mousebutton a second time to complete the definitionof the arc.
Third, again select the line segment tool. De-
Start tangent arc here
(Align vertical position of center symbol with ‘‘TOP’’ datum)
End tangent arc here
Figure 22: Creating a tangent arc.
Start closure line here
End closure line here
Figure 23: Closing the profile.
fine a line segment extending from the left edge ofthe revolved profile to the bottom of the tangentarc, as suggested in Fig. 23. This line segmentshould be drawn on top of both the centerlineand datum plane “TOP”. This line segment isused to close the revolved profile.
We wish to define the pin with four parameters:the overall length, the length of the cap, the diam-eter of the pin body, and the diameter of the cap.The sketcher assumed the overall length dimen-sion consistent with our design intent in Fig. 23.However, dimensions for the cap length and diam-eters must be defined to over-ride the sketcher’sinitial assumptions.
Dimensioning schemes are changed from thesketcher’s assumptions by selecting the “Dimen-sion” tool from the “SKETCHER” tool bar (seeFig. 12). The method for dimensioning the caplength is shown in Fig. 24. First, select the“Right” datum plane using query select24. Sec-ond, left click on the vertical line segment repre-senting the top of the pin. Third, place the di-mension symbol at a convenient spot by clickingthe center mouse button.
Diameter dimensions are defined by left click-ing on a line representing the edge of an outerdiameter, left clicking on the center line, thenleft clicking on the line representing the edge ofan outer diameter again. Finally, the dimensionsymbol is placed with the center mouse button.
24Remember, to invoke query select, place the cursor inthe main work window and click the right mouse button.You could also dimension to the vertical line representingthe bottom of the cap or the reference aligned with the“RIGHT” datum plane. However, dimensioning to thedatum plane probably best describes the design intent.
1) Select the ‘‘RIGHT’’ datum plane.(Use ‘‘query select’’)
2) Select vertical line (representing cap top)
3) Place dimension at convenient location(Use center mouse button)
Figure 24: Defining the cap length.
For example, the procedure for sizing the diam-eter of the pin body is summarized in Fig. 2525.The diameter of the cap is dimensioned using par-allel steps.
The sketcher will insert arbitrary dimensionsduring definition of the sketch. We wish to changethe values of the pin to those summarized inFig. 27. This could be done in the sketcher byusing the “Modify” tool. However, we’ll insteaddemonstrate how to change dimensions at thepart level.
The sketch is completed by clicking the “Done”tool on the sketcher tool bar. You will then beprompted to “select revolve option”. We wantthe pin profile to be fully rotated about the cen-ter axis, so choose “360” from the “REV TO”menu. Then, choose “Done” from bottom of the“REV TO” menu. Press the “OK” button in the“PROTRUSION: Revolve” dialogue box to com-plete the definition of the base feature. Changethe view to “Default”.
Select “Done” from the “FEAT” menu. Then,select “Modify” from the “PART” menu. Place
25Be sure to dimension the outer diameter of the pinusing the line representing the pin diameter, and not thepoint representing the intersection of the tangent arc withthe outer diameter. The latter produces unexpected re-sults.
1) Select OD line with left mouse button
3) Select OD line with left mouse button
2) Select center line with left mouse button
4) Place dimension in a convenient locationwith center mouse button
Figure 25: Defining the diameter of the pin body.
the mouse cursor somewhere on the pin geometryin the main work window and click the left mousebutton. The default dimensions assumed by thesketcher should then appear, similar to Fig. 26.
Left-click on one of the displayed dimensions.This will raise a prompt labeled “Enter value”to appear on the message line, with the currentdimension shown in the text field. Type in thecorrect dimension (from Fig. 27) and press theenter key. The corrected dimension should ap-pear on the display, although the geometry won’tyet actually change to reflect the updated value.Change all four dimensions indicated in Fig. 27to their desired values.
When all dimensions have been updated, select“Regenerate” from the “Part” menu. The geom-etry will then be corrected to be consistent withyour new dimensions.
I suggest that you change the color of the pin tocontrast with the cubic, as described at the end ofSection 5. Then, save the pin for later retrieval.
Creation of the pin has been used to exposeyou to some of the options for defining circularfeatures using the sketcher. The same pin couldhave been defined using a variety of alternate enti-ties. For example, the pin could have been definedwith a flat, rather than a spherical, tip. The tipcould then have been modified to its final shapeby superimposing a second “round” feature.
