NX X Why boolean faces generated by a MW Pocket operation do not retain the "False" face colour when updates occur?

2021-10-06T23:26:28Z
NX for Design

Summary


Details

Usually in a MoldWizard assembly if you create a Pocket the boolean faces created in the target body take the same colour applied to the body associated to the "False" reference set of the tool part.


Find below a very basic use case.


The tool (that will be subtracted from the target part by the MW Create Pocket command) part is simply a cylinder with another body generated by an extrude feature; in this example the internal body you can see in the picture below is the actual part (cyan) and the external extrusion (yellow) is the body that the MW Pocket operation will subtract form the target body part.
 



The yellow body was added to a FALSE reference set (usually the solid body is then sent to an hidden layer).





Then this mandatory attribute (UM_STANDRD_PART=1) was defined for the tool part.





In this example the target part is simply a solid body used for the MW Pocket operation.





Now at assembly level the MW Pocket feature is created (the tool component is repositioned so it interferes with the solid target block).



 



As you can easily realize in the picture above the FALSE (pertaining to the FALSE ref. set) solid body created in the tool part has been subtracted from the target part and the corresponding faces have been colored in yellow (as it was the larger cylinder in the 2nd picture above).


Customers might wonder how that face does not retain the same color when any modeling/assembly update is triggered after the Pocket operation is carried out (moving the tool part in assembly or editing the tool part will cause this): actually by default if you simply move that tool part and relocate to another position the yellow colored face will turn again to the origin color (gray) of the target part.





However if the MW Pocket is created again from scratch the boolean face (derived from subtraction) will take again the expected yellow color.






Solution

Basically there is a Modeling preference that sets the colour for the boolean faces created by NX features and operations and by default this is set to Target not Tool colour.


So in order to avoid that any Modeling update replaces the colour of boolean faces to the target body colour the user has always to set that  Modeling option to Tool Body.

Instead the Pocket command forces the (subtracted) tool body colour for the newly generated boolean faces, regardless the modeling preference for boolean faces, this clearly explains the behavior detailed above.

Hardware/Software Configuration

Platform: all
OS: n/a
OS Version: n/a
Product: NX
Application: KDA
Version: V11.0.2
Function: MOLDWIZARD

Ref: 002-8006080

KB Article ID# PL8006080

Contents

SummaryDetails

Associated Components

Tooling Design