Best Practices – I-deas

Parts There are a few differences in parts in I-deas and NX that you should understand. Each of these differences may effect your migration practices. Layers and visibility NX uses layers in parts, where I-deas does not. Because CMM options control the layers where I-deas entities are placed when migrated to NX, you should consider what practices you should adopt. NX has two primary methods to control object visibility: layers or the Show and Hide command. Depending on which your users intend to use, you may want to decide on how to use the CMM options controlling layers. Many I-deas users will prefer to control visibility using the NX Show and Hide command as a replacement for the I-deas Display Filters command. While hiding or showing objects is an acceptable practice, layers provides the ability to make objects visible but not selectable. Layer categories can also be assigned names to record the purpose of objects on different layers. Center lines I-deas displays cylinder center lines and circle center points that NX does not. These curves and points are included as unassociated curves and points in migrated parts. You can use these curves to make measurements to check the migrated part. If you make any changes to the part, you should delete these unassociated curves and points. Never use these curves to position other features. Features When you edit part features, you should understand feature differences from I-deas to NX. For example I-deas models often use an Add feature to join a body to a coordinate system. In NX, this is not considered a feature. In this case, a Data Access Feature (DAF) will indicate that no operation was created for this feature in NX. Migrating I-deas data

Migrating I-deas data Sketch constraints Because of some subtle differences in sketch constraints, test the design intent of your sketches when making modifications. Even though the sketch is migrated properly, there may be design intent differences. For example, one subtle difference in sketches is that I-deas implicitly grounds the first point of a sketch until you constrain it to something else. NX does not do this. Because of this difference, a sketch that was fully constrained in I-deas may not be fully constrained after migrating to NX. Datum coordinate system I-deas users are familiar with having the first feature be a datum coordinate system. In I-deas, this is called a BORN (Base Orphan Reference Node). When an I-deas model is migrated into a standard NX template which already contains a datum coordinate system, this datum will look like a BORN to an I-deas user. The problem is that this first coordinate system is not associated as a parent to any of the migrated features. To fix this, either delete the first datum coordinate system or edit the second datum coordinate system to supply an offset relationship to the first. Assemblies Use the Assembly Navigator to investigate the assembly structure. To work on a specific part in an assembly, make it the work part in the assembly, or make it the displayed part. Use the Part Navigator to investigate the features in the assembly work part. NX assembly constraints are non-directional like I-deas assembly constraints. Use the NX Constraint Navigator to investigate constraints. Drawings After migrating drawings, use the NX Drawing Comparison Tool in the Drawing Migration toolbar to compare the original drawing to the migrated drawing. The same layers are used in NX for parts and drawings. Although you can use the same layer conventions for drawings migrated from I-deas to NX, you must also plan to set aside layers used specifically for part objects. CAE Data To migrate I-deas CAE data to NX, see Appendix C of this guide. Migrating I-deas data