In general, the base feature should be kept assimple as possible. Try to limit the sketch usedto create the base feature to ten entities or less.
Figure 26: Default dimensions displayed in thepart window.
9 Creating Assemblies
Pro/ENGINEER provides the designer with toolsto combine several separate parts into an assem-bly. Furthermore, you can group combinationsof parts into sub-assemblies, then manage a sub-assembly similar to a single part. The full asso-ciativity of Pro/ENGINEER reflects any changesmade on a part in all assemblies where that partis used. The use of the assembly facility is intro-duced here by giving you detailed instructions onhow to assemble the pin with the cubic.
The general procedure starts by creating a setof default datum planes in assembly mode. Com-ponents are then added one at a time, each refer-encing the default assembly datum planes. Somesuggestions for creating robust assemblies, as wellas simplifying the potentially confusing variety of
possibilities for creating assemblies, are providedat the end of the section.
You should either exit Pro / ENGINEER af-ter completing the pin, or select “Close” fromthe “Window” pull-down menu to clear the mainwork window. Then, select “New” from the“File” pull-down menu. Once the “New” dia-logue box is displayed, change the selection from“Part” to “Assembly”. Provide any convenientname for your assembly in the “Name” field, suchas “demo assem”. Press the “OK” button to startdefining the assembly.
The main work window will then display a setof datum planes similar to that used to create anew part, except that the datum plane labels arenow each preceded by an “ASM ”. For example,the plane perpendicular to the X-axis is labeled“ASM RIGHT”.
You will now add the cubic to the assem-bly. Choose “Component” from the “ASSEM-BLY” menu, followed by “Assemble” from the“COMPONENT” menu. A dialogue box labeled“Open” is raised. Click on “cubic.prt” from theresulting list of entities. Press the “Open” but-ton. The cubic is then displayed in the main workwindow. The cubic will be positioned on top ofthe assembly datums by default.
You will now provide directions on how the cu-bic should be oriented with respect to the refer-ence datums. This is done by way of the dialoguebox entitled “Component Placement”, which isopened to the right of the screen. In general,three constraints are needed to position one partwith respect to the assembly datums. The cu-bic is placed by applying the “Align Offset” com-mand three times.
First, change the “Constraint Type” field inthe “Component Placement” dialogue box from
“Automatic” to “Align Offset”26. This is done bymoving the mouse cursor to the downward arrowto the right of the field, clicking on the arrow,then selecting “Align Offset” from the resultingpull-down menu.
“Align Offset” aligns two planar surfaces suchthat they are parallel and their normals point inthe same direction27. The offset allows you tocontrol the distance between the two surfaces.
You are prompted to select a surface or datumon one part. Move the mouse cursor into the mainwork window and click the right mouse button toenter “Query Select” mode. Click near the cen-ter of the front left edge of the cubic with theleft mouse button. The goal is to select datumplane “ASM RIGHT”; when you are successful,the “ASM RIGHT” label will be clearly high-lighted in red. If necessary, try selecting againwith the left mouse button, or scrolling throughpotential surfaces with the right mouse button.When the “ASM RIGHT” plane is highlighted,click the center mouse button to accept it.
You are now prompted to choose which side ofdatum plane “ASM RIGHT” to use for orientingthe cubic. Note that an arrow is displayed nearthe center of the left rear edge, clarifying the “yel-low” direction. Select the “yellow” button of the“Datum Orient” dialogue box.
The next prompt asks you to select a planarsurface or datum plane on the cubic. Select da-tum plane “RIGHT” of the cubic using “QuerySelect”. You are likely to have to click the rightmouse button to select plane “RIGHT” of the cu-bic rather than plane “ASM RIGHT” of the as-sembly. When you have accepted the selectionof “RIGHT”, you are prompted to choose whichside of the datum plane to use for the orientation;select the “Yellow” button of the “Datum Orient”dialogue box.
The constraint is completed by specifying theoffset to include between “ASM RIGHT” and“RIGHT”. Accept the default of 0 by pressingthe “Enter” key. Your complete constraint shouldnow appear in the “Constraints” list near the top
26“Automatic” mode would assume placement using“align” constraints rather than “align offset” constraintsin the following steps. “Align offset” provides flexibilityfor future adjustments, as described later in this section.
