The purpose of this blog is to provide an insight to enable users to select the most appropriate techniques when generating line drawings for a variety of purposes. There are a variety of methods and options that can be utilised to generate drawing views, but the combination of methods and options you choose will have advantages and disadvantages and will affect the size of the data.
This article will explain how to select view creation methods and view generation modes to ensure the most optimal means of drawing production for the information to be portrayed. You will learn: the most effective view creation methods to generate a selective drawing view; advantages and restrictions of exact, CGR and approximate view generation modes; and how different combinations of view creation method and view generation mode affect the size of the data produced.
Note:
This example does not include the ‘Raster’ view generation mode as this produces a ‘pictorial view’.
Fig.1: Isometric View – example assembly
The total file sizes of the data making up the assembly illustrated = 62Mb.
The CATDrawing file size shown in Fig. 1 above = 1617kb (Exact mode)
For example, if the requirement is to generate a selective drawing view containing only the indicated content in
Fig. 1 above:
- Which methods could I use to produce it?
- Which View Generation mode should I use and why?
- How does the selected method and view generation choice impact the size of the resulting data?
(a) View Creation Methods
To generate the required view, any of the following methods would produce the desired result:
- Modify the links of the full assembly view so only the required items are projected
- Pre-select the required items from the Product Structure during the creation of the view
- Use Overload Properties on the full assembly view so only the required items are projected
- Create a Scene & apply ‘Hide’ Overload Properties so only the required items are visible within it & then generate the view from the Scene
(b) Which View Generation Mode Should I Use and Why?
In addition to the methods outlined previously, the choice of the most appropriate View Generation mode typically depends upon the information to be portrayed within the view.
However, the choice of mode has both advantages and restrictions in terms of e.g. view generation speed, memory utilisation, restrictions in ability to generate subsequent views and/or apply annotations and will ultimately also affect the size of the resulting data.
The intent of the table below is to provide a concise outline of each View Generation mode to enable the user to make the most appropriate choice for their need:
Fig. 2: View Generation Modes – Advantages & Restrictions
For more detailed information about View Generation modes refer to CATIA Help files topic ‘About the View Generation Modes’
(c) How does the selected method and view generation choice impact the size of the resulting data?
The table below details the effect on the data size of individual drawings – created as per the required result above – of using various combinations of the view creation methods and view generation modes already discussed.
Fig. 3: Method & View Generation Mode choices – Impact on Data Size
Result
For this example, the optimal method is to preselect the data in the assembly when creating the view and to use the ‘Approximate’ view generation mode.
Though the Scene ‘Overload Properties’ method came a very close second, there is more work required to create the scene in comparison to ‘preselect’ method.
Here’s a guide to selecting the optimum View Generation Mode
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