The SolidWorks Geek

Hey Kids! Here we are at a start of another fun filled week. To start things off this week we are going to continue our tour of the DimXpert command. Last week we began exploring the DimXpert tool with with the now famous posts: Introduction to the DimXpertManager and DimXpert Datums, Sizes and Locations. This week I decided to do something different for this subject only. Since the DimXpert has soooo many topics that need to be covered, I will break up the post to make room for other topics. I would hate for you to get burnt out on such a great tool.

What is The Feature Selector?

For today we will be taking a brief look at the Feature Selector. The Feature Selector is another of those newfangled context toolbars that everyone has been talking about. The Feature Selector is used to differentiate between the various DimXpert feature types depending on the face that is selected and command being used.

The Feature Selector toolbar is available when you select a face for dimensions, datums, geometric tolerances, automatic tolerancing schemes, and pattern creation. From left to right the features shown in the toolbar reflect the complexity of the selected feature. The feature on the left side of the toolbar are the most basic, including planes, cylinders cones. In the middle of the toolbar slightly more complex features including patterns, notches and counterbores are shown. Finally, on the right are the most complex feature types including intersect points and lines and compound features that require more selections.

Supported Features

Below is a list of the various supported features that may be shown on the Feature Selector. Some require some explanaition but a few of them are pretty straight forward.

Boss

A boss is a extruded cylinder whose face is completely 360°

Cone

A cone is any conical face that is either internal (hole) or external (boss).

Chamfer

A chamfer can either be a conical surface, as shown below, or a planar surface.

Cylinder

A external in internal cylindrical face that is a full 360° or a partial can be a cylinder. However if the cylinder is a full 360° it my only be able to be considered a boss, as described above.

Fillet

Counterbore Hole

A counterbored hole will be recognized by DimXpert as long as it does not have a near side countersink or head clearance. If your counterbore meets one of these two conditions you will need to dimension each element individually as a cylinder or hole.

Countersink Hole

A countersunk hole will be recognized by DimXpert as long as it does not have a far side countersink or head clearance.

Simple hole

A simple hole can be threaded or non-threaded, through or blind, with a flat bottom or drill tip or even a compound hole.

Intersect Line

An interest line is a line created by the theoretical intersect of two planes use for dimensioning.

Intersect Plane

An intereserct plane is created when selecting a cyliner and a conical face in order to locate the begining or ending of a tapered surface.

Intersect Point

Intersect points are shown as origins when selecting a cylinder or hole and a plane. This can then be used to locate the position of the hole using a dimension.

Notch

Plane

Slot

Width

Well that about covers it for the Feature Selector. I know that there is a lot of material to cover, that is exactly why I am breaking up everything into parts that will then be tied together at the very end. So be patient and everything will make sense later. As I mentioned earlier, to avoid complete overload we will be jumping around to other topics over the next couple of days and we will probably pick up once again on DimXpert early next week.