27The normal to a solid surface always points away fromthe solid side of the surface. Datum planes are exceptionsto this rule; you may reference a normal on either side ofa datum plane, as explained later in this section.
of the “Component Placement” dialogue box.The steps for aligning “TOP” of the cubic with
“ASM TOP” of the assembly datum planes arebriefly overviewed here. First, ensure “Align Off-set” is still selected as the “Constraint Type”in the “Component Placement” window. Then,select the “ASM TOP” plane using “query se-lect”, and reference its “yellow” side. Next, se-lect “TOP” using “Query Select”, and referenceits “yellow” side. Specify an offset of 0 inches.The second constraint is then complete.
Follow the same procedure to align “FRONT”with “ASM FRONT”. You may have to explicitlytype in the offset of 0 to align the “FRONT” da-tum with the “ASM FRONT” datum, since thecubic is initially placed with a default offset of -4inches.
When the procedure is complete, you shouldsee three “Align Offset” constraints listed in theupper half of the “Component Placement” dia-logue box. You should get a message that thecubic component is “Fully Constrained” in the“Placement Status” field near the bottom of the“Component Placement” dialogue box28. Whenyou succeed in defining all three constraints, clickthe “OK” button at the bottom of the dialoguebox. You will then receive the message: “COM-PONENT has been created successfully.”. Savethe file after successfully assembling the cubicwith the assembly datum planes.
The assembly is completed by adding the“pin”. Select “Assemble” from the “COMPO-NENT” menu. The “Open” dialogue box is raisedonce more. Click on “pin.prt”, then press the“Open” button. The pin then appears in yourmain work window, next to the cubic, as shownin Fig. 28.
You will now define how the pin is locatedwith respect to the assembly datums. We willarbitrarily choose to do this by specifying howthe “yellow” sides of the datum planes for thepin should be located relative to the “yellow”sides of the assembly datums. To orient the pinthe way we would like it, the yellow normal to“ASM RIGHT” should face in the same direc-tion as the yellow normal of “FRONT” of thepin, the yellow normal to “ASM TOP” should
28If you have problems, you can click the “Cancel” but-ton at the bottom of the “Component Placement” dialoguebox. This eliminates the cubic component from your as-sembly altogether, so you can start over.
Figure 28: Initial appearance of work windowwhen assembling the pin and the cubic.
face in the same direction as the yellow normalto “TOP” of the pin, and the yellow normal to“ASM FRONT” should face in the opposite di-rection of “RIGHT” of the pin.
The first two constraints are specified using“Align Offset”, as was done before. However,specify an offset of 2 inches for both of these con-straints. The normals to two planes are forced topoint in opposite directions by selecting a “Con-straint Type” of “Mate Offset” before starting thethird constraint. Specify an offset of 4.5 inches forthe last constraint. Then, click on the “OK” but-ton at the bottom of the “Component Placement”dialogue box. Close the “COMPONENT” menuby selecting “Done / Return” at the bottom ofthe menu.
Save your assembly by selecting “Save” fromthe “File” pull-down menu. Finally, choose“View” from the menu bar and “Repaint” fromthe resulting pull-down menu to clean up yourdisplay. You can make your assembly appearmore realistic by temporarily turning off the dis-play of the datum planes and axes and shad-ing the view. The resulting assembly shouldappear similar to Fig. 29. You can gain anappreciation for the visualization capabilities ofPro/ENGINEER by spinning your assembly tosee all of its sides.
Once you have defined the basic constraintsfor an assembly, they are easy to modify. Asan example, we will temporarily move the pinstraight out of the hole. The pin position is mod-ified by selecting “Modify” from the “Assembly”menu, followed by “Mod Assem” from the “AS-SEM MOD” menu. A “MODIFY ASSY” menu isthen raised with “Modify Dim” preselected, anda “MODIFY” menu is raised with “Value” pre-selected. Choose “Query Select”.
