3D Lettering

I guess this the appropriate place for this enhancement request?

CATIA needs an easy way to create 3D solids representation of letters and numbers for engraving and embossing applications. Something similar (but not as extensive) as the 3DTEXT program.

User should have to specify a face, location, and direction, type in the lettering, choose a font and text size, and specify a height (or depth).

Result should be similar to a pad or pocket based on the characters that were entered. Result should also have smooth curves or lines, but not faceted polylines.

Result should also be editable; edit the 3D Lettering and/or parameters and the solid changes.

Almost every other CAD system has this capability (SolidWorks, AutoCAD, Pro-E) as part of their Part Design product. It's time for CATIA to have it also.

Hello Jack

I agree 100%
I think this is marketing more than at ER

IBM has a script, I saw it at COE. They should bundle it for peoplel that pay maintainance, or charge a small fee ....

This one will never go away until it is resolved, so I hope something soon will come in.

Jack,

Do you know about the drawing to DXF trick?
If not I can post it.

Dave

Dave,

That DXF trick creates so many poly-lines which increases the file size. And every-time when somebody posts about letters/text functionality, I get a bitter reminder of wasting my money in Type3 add-on.

It would be less painful if type3 add-on becomes a part of Standard Catia installation or Catia comes up with some letter engraving toolpaths with or without the creating the geometry which, I think, is possible using some automation tools.

Besides the dxf method and the Type3 program, there are many macros available (some are free) that work with CATIA V5. But everything we tried results in poly-lines instead of smooth curves. (almost everything - we are able to get good results by using Rhino)

The frustrating thing is this could be done with CATIA V4, but Dassault choose not to port that code into V5.

Yes, this is a big deal to many people. I have had a few beers with a realy calm, and professional gentlmen, and was suprised and the anger, and passion, when the text ergraving subject came up.

I feel your pain.
Bill Clinton

Hello,

To me this sounds like that problem is really on polyline versus smooth curves. In order to get this enhancement through, I think we should pay some attention on detailing how solution should work in program