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Kevin Quigley  
#1 Posted : Friday, January 28, 2011 6:51:36 AM(UTC)
Kevin Quigley

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One of the things we use Shark for is to create technical illustrations. We model the parts and export as a .ai file, open in illustrator, clean up and shade etc. Generally works well, but having used apps like Deep Exploration, and recently dabbled with 3D VIA Composer I can't help feeling that we are missing a trick here.

Despite what the likes of Dassault say, there is still a huge demand for quality 2D technical drawings showing part assembly sequences, cutaways etc. One of the fundamental styles here is the thick n thin line - where the outside edge of a part is represented in a thick line style, and inner edges in a thinner one. Deep Exploration and 3D VIA (and Arbortext and others) do this automatically, but Deep Exploration's version is the best by far.

There you can define the edge thickness and type, and when you export to Illustrator the layers in illustrator are arranged component by component, or thick lines/thin lines. Not only that but the lines are proper Bezier curves, not a squillion facets.

Incidentally, Rhino v5 Mac's .ai export gives Beziers as well.

So to transform Shark into a state of the art technical illustration front end:

1. Add the thick n thin line styles as a view option
2. Let the user define the weight, type and colour of the lines
3. Improve the .ai export so that curves come in as curves, and different lines styles come in on different layers - or - different bodies come in on different layers.

There is a vast market out there for a high quality front end to Illustrator/Indesign/Quark for this type of work - but nobody seems to want to service it apart from Corel with their technical illustration suite. The USP for Shark of course, of that you can create geometry as well as use imported files.

It would be a massive time sa
jol  
#2 Posted : Friday, January 28, 2011 8:27:05 AM(UTC)
jol

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I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Quigley here - and not for the first time !

I would add though that in manual technical drawing we were taught

1,) Thickest lines to represent the very outer perimeter of the object
2,) Medium for lines (other than outermost lines) that represent an edge 'you can see past'
3,) Thin lines for all the rest

"Thick & thin" is a nice summary of this universally used and very descriptive drawing style !

I don't believe it would take much to implement such a preset - but as I've been asking for it for years, I don't see it happening

"Thick & thin" illustrations are simply a requirement of any industrial designer and perhaps engineer (never mind Illustrator) - as it makes a simple line drawing so much more descriptive

I believe it should even be the default output of Model to Sheet

But how do we get that across to Tim ?
jol  
#3 Posted : Friday, January 28, 2011 8:36:46 AM(UTC)
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Which brings me to another question (and one which I have asked many times already)

Why do I get a zero result when I set the style to outline only (ie - all other settings are set to Ignore)

(my thinking was to superimpose a thick outline on thin drawing lines - to achieve the end described by Kevin)
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jol  
#4 Posted : Friday, January 28, 2011 8:44:32 AM(UTC)
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Am I being daft here or is 'contour' style is not displayed consistently in these two views of the same model ?

Is this not a fundamental !?
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Tim Olson  
#5 Posted : Friday, January 28, 2011 4:30:57 PM(UTC)
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We do export all splines as bezier. See attached spline.ai exported from Shark FX.

Is it possible you used Export EPS instead of Export Adobe Illustrator?


Tim
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Tim Olson
IMSI Design/Encore
zumer  
#6 Posted : Friday, January 28, 2011 7:15:30 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: jol Go to Quoted Post
Am I being daft here or is 'contour' style is not displayed consistently in these two views of the same model ?

Is this not a fundamental !?


I interpret your ortho view as showing the closest-to-camera face edge outline in black, which overlays the face-intersection edges in blue. Unless the style definition dictates interrupting the face edge to display other features, black will trump blue. What does it look like if you reverse the colours?
zumer  
#7 Posted : Friday, January 28, 2011 7:40:43 PM(UTC)
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ISO dictates line thickness per element per sheet size. Thick'n'thin illustration styles are arbitrary, so an illustration mode for model-to-sheet would need a viewport preset rather than drawing preset.

Would setting "visible" to "ignore" in the MtS dialogue be the probable reason that the model doesn't appear on the sheet?

I like to model with a gradient background, but that's confusing with sheets. Can I have a 'switch to monochrome background for MtS' setting?
jdi000  
#8 Posted : Saturday, January 29, 2011 6:41:37 AM(UTC)
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It would also be nice to see an option to be able to just dim tangent lines on iso views.


@ Zumer you could use the 2d switch when in model to sheet as you have a option for different color for the go to 2d.





Regards
Jason
Windows 11, 10
zumer  
#9 Posted : Saturday, January 29, 2011 6:15:51 PM(UTC)
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In two or three years of using Shark/VC, I've used MtS frequently, but perhaps used go to 2D twice. And obviously didn't pay attention when I did! That's it exactly. Thanks, Jason.
ianjkirby  
#10 Posted : Monday, January 31, 2011 3:32:29 AM(UTC)
ianjkirby

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Originally Posted by: jol Go to Quoted Post
Am I being daft here or is 'contour' style not displayed consistently in these two views of the same model ?


Hi Jol,

From your pic, this is certainly a very valid query, imo. May I ask, though, about the missing edges in the isometric view, and wonder if this is related to your setting of "outline only" in message #3? Enquiring minds....

Regards, Ian.
Ian Kirby
Wollongong Australia
Kevin Quigley  
#11 Posted : Monday, January 31, 2011 5:14:15 PM(UTC)
Kevin Quigley

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Originally Posted by: Tim Olson Go to Quoted Post
We do export all splines as bezier. See attached spline.ai exported from Shark FX.
Is it possible you used Export EPS instead of Export Adobe Illustrator?
Tim


Sorry about that! On seeing this I have had another look at the ai export and yes it does do curves - it's SolidWorks that converts it all to facets! All we need is the rest now :)
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