Extra, Extra, Read all about it!
By D Cheshire Page 1 of 3
Here are some answers to questions that are often asked. The
explanations are brief as you are expected to be a competent user of
ProEngineer.
Underlay
It is a common technique to use a photograph as an underlay or guide
when sketching in a CAD model. Though not an explicit function of Pro
Engineer his can be achieved with a little work as follows.
Before you start you will need one or more orthographic digital pictures of
a product (photographs of a real object or scanned sk etches of your own
design).
Create a new part using the mmns_part_solid template. Insert a new
sketch (INSERT > MODEL DATUM > SKETCH ) and draw a simple
rectangle on the FRONT datum. Adjust the size of t his rectangle to be the
overall size of part to be modelled.
Figure 1 : Outline Sketch
The next step is to fill this rectangle with a surface. Make sure the sketch
is selected in the model tree then choose EDIT > FILL. A surface will be
created to fill in the rectangle – it will be more visible if you shade the
model.
Figure 2 : Filled Surface
Now we need to associate a picture with this surface. Choose View >
Color and Appearance to show the materials palette. In this dialog choose
MATERIAL > NEW and change the name of the material to
FrontPicture. Click on the MAP tab and click on the square button
next to DECAL . At the top of the dialog choose TEXTURE > ADD
and using the dialog that appears to locate the texture. This can be any of
the common picture file formats (bmp, jpg etc) but you are strongly
advised to copy the picture file to the same directory as the model before
you apply it. After loading the picture click on its name to appl y it to the
surface and CLOSE the Appearance Placement dialog. In the
Advanced tab of the Appearance dialog you may wish to adjust the
Transparency to say 80% so the texture is see through. Finally below
Assignment choose Surfaces and pick the fill surface choose OK and
BOTH. You can now use this picture as an underlay when drawing. You
can visually sketch on it but you cannot lock the points onto the picture.
Figure 2 : Completed Underlay
