Defining an Area to Rework

You can define areas to rework.

This task shows you how to:

Before you begin: Before creating a rework area you must have executed a manufacturing program.
See Also
About Machining Features for Milling Machining

Compute Rework Areas

You must first compute the rework areas.

  1. From the Surface Machining section of the action bar, click Rework Area .
    The Rework Area dialog box opens at the Geometry tab .
  2. Still in the Geometry tab:
    1. Click the red area in the sensitive icon and select the part in the work area.
    2. Double-click anywhere in the work area to confirm your selection and redisplay the dialog box.
    3. Change the Entry diameter, e.g. to 10 mm, the Corner radius, e.g. to 5 mm and the name to Rework.
  3. Click Compute.
    • A progress indicator is displayed. You can cancel the tool path computation at any moment before 100% completion.
    • The rework area is created and can be seen in the Machining feature view.

  4. Click Load from at the top of the dialog box and select a machining operation, a tool or a machining area in the Manufacturing View.

    • Load From loads all the appropriate data from an existing machining operation, a tool or a machining area. It is only an accelerator to define the parameters of the rework area. It may be necessary to tune up some of those parameters to obtain a correct result.
    • The machining geometry referenced in the machining operation cannot be edited nor deleted within the machining operation.
    • When the selected machining operation has its geometry as Design on Part Operation Level, a warning is displayed and the Load From fails.

  5. In the Define tab:
    • Either click the red area of the sensitive icon and select the part in the work area. Double-click anywhere in the work area to confirm your selection and revert to the dialog box, or
    • Use the Face Wizard to select the faces to create the area to machine.

    Tip: To apply a check on a rework area:
    • Define first a machining area containing a part, a limit line and a check.
    • Select this machining area as the feature to use for the rework area.

  6. Define the limit line in order to restrict the area to be reworked.

    Important: To avoid to leave material in the rework operation, for each point of the rework area, the command considers both the tool end point and the 2 contact points according to it. The rework area is restricted when these 3 points are both outside the limit line. So, the result of the restriction may create tool end points outside the limit line.

  7. Select the tool axis that you used to machine the rest of the part.
  8. Enter the tool data that you used to machine the rest of the part:
    1. To use a conical tool, type a positive cutting angle. For an end mill tool, leave the default value of 0 degrees.
    2. Enter the machining Tolerance for the rework area. For the sake of speed, use the same value as for the machining tolerance in the machining operation that the rework area is going to be used in.
    3. Optional: Use a smaller tolerance in the machining area and a larger one in the machining operationmachining operations, reducing the machining operation one until you obtain satisfactory results as regards the finish that you require.
    4. Enter the Overlap, that is the distance that you allow the tool to go beyond the boundaries of the rework area. It is defined as a percentage of the tool radius.
    5. Enter the Offset on part, that is the offset that is computed for the rework area with respect to the part.
    6. Enter the Minimum depth, that filters out areas to ignore because they are not deep enough.
    7. If required, select the Contact with check check box to detect bitangency areas between part and check elements.

      At least one contact point of tool with the Part element is required.

  9. Click Compute.

Computing Rework Areas from IS

You can compute the rework area from intermediate stock (IS).

  1. To use the intermediate stock functionality, define the stock in the Part operation dialog box.
    The rework area uses the stock.

  2. Double-click a Part Operation in the Activities Process Tree and activate the Activate the intermediate stock option under the Intermediate Stock section of the Option tab in the Part Operation dialog box.
  3. In the Surface Machining section of the action bar, click Rework Area from IS .
  4. In the Rework Area dialog box that appears, open the Define tab and specify the parameters of the rework area.


    The Define tab allows you to select the part or a set of faces, a limit line (to restrict the rework area), and the tool axis. With this tab, you can do the following:

    • Use the menu to select a machining feature, when available.
    • Select a part body element in the 3D area to select, or right-click the element for additional methods.
    • Specify the Tolerance.
    • Specify the Offset on part, which is the offset that is computed for the rework area with respect to the part.
    • Specify the Minimum depth for the intermediate stock to filter out values below this minimum.
    • Specify the Insertion Level to specify the location for inserting operations.

  5. Click Compute and select an item in the Activities Process Tree.
    For the computation of the rework area, the input stock is the output stock at this level, or the first valid output stock before this level.
  6. Click Update Input Stock to update the input stock of the current operation. Click the icon once to display the input stock and double-click to hide the input stock.
    The input stock computes and takes into account all the previous operations.
    Note: If you have not defined a stock, the following icons are displayed:

    Stock is not valid. Compute and OK are disabled.

