Creo Parametric - Variable Section Sweeps (Part 1 - Multiple Trajectories)

variable section sweeps are one of the most powerful features in creo parametric and the reason that they're so powerful is because of four different elements of control that you have first multiple trajectories second section orientation control third relations that you can write in the sketch using Treach part the trajectory parameter and incorporating datum graphs into those relations in this video we'll take a look at how to use multiple trajectories including the trajectories as your sketch references as tangent trajectories and as your horizontal orientation reference or what's referred to as the X vector first let's look at multiple trajectories and how they are used as sketch references and I am starting in a very simple part I recommend that one you are trying to learn variable section sweeps just to use very very simple geometry and curves and sections to begin with and start with multiple trajectories then play around with tangent trajectories and X vectors then start adding in relations and tragic are and datum graphs and section orientation control just take it one piece at a time and that'll help you master this feature so to start the variable section sweep I'm going to click on the sweep command and you'll notice by default when we get into it it is a simple constant section sweep this button over here is what makes it a variable section sweep and I'm going to open up the references tab the first thing that I need to do is select one or more trajectories and I'm going to select this curve as my first trajectory and this one is called the origin sometimes you'll hear people refer to it as the spine of the feature and and the references tab there is a box checked for n meaning that it is using my origin trajectory as the normal trajectory in other words at every point a the length of the feature the sketch the section is going to be normal or perpendicular to this main trajectory in another video we'll take a look at section plane control and how you could choose a constant normal direction or normal to projection and if you use one of those different options then this box is going to be unchecked so I have my first trajectory selected I'm going to hold down the control key to select a second trajectory and you'll notice when I did that creo parametric automatically toggled this feature to a variable section sweep as opposed to being the simple constant section sweep and to add in more trajectories I will hold down the control key and select the other curves that I want to use and you can see that they're being labeled with which chain that they are another thing to note is that on the end of the curves you have these white squares which are drag handles and you're allowed to drag them off of the end of the curve if you don't want to use the entire length of the trajectory and there you can see a numerical value and you can double click on it and change it if you want to also if you happen to have some kind of vertex or a datum point located on the curve if you're dragging this and you hold down the shift key you'll be able to snap into those different references but I'm going to use the entire length let's change this back to a value of 0 and hold down the control key to add in my last trajectory and so I've got them all selected in there you'll notice in here there are some other boxes to use that you could check and that's for something called the X vector or the horizontal orientation vector or the extra jek turi which we'll take a look at a little later in this video now I want to get into sketch mode to sketch my section and that you could use this button on the dashboard or if you hold down the right mouse button you get the pop-up menu or what PTC refers to as the asynchronous menu and from here you can choose sketch to go into sketcher and if I go to the references for this sketch you'll notice that it's listing all the trajectories in here specifically the intersection of the trajectories with my sketch plane so that's good now let's create some geometry I'm just gonna sketch in a sketch in a couple circles that lock into the vertices here and I'll let it snap to being equals then let's sketch in a couple of lines align from there to there and then here let's snap to tangent I'm gonna middle mouse click to stay in line creation mode but change my start point and tangent and let's go over here that's good to finish off my sketch let's use our friend squiggle trim to get rid of those overlapping entities and I can change this dimension if I want now that I am done in sketch mode I will hold down the right mouse button and from the pop-up menu hit the checkmark to get out and there you can see a preview of the feature and with these additional trajectories I'm essentially using them as rails again my section is following along those trajectories at the different locations based on how I snapped my geometry into them and this is why it's called a variable section suite because the section is changing along the length of the feature based on how you defined it and when I'm happy with this I can hit the checkmark or the middle mouse button and that completes the feature now let's take a look at using tangent trajectories in our variable section sweep so let's invoke the sweep command and I'm going to select my first trajectory over here again that is my origin trajectory now I'm going to hold down the control key and I'm gonna select these edges to use as well so again you can use curves or edges and since I selected edges now I have these tea boxes available to me to allow me to designate those as tangent trajectories let me show you what it means by this I'm gonna select side one of both of those edges and let's hold down the right mouse button then click sketch to go into sketch mode and you'll notice I get this centerline in the model and that means that this centerline is always gonna stay tangent to this surface along the length of my feature and I can use that in sketching I didn't get that centerline over on the other side of the model because it's using this side a side one and saying hey I cannot be tangent to this inside of the feature so that's why I didn't get the centerline so let's cancel out and I'm going to go back to my references tab and chain one was good chain two was incorrect and so I can check the other box to use 2i2 and by the way you'll notice you'll get these white circles over the trajectory you can right click on it and here I can choose whether I'm using side one or side two or a specified surface so now I can right click again and click sketch to go into sketch mode now I have both of my asymptotes let's go to our sketch view my sketch is a little sideways but that's okay and I'm going to sketch in a line now let's go back from there to there and let's now sketch in an arc from here to there and I'm gonna let it snap to being tangent to my trajectory up there we at it come on there we go and so now when I hit the checkmark you can see