Click on the pin. If you do not receive a mes-sage similar to: “Showing DEMO ASSEM com-
Figure 29: Shaded view of completed assembly.
ponent No. 6 ‘PIN’. Confirm selection.”, keep themouse on the pin and press the right mouse but-ton until you do. Then, press the center button ofthe mouse to accept your choice. The current off-sets are displayed in the main work window. Clickon the z-offset of 4.5 inches, and type in a new off-set of 8.5 inches. The change is completed by se-lecting “Regenerate” from the “MODIFY ASSY”menu, followed by “Automatic” from the “PRTTO REGEN” menu.
The pin should now have been moved as peryour request. Manipulate the “View” commandsto see the move clearly for yourself. Click “Done”on the “MODIFY ASSY” menu and “Done / Re-turn” on the “ASSEM MOD” menu to returnto the main “ASSEMBLY” menu. If you exitPro/ENGINEER without saving the modified po-sition, the pin will be returned to its original lo-cation the next time you open this assembly file.
You can gain some appreciation for the time-saving potential of CAD tools by appraising theprevious assembly procedure. Note how little in-put was required to assemble previously-designedparts. Consider the time that would be requiredto create an equivalent assembly drawing using amanual drafting board!
In closing this section, several suggestions aremade for creating robust and flexible assemblymodels.
First, I recommend that you build all assem-blies by positioning new parts with respect tothose datum planes wherever possible. Further-more, utilize the datum planes defined as the firstfeatures of each individual part in your assemblyconstraints. Following this approach minimizesthe danger of your assembly being corrupted asyou make changes on the part models included in
that assembly.Second, if you are creating a complex assembly,
break it up into several simpler sub-assemblies.Pro/ENGINEER allows you to pull in assembliesas components in a new assembly, so packaginggroups of parts in sub-assemblies is straightfor-ward.
If you include several sub-assemblies in amain assembly, differentiating between the da-tum planes of the different assemblies can beconfusing. However, you can change the namesof the datum planes used as the base for eachsub-assembly29. Select “Modify” from the “AS-SEMBLY” menu, then “Datum/Axis” from the“MODIFY” menu, then select that datum planewhose name is to be changed. A small windowentitled “Datum” will appear at the top right ofthe screen. You can assign a descriptive name inthe “Name” field.
Third, a procedure is recommended for speci-fying the orientations of datum planes with eachother. As described earlier, “Align Offset” alignsthe normals of two planes to point in the same di-rection, and “Mate Offset” aligns the normals oftwo planes to point in opposite directions. How-ever, datum planes have “positive”, or yellow, and“negative”, or red, sides. Thus, many permuta-tions of constraints and normal directions are pos-sible. For example, the same orientation could beproduced by constraining two yellow normals us-ing an “Align Offset”, or by constraining a yellownormal with a red normal using a “Mate Offset”.
I suggest that you always reference the “yel-low” normal of both datum planes. Consistentlyuse “Align Offset” to force them to point in thesame direction or “Mate Offset” to force them topoint in opposite directions. While this is arbi-trary, it makes management of the orientationsless confusing.
Furthermore, try to get in the habit of buildinga constraint to “ASM RIGHT” first, followed bya constraint to “ASM TOP”, followed by a con-straint to “ASM FRONT”. Following this pat-tern consistently makes it less likely to accidentlydefine an invalid constraint30.
29You can also change the names of the datum planesused as the first features of each part.
30As you gain proficiency with assemblies, you can learnto selectively remove invalid constraints and replace themwith correct constraints using the “Component Place-ment” dialogue box.
Fourth, generally try to limit your definition ofassembly constraints to “Align Offset” and “MateOffset”. Pro/ENGINEER supports many addi-tional constraints, some which are quite elegant.For example, the “Insert” constraint allows youto align the axis of a pin with the axis of a hole.However, I recommend that you don’t generallyutilize these constraints, unless your design intentstrongly requires it. The reason is that it locks theassembly definition of a part with a part, whichincreases the chances of corrupting your assemblyif either of the parts is changed.
Pro/ENGINEER also supplies an “Align” con-straint, which is identical to “Align Offset”, ex-cept that the offset is automatically set to zero.Similarly, a “Mate” constraint can be used in lieuof a “Mate Offset” if the offset is zero. I rec-ommend that you always use “Align Offset” or“Mate Offset” in preference to “Align” or “Mate”.Using the more general “offset” options providesyou with the flexibility of changing to non-zerooffsets in the future.