    Intermediate stock is not updated for this insertion point. Compute and OK are disabled. You can update the intermediate stock by clicking the icon.

    When you define the insertion point, the status of the icon is updated.

  7. Open the Define tab to transform the set of computed rework areas.


  8. Right-click an item in the Subsets list to edit the subset.
    When you right-click a subset, you can do the following:
    • Hide/Show.
    • Delete.
    • Copy contours from another subset.
    • Move contours from another subset.
    • Merge contours.
    • Smooth a contour.
  9. Edit the subset with the options in the dialog box.
    In the dialog box you can do the following:
    • Click a subset and click to add or remove from the selected subset and to transfer an element from the selected subset to another.
    • Select to delete the empty subsets.
    • Select to create a subset.
    • Edit the Name, choose the color, and specify the Smoothing tolerance.
  10. Open the Operations tab to assign operations to rework areas.
    You can use this tab to do the following:
    • Use contour driven (parallel contour only), spiral milling, Zlevel, sweeping finishing, and advanced finishing rework areas.
    • Link operations and subsets from rework area computation and edition.
    • Define an overlap between rework areas. Overlap is the same for all operations.
    • Assign operations.
  11. Click OK to save.
    The operations appear in the Activities Process Tree under the defined insert level and the rework area appears in the Manufacturing View.
    Note: When you modify previous operations or intermediate stocks, the rework area is not up-to-date in the Manufacturing View as well as the operations assigned to the rework area in the Activities Process Tree.
  12. Optional: Create a parallel contour guiding strategy by selecting the Parallel contour Guiding Strategy option.

Edit Rework Areas

If you find that there are too many areas to be reworked or if you decide to concentrate on only a part of the rework area, you can go to the Edit tab and define other parameters to restrict the area to rework by creating subsets.

Note: The graphic properties of the visualization lines of rework areas are not editable.

  1. Use the filters proposed in Divide by.

    By default, an Angle and a Length filter are proposed.

    1. Optional: Activate a Width filter.

    Subsets are split using the Angle criterion.

    Splitting is carried out only if the length of the resulting subset is greater than the Length value.

    By default, this Length is set to 6 mm.

    Note: For an optimum result, we recommend that you set the Length value to 1/3 of the tool diameter.
  2. Click to compute or update the subsets.
    The list of subsets is displayed in the dialog box, with the criterion used for its computation, its display dolor and the number of elements in the subset. The column Operation indicates whether a machining operation is assigned to the subset.
    Note: A machining operation is effectively assigned to a subset when an Insertion Level has been defined in Operations tab!
  3. However, creating subsets with the above criteria may not be sufficient. In that case, split the subsets manually, by points.
    1. Select one subset in the list.
    2. Select Divide by Points in its context menu or click .
      A red dot appears on the selected subset.

    3. Move the pointer along this line, to the required place.
    4. Click the line to create the splitting point.
    The red dot is replaced by a white cross, the subset is split, and the number of elements is updated in the list. Create as many splitting points as required.
  4. Transfer an element from one subset to another:
    1. Select in the list the subset to which you want to add an element,
    2. Choose Add/Remove from its context menu or click ,
    3. Select the element you want to remove from the other subset.

  5. Click to create an new empty subset, then use the Add/Remove menu to fill it.
  6. Click to remove unwanted cutting points.
  7. Click to delete no-updated subsets and selections.

Assign Operations

You can assign a machining operation to a rework area in the Operations tab.

  1. Place the pointer in the Insertion Level box and click in the Activities Process Tree to define where the machining operation is to be inserted.
    • The box is updated and the red arrow disappears while the Assign Operation parameters are displayed.
    • All the tools used in existing machining operations are available from the Tool Reference list.
    • The Reference Tool applies to all the machining operations to create.
  2. Select one subset to which you want to assign a machining operation and define the machining operation parameter under Assign Operation that is now available.
  3. Still under Assign Operation:
    1. Select one type of machining operation from the Assign list.
    2. Set the Stepover value.
    3. Click the tool icon to define its axis.

The list of subsets/operations is updated accordingly. To revert to an automatic step over, click Auto. The value is replaced with the label Auto.

Note:
  • Use the same size of tool in a pencil operation as that defined in the rework area in order to reduce computation time. You can also use a larger tool with pencil operations.
  • If you choose to use a tool that is smaller than the one defined in the rework area, consider the rework area to be simply a set of limiting contours and use a contour-driven operation.
  • If you use a smaller tool with a pencil operation, no tool path will be generated for the rework area.

Remove a Rework Area

You can delete rework areas from the Manufacturing View.

Use the Remove Result context menu to remove a rework area feature from the Manufacturing View.

A message confirms the removal of the feature.