the preview of our feature and again it's going to end up being tangent to the existing geometry that was selected now we'll take a look at the third way that you can use trajectories in a variable section sweep and that's with something that's called the X vector or the horizontal orientation vector and again to demonstrate this I'm just using a very simple model to help get the point across all right let's click on the model tab and I'm going to create my sweep and I will select my first trajectory that is my origin trajectory and I'll hold down the control key and select my second trajectory and again you'll notice that it automatically got toggled from a simple constant section sweep to a variable section sweep and on the references tab it needs to know the X direction for the sketch so when you go into sketch mode creo parametric is automatically going to suggest a couple of sketch references for you usually these correspond to what you can think of as the x axis and the y axis in the sketch because I'm using this trajectory here creo parametric has no idea how I want to orient the sketch so I need to select my X Direction reference you can either click in this collector or you can hold down the right mouse button and choose the start X direction I'm gonna pick this side of the part over here and you'll notice that when I go into sketch mode that my sketch references are basically going to be horizontal and vertical so it's saying hey from my trajectory out to this surface this is the x-axis of my sketch and it gives me the y axis perpendicular to it and for this first example let's go and create just a simple rectangle to show you what I'm going to get and I'm not gonna bother changing the dimensions let's hit the check marks get out of here so even though I selected a second trajectory I'm not doing anything with that second trajectory and so this is essentially just like an extrude take a rectangle and we are going along a straight line curve and we're essentially gonna get a block so let's go back and change here so instead I'm going to use this second vector over here to define my X direction in my sketch and I want you to take a look what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna check this box over here and you'll notice that the x-axis for my sketch is going to rotate so that it is going to be in line with the other trajectory so I'll click the button over here and again you see it translated and so now what's going to happen is as this feature is being created the x axis on the sketch is always going to twist so that'll go from my main trajectory my origin to this other X vector and so that's why we're getting twist in the feature now because it is always maintaining the bottom line of my rectangle to point towards the X vector let's go back into the sketch and make another change so what I'm going to do is I'm going to add a coincident constraint for that vertex to my X vector and there we go and so now what's going to happen is it's going to ride along my X vector as sort of a rail and so there we have the width of the feature changing along the length of the trajectory one thing to note my trajectories are different lengths and so the size of the feature is going to be determined by the shortest trajectories that you are using in the feature so again started with the origin and ran out over here and that's where it stopped and so be aware again if you have multiple trajectories the shortest trajectories are going to determine the length of your feature let's explore that aspect of variable section sweeps with multiple trajectories and how they're controlled by the length of the shortest feature so again very simple part just have a few different curves in here let's create a variable section sweep and I'll click on the sweep command when you select a trajectory you'll notice that you're gonna get a pink arrow on the end that allows you to control what side the sketch plane is located on let me hold down the right mouse button and get into sketch mode and there you can see the sketch reference is located at that end let's cancel out of sketcher and click on the pink arrow and now when I go into sketch mode you'll notice that the sketch references are on the other side of the trajectory let me cancel out again and right now I just have the single trajectory you'll notice that it is set to be a simple sweep with a constant section and I'm going to hold down the control key and select this other additional trajectory you'll notice that I no longer have a pink arrow and I'm allowed to use this location here when I go into sketcher and because my sketch plane intersects both of the entities so let's create a spline I'm just going to locate it here and you'll notice I get an X on the other trajectory as a reference let me just locate a Third Point for my spline and then close it off and when I hit the check mark you'll notice with the preview of the feature again the lengths of my trajectories control how much of the feature is used so for example you can notice that I'm not using the entire length of my origin trajectory because chain 1 runs out length let's now go to the references and I'm gonna hold down the control key and select this other curve over here and you'll notice that my future gets shorter even still because now this third trajectory doesn't start until way over here and so that way my future has been shortened by the length of the shortest trajectories let me go back to the options tab actually before I go there let's go into sketcher again you'll notice that the sketch is located in the same place I can now add a coincident constraint and select that point on this line and the intersection point on my reference and hit the check mark and so now all three of those trajectories are guiding the feature and if you go to the options tab if you want to you could change the location of the sketch plane I'll click in the collector there and pick this datum point and if I go back into sketcher you'll notice that now my sketch reference is indicating the location of my sketch plane are located on datum point 0 and it also controls the intersection with the other different splines that I am using as my trajectories I hope you enjoyed this video for more information please visit WWE windchill comm if you learned something from this video please give it a thumbs up and if you like this video please click the subscribe button to be informed when new videos are uploaded thank you very much

Channel: Creo Parametric

Views: 13,791

Keywords: creo parametric, ptc creo, creo ptc, creo parametric tutorial, creo parametric 2.0, creo parametric 2.0 tutorial, creo parametric 3.0, creo parametric 3.0 tutorial, creo parametric 4.0, creo parametric 4.0 tutorial, creo parametric 5.0, creo parametric 5.0 tutorial, creo parametric 6.0, creo parametric 6.0 tutorial, sweeps in creo, creo parametric sweep, creo parametric variable section sweep

Id: iniFqbqClQg

Length: 17min 15sec (1035 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 30 2019