Tip of the Week August 22

NX - Hidden Uses of the Middle Mouse Button   

Everyone is always looking for shortcuts to get their work done quicker. One of the often overlooked tools for doing this in NX is the Middle Mouse Button. There are several uses for this mouse button that you probably only use to rotate your view. There are four main uses for the middle mouse button that we will show in this video:

1. OK/Apply - You can use the middle mouse button to select the currently highlighted button. For example, use it instead of clicking OK when choosing a new file or ending a command. 
2. Start a new line when drawing a profile – Click the middle mouse button to disconnect from the current set of segments and start a new one. Click it twice to exit the sketch tool.
3. Close Sketch Tools - Click the middle mouse button to exit out of sketch tools such as Circle.
4. Advance Dialogs - Use the middle mouse button to advance to the next step in a dialog. For example, when applying constraints to sketches.   

Click HERE to watch the video:  

Ben Roll
Application Engineer
Ally PLM Solutions, Inc

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Tip of the Week August 1

NX - Chain Between Option with NX  

In this week's Ally PLM Tip, we are going to look at the option to Chain Between inside of the NX Selection Filters. This option can help us minimize mouse clicks when selecting multiple edges and other geometry types.

1 - In this example, we are going to create another body by extruding the perimeter of the existing body: 

2 - Notice the different selection filters that help you pick up multiple items based on design intent: 

3 - For example, if we choose Single Curve, we only get one edge selected: 

4 - If we choose Tangent Curves, we get what we want because of the tangencies created by the Edge blends at the intersections: 

5 - What if we didn’t have the tangencies all the way around the perimeter?  Then we would have to do multiple selections:

6 - I could use Face Edges, but I would have to deselect all the inside pockets:

7 - If I use Connected Curves and try to pick up model edges, it will not pick up the entire perimeter.  I need to turn on Chain Between:

a.    To turn on Chain between, click on the More button (Blue Arrow):

b.    Turn on Chain Between and click Close:

c.    You have to tell NX how to chain around the connected edges of the part:

       i.    I’m going to click on the left side of the top horizontal edge to tell NX to chain to the left                          starting with that edge:

       ii.    Then I’m going to click on the bottom of the right vertical edge to tell NX to chain to that side of the right edge:

         iii.    This is telling NX to chain to the left around the part back to the right edge at the bottom.

    d.    This allows us to get our selection with 2 clicks, especially if there are not any blends or tangencies on the model:

In summary, we can turn on Chain Between under the More button on the selection toolbar to help minimize the number of mouse clicks we have when picking up a series of edges, etc.  Make sure you click the proper side of the edges to infer the chain between direction.

Click HERE to watch this video demonstration:

Brandon Carter
Senior Application Engineer
Ally PLM Solutions, Inc

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