Can be used on an AutoCAD or Mechanical Desktop Solid. You get a Geoshaped polyline from a planar face.
The NCEXTRACT command creates Shape Polylines from Solid models. NCEXTRACT works on core solids and parametric solid models.
From the RCIM pull down menu, pick Define Part >> Define Solids >> NCextract.
The NCEXTRACT command will extract a Geoshaped polyline from the face of an AutoCAD solid or Mechanical Desktop solid. That polyline is ready for start point edit or cut. By using this command, you create a NC friendly shape to be cut. This shape can be moved or the start point changed. This shape can also be used by the system to determine the positioning information for NCRotate and alignment of the cut.
Start the NCEXTRACT command from the toolbar, menu or the command line. The system prompts you to select an edge of the part. After selecting the edge, the system will highlight on of the two faces connected to that edge and ask you to accept this face. If it is the face you want, type Y for yes, otherwise type N for no or hit enter to accept the default. If you enter No, the other face that is attached to the edge will highlight, and the question will repeat.
When you accept a face, all of the edges on that face will be converted to shape Polylines automatically. You may then start point edit, move or cut these shapes.
Example:
We would like to extract shapes on the top of this solid model:
To extract from a Face, you pick the solid on an edge as shown:
The first of the two faces will highlight. This is not the face we want, so we hit N on the Accept prompt.
This is the face we want, so we hit Y at the Accept prompt.
These are the shapes created. The solid has been removed for clarity.
When using NCEXTRACT, pick the face to extract and either Accept the selected face or toggle to the Next face. This face is automatically Geoshaped. You still need to use Start point Edit to choose where to lead in and out.
When using NCEXTRACT with any Mechanical Desktop solid, the resulting NC_shape polyline is parametrically attached to the solid. This attachment is two-dimensional. Whenever the solid changes size, the NCUPDATE command will update the NC_shape polyline. The NCDEPTH command makes the attachment three-dimensional. NCDEPTH is only necessary if you want the polyline to maintain a thickness associated with a solid. NCDEPTH is especially useful when using "A" for the total depth.
Known issues using NCEXTRACT: If you change the start point on a shape that has been extracted, the start point will revert back to an arbitrary location after NCUPDATE.