10 Creating Detail Drawings
Detail drawings may still be needed to commu-nicate part intent to a machine shop. They arealso useful for confirming that you have definedyour part’s features consistent with your designintent. Pro/ENGINEER’s drawing facility letsyou readily create a conventional drawing froma previously-defined part or model. This facilitywill be introduced by creating a drawing of yourcubic part. A sample finished drawing of the cu-bic, actually generated using Pro/ENGINEER, isillustrated in Fig. 30.
Establishing a drawing from an existing partfile is described first. Adding views of the modelto your drawing is then explained. AdjustingPro/ENGINEER’s “environment” parameters toaffect the overall drawing formatting is then de-scribed. Automatically generating the dimen-sions for your drawing is described next. Then,adjusting the display of the dimensions to yourpreferences is described. Adding notes is then de-scribed, followed by instructions to save and printyour drawing.
If the main work window is not clear, ei-ther quit the window or exit and re-startPro/ENGINEER. A new drawing is started by
selecting “New” from the “File” pull-down menu,then changing the selection in the “New” dia-logue box from “Part” to “Drawing”. Provideany convenient name, such as “cubic dwg 1”, inthe “Name” field. Pro/ENGINEER automati-cally adds the suffix “.drw” to the drawing file.Close the “New” dialogue box by clicking the“OK” button.
A dialogue box labeled “New Drawing” thenappears. You must ensure that the “DefaultModel” field reads “cubic.prt”. If it does not,press the “Browse” button next to the “DefaultModel” field. A dialogue box labeled “Open” isthen raised, showing all available files from whichdrawings can be created. Select “cubic.prt”, thenpress the “Open” button.
We can use most of the default settings in the“New Drawing” dialogue box. You are providedwith the opportunity to select the drawing size.Try to choose a size that will enable showing thepart at 1:1 scale. We will show you how you canprint large drawings on standard 8.5 X 11 inchpaper, if you wish, at the end of this section. Thedefault of “c drawing” size will work well for thecubic. Press the “OK” button at the bottom ofthe dialogue box to proceed with defining yourdrawing.
The drawing is defined as a series of “views”from your part model. Front, right side and topviews are created by default.
Pro/ENGINEER automatically scales the firstviews so that all views are likely to fit on the pa-per size selected. A default scale of 0.5 is used forthe cubic, as is indicated in the lower left cornerof the main work window.
However, the cubic is a simple part, so we candisplay it at full size and still have adequate spacefor additional views and dimensions. The scaleis changed by selecting “Modify” from the “DE-TAIL” menu. “Value” is pre-selected from theresulting “MODIFY DRAW” menu. Move themouse cursor within the character field “0.500”,displayed in the scale label in the lower left ofthe main work window. Then, click on the scalecharacters with the left mouse button. You areprompted for the desired scale; reply “1.0”. Select“Done / Return” to close the “MODIFY DRAW”menu.
If you are displeased with the current locationof the views, you can adjust them at this time.Start by selecting “Views” from the “DRAW-
ING” menu. Then, select “Move View” from the“VIEWS” menu. You are prompted to select theview to move. Click on the view that you wish tomove with the left mouse button. You are thenprompted for the new location. Place the mousecursor at the desired location, and press the leftmouse button to re-locate the view there. Youcan repeat the procedure until you are satisfiedwith the position of the view.
Note that the sense of the views are preserved.In other words, you can move the right side viewto the left or to the right, but you can not movethe right side view up or down. This is becausethe right side view must remain aligned with thefront view. However, you can move the front viewup and down, and the right side view will movealong with it!
A default, or trimetric, view will now be addedin the available space in the upper right quadrantof the drawing. This view assists the user to vi-sualize the three-dimensional cubic quickly. Youwill scale it separately from the current views tofit it conveniently into the available space. Thedetails are provided below.
Select “Add View” from the “VIEW” menu.Then, select “General” from the top section ofthe “VIEW TYPE” menu, and “Scale” fromthe fourth section of the “VIEW TYPE” menu.Finally, select “Done” from the bottom of the“VIEW TYPE” menu.
You are prompted to select a center point forthe new view. Select a point conveniently cen-tered in the upper right quadrant. You areprompted for the scale to be used for this view;reply “0.5”.
The “Orientation” dialogue box is then raised.Simply press the “Default” button for this view.Press the “OK” button to close the “Orientation”dialogue box, then close the “VIEWS” menu byselecting “Done/Return”. Note that the scale isechoed on the view to clarify that it is differentfrom the remaining views.
Now, some adjustments are made inPro/ENGINEER’s “environment” parame-ters to control the formatting of our drawing.Select “Environment” from the “Utilities” pull-down menu, which will raise an “Environment”dialogue box with many sections. De-select“Datum Planes” to repress display of the defaultdatum planes31. De-select “Datum Axes” to
31As you get more comfortable with making drawings,
repress labels attached to the axes of circularfeatures. De-select display of “CoordinateSystems”. Change the “Display Style” field to“Hidden Line” if it is not shown as the default.Then, close the “Environment” dialogue box bypressing the “OK” button32.
Notice that axes of the hole are not displayedon your current drawing. They can be added tothe drawing with the following five steps. First,select “Show / Erase” from the “DETAIL” menu.Second, press the “A 1” (axis) button from the“Show / Erase” dialogue box. Third, select thehole feature from the front view in the main workwindow with the left mouse button. The axis forthe hole is now previewed on all views. Fourth,click the center mouse button to indicate that youhave completed selecting features. Fifth, click the“Accept All” button in the “Preview” section ofthe “Show / Erase” dialogue box to permanentlyadd the axes to the drawing.
The dimensions themselves are now added tothe orthogonal views. Push the “Part” buttonin the “Show By” section of the “Show / Erase”dialogue box. Then, press the button with thedimension symbol in the upper left corner ofthe “Type” section. Select any of the orthog-onal views in the main work window with theleft mouse button. All defining dimensions arethen added to the views. Click the middle mousebutton to maintain the display of all dimensions.Pro/ENGINEER does not include any redundantdimensions; each dimension defined to parametri-cally create the geometry is displayed only once.
The dimensions may be placed awkwardlyupon their initial display. However, a utilityis provided to re-space the dimension placementfor you automatically. This is available fromthe “DRAWING” menu, so start by pushing the“Close” button in the “Show/Erase” dialoguebox.
Now, select “Tools” from the “DETAIL” menuand “Clean Dims” from the “TOOLS” menu.You are prompted to select the views or indi-vidual dimensions to clean. Select all three or-thogonal views with the left mouse button, then
you will probably want to utilize the datum planes as in-spection references. We turn them off in our first examplepurely for simplicity.
32These changes may cause corruption of the display ofyour drawing. Remember, the display can be “cleanedup” at any time by selecting “Repaint” from the “View”pull-down menu.
confirm your choices by pressing the center mousebutton. Press the “Apply” button of the “CleanDimensions” dialogue box. After cleaning the di-mensions, press the “Close” button of the “CleanDimensions” dialogue box, followed by “Done /Return” on the “TOOLS” menu, to return to the“DETAIL” menu.
The last few drawing operations demonstratesome of the facilities available to you to adjust adrawing to its optimal appearance. You will firstlearn how to adjust the display of dimensions toyour liking. Then, you will learn how to add notesto your drawing.
First, you will move a dimension from one viewto another. In particular, the height of “4.00” willbe moved from the front view to the right view.
The association of a dimension with a view ischanged using the “Switch View” selection fromthe “DETAIL” menu. For example, selecting“Switch View” causes a prompt for you to se-lect a detail item whose view is to be switched.Move the cursor within the character field of the“4.00” dimension of the front view, and select itwith the left mouse button. Click the center but-ton (or choose “Done Sel” from the “GET SE-LECT” menu) to tell Pro / ENGINEER that youwish to switch only one dimension. Next, you areprompted to select the new view. Select any pointwithin the right side view with the left mouse but-ton. The height dimension is removed from thefront view and added to the right side view.
The new position of the height dimension andits dimension lines may be undesirable. These canbe adjusted using the “Move” command from the“DETAIL” menu.
Selecting “Move” causes you to be prompted toselect a detail item to move. Use the left mousebutton to select anywhere within the characterfield of the “4.00” indicating the height of thecubic. You are then prompted for a new location.You can move the dimension to your liking withthe mouse; clicking the left mouse button dropsthe dimension at its new location. You can repeatthe procedure until the dimension is placed toyour liking. Press the center mouse button whenyou are satisfied with the new position.
