A toolbar at the bottom of this window lets you control the demo. When you finish viewing this demo, click the blue icon again to close this expanded window.

Example of a Slightly Rotated Part

| Selecting in the Z+ view, this circle's vector is perpendicular to the workplane and therefore PC-DMIS would not generate a circle for it.
| If you tilted the part and then box-selected, then PC-DMIS would select this feature.

This example uses the Brown and Sharpe wireframe block (Bsbwire.igs) with auto circles:

If you box select the entire model, which is not in a complete +Z orientation, you will notice that the top and bottom circles/arcs are selected because they are the visible objects which also satisfy the Auto Circle cad filter logic.

Click Create from the CAD Select Dialog box. You will get something like this:

Notice that:

- Circles/Arcs of the same diameter and vector are merged into a single feature. So, the top and bottom circles for the two center bores are merged into only two features, CIR1 and CIR13 (as were all the other features computed using the top and bottom circles/arcs). For the cone feature, however, since the diameters are different PC-DMIS creates two features (CIR12 & CIR14).

- A circle gets created for the back bore, CIR15. This is because the model was rotated slightly. If the view had remained in a +Z orientation, then CIR15 would not have been created.

This example uses the Brown and Sharpe wireframe block (Bsbwire.igs) with auto cylinders:

If you do the same as in Example 1, but use auto cylinders instead, you will get something like this:

Notice that no cylinder was created at the cone feature because a cylinder must have length and the same diameter.

This example uses the Brown and Sharpe solid block (Bsbsolid.igs) with auto circles and cylinders.

If you box select to create features with a model that only has surface data (no wireframe data), you will need to slightly rotate the model in the view so that the desired surfaces are visible, like this:

Once you click Create and PC-DMIS generates the features from the selected objects, you will get something like this:

Circle Features

Cylinder Features

Notice that because of the tilting, you will not get a circle/cylinder feature at one end of the slot, nor at the top right OD cylinder.

This example uses the Hexagon model that ships with PC-DMIS (Hexblock_Wireframe_Surface.igs) with Auto Cylinders.

Put the model into a Z+ orientation and box select the entire model.

Click Create. You will get something that looks like this:

If you flip the part over to a Z- orientation and then tilt the part slightly, and box select, PC-DMIS will show something like this:

Click Create. PC-DMIS will display something like this:

Notice that PC-DMIS generated both an ID & OD cylinder feature for most of the cylinders on the part, such as the top right CYL3 and CYL10.

###

### Box Selecting to Create Multiple Auto Features

You can draw a box on top of a CAD image to automatically create multiple auto features for these supported feature types:

- Auto Vector Point

- Auto Surface Point

- Auto Edge Point

- Auto High Point

- Auto Line

- Auto Circle

- Auto Ellipse

- Auto Cone

- Auto Sphere

- Auto Cylinder

To Box Select and Create Features

To use the box select method to quickly create multiple auto features of either the circle or cylinder auto feature types, follow this procedure:

1. Import the CAD model that has the auto features you want to box select.

2. Rotate the part and select either wireframe or solid to select a view that best shows the features you want to include.

3. Access the Auto Feature dialog box (Insert | Feature | Auto)
   for either circle or cylinder auto features.

4. With the dialog box open, click the mouse, and drag a box around those feature types for which you want to create auto features. Release the mouse button. PC-DMIS will display the CAD Select dialog box, showing the number of objects selected.

5. Click Create. Based on the objects selected PC-DMIS will generate multiple auto features of the selected type.

Box Selecting Details

- Box selecting only works on objects visible in the Graphics Display window. This prevents unseen objects from being used in the creation of features.

- Models with little or no wire frame geometry should be slightly tilted
  (or rotated) in the Graphics Display window so that the desired surfaces and features are visible.

- Because of tessellation and display accuracy, the bleeding of underlying surfaces and curves may result in extra unexpected objects used to create the features. While PC-DMIS attempts to minimize this bleeding by comparing the selected objects with each other to determine the minimum number of pixels necessary to be considered a valid selection, this is not a fool proof method, and some mostly hidden objects may get selected in order to minimize the likelihood of eliminating a valid object.

- When creating the features from the selected objects, objects with vectors perpendicular to the current view are mostly ignored. For example. Using the Hexagon block displayed in +Z
  with the entire model box selected, PC-DMIS will not generate a feature for the front bore that intersects the center bore.

- PC-DMIS performs filtering routines to ensure that it doesn't use the same cad object to create another feature in the same position.

- As PC-DMIS generates the features after you click Create, you can see each item's information displayed in the Status bar.

Example 1: Box Selecting Auto Circles with Wireframe Data

Example 2: Box Selecting Auto Cylinders with Wireframe Data

Example 3: Box Selecting Auto Circles or Cylinders with Surface Data

Example 4: Box Selecting Auto Cylinders with Both Wireframe and Surface Data

More:

Understanding the CAD Select Dialog Box