Merging Common Features to be Machined in One Shot

You can identify and merge machinable features that share common characteristics, such as co-axial holes with the same diameter or complex pockets with the same depth.

This task shows you how to:

See Also
Creating a Pocketing Operation for Closed Pockets with the Legacy Interface
Creating a Pocketing Operation for Open Pockets with the Legacy Interface

Merge Co-axial Holes

Co-axial holes is recognized as a single hole to be machined in a single Drilling operation, either automatically in Global Feature Recognition or manually using context menus in the Manufacturing View.

  1. From the Axial Machining section, select Global Feature Recognition .
    The Global Feature Recognition dialog box appears.
  2. Set Selection Type to Body then select the part in the work area.
  3. Select the Hole and One blind hole needed check boxes.
    Notes:

    • Through holes are merged with a single blind hole with the same diameter when the blind hole is the lowermost hole in the hole sequence.

    • The machining axis of through holes must be the same as or opposite to the machining axis of the blind hole.

  4. Click OK to start the feature recognition process.
    • A dialog box opens and displays statistics about the recognized features, such as the number of faces, the number of holes found and their types or the number of pattern created.
    • The machinable axial features are created as MAF.x. They are visible in the Manufacturing View (Sort by Machining Features).
    • Co-axial holes with same diameter and one blind hole are merged.

    • The co-axial holes with same diameter and no blind hole are not merged.

  5. In the Manufacturing View, select and right-click those two holes..
    1. Alternatively, right-click one or several holes in Manufacturing View and select Propagate Selection for Merging Holes in the context menu.
      • All the remaining holes with the same axis, diameter, thread parameters, and tolerance parameters as the already selected holes are selected automatically.
      • They are highlighted in the work area and the Manufacturing View: You can deselect holes that you do not want to merge.
    2. Right-click the selection and select Merge selected Holes In the context menu.

    The selected holes are merged and are replaced by a new hole.

Merge Complex Pockets With the Same Depth

Using Global Feature Recognition, you can identify and merge several pockets with the same depth on the same part. This enables you to machine all the pockets with the same depth in one single pocketing operation.

  1. From the Axial Machining section of the action bar, click Global Feature Recognition .
  2. In the Global Feature Recognition dialog box that appears, select the following check boxes:
    • Complex Pocket
    • Complex Step
    • Merge Pockets
    • Blind Slot
    • Through Slot
    • Complex Cutout
  3. Click OK when finished.
    A feature is created in the Manufacturing View for pockets with the same depth. Right-click a feature and select Hide/Show to display the pockets that belong to the same feature in the work area.

    • The system automatically sets hard boundary contours on the detected pockets. To change the hard boundary contours to soft contours, edit the contour in the Pocketing Operation dialog box when creating a pocketing operation.
    • If some islands are not detected by the system, add them manually in the Pocketing Operation dialog box.

  4. Create a pocketing operation to machine in one shot all the merged pockets.