You may notice that the dimension leader linesattached to the new height dimension cross theentire right view. You probably prefer that theystop slightly short of the front surface of the rightview. You can re-position the end of a dimension
line using the same procedure; query-select canbe very useful in singling out the precise line thatyou may wish to move in a cluttered display!
You can move the remaining dimensions to ap-pear similar to Fig. 30. The “Move Text” selec-tion from the “DETAIL” menu moves the char-acter field of the dimension without moving thedimension itself.
You may want to move the arrows indicatingthe diameter of the hole to the outside of thehole. This is done with the “Flip Arrows” se-lection from the “DETAIL” menu. Simply select“Flip Arrows”, then select anywhere within thecharacter field defining the diameter. The inter-nal arrows are replaced with an external arrow.
Finally, the procedure for adding notes to yourdrawing is introduced. The example will add atitle, “CUBIC”, to the lower right corner of yourdrawing. The note facility is invoked by selecting“Create” from the “DETAIL” menu, followed by“Note” from the “DETAIL ITEM” menu.
A seven-section “NOTE TYPES” menu is nowraised. The pre-selected entries from the top sec-tions are adequate for our simple label, so simplyselect “Make Note” from the last section. Youare prompted for a location to place the note; se-lect any convenient point in the lower right cornerof the drawing with the left mouse button in themain work window.
You are now prompted to enter the note. Fur-thermore, a menu of commonly-used draftingsymbols is raised for your convenience. You cantype standard characters directly from the key-board, or select the special symbols from themenu, at will. If you were to select a special sym-bol from the menu, its character equivalent wouldbe included in the message line.
Type the label “CUBIC” from the keyboard.Press the “Enter” key. When you do so, you areagain prompted to enter the note. This is to en-able you to define a note with multiple lines, whenneeded. Definition of the note is terminated bypressing the “Enter” key on a blank line33. Thelabel “CUBIC” is then displayed on your draw-ing34. Select “Done/Return” to close the “NOTETYPES” menu.
33You may need to move the mouse cursor explicitly intothe text input field for the “Enter” key to be recognizedon the blank line.
34If necessary, you can refine the position of the noteusing the “Move” selection from the “DETAIL” menu.
Alternate selections from the “NOTE TYPES”menu give you great flexibility on the style ofnotes that can be added in your drawing. Forexample, you can create a note with a leader linethat can be attached to any feature. Such a notewould be useful for specifying a thread to be cutinto your part.
Your drawing is saved with the “Save” selectionfrom the “File” pull-down menu, as you wouldsave a part or assembly.
Printing your drawing is accomplished similarto the method described in the first part of Sec-tion 6. However, a slight change is needed if youwish to print the “C” size drawing on an “A” size(8.5 inch X 11 inch) sheet. Raise the “Print” di-alogue box by choosing “Print” from the “File”pull-down menu in the normal manner. Then,push the “Configure” button.
This raises a “Printer Configuration” dialoguebox. Change the “Size” field in the “Dimensions”section from “C” to “A”. Then, press “OK” toclose the dialogue box. Send the print to a file,rather than directly to a printer, by checkingthe appropriate boxes within the “Print” dialoguebox. Complete your print using the standard pro-cedure described in Section 6.
Pro/ENGINEER drawings are fully associa-tive. Therefore, if you make any changes to yourpart, these changes are also reflected in the as-sociated drawings. Conversely, if you update aparametric dimension in a drawing, this updateis reflected in the original part definition.
11 Epilogue
This tutorial is intended to acquaint you with abasic set of functions of Pro/ENGINEER in avery short amount of time. You should now havesufficient skill to create simple new parts, combinethem into assemblies, and generate conventionalengineering drawings from them.
However, this tutorial has actually introducedonly a small portion of the total functionality of-fered by Pro/ENGINEER. As you gain experi-ence, make a point of experimenting with newcommands. For example, don’t feel constrainedto create all parts as extrusions or revolutions;try your hand at a blend or a sweep!
We hope this tutorial has demonstrated thatPro/ENGINEER is a very powerful tool for engi-
neering design. Practice is an excellent way to be-come more comfortable with its facilities. Studythe documentation while experimenting with newtools. Additionally, you may eventually want toattend a short course offered by Parametric Tech-nology Co. to learn more about Pro/ENGINEER“style” and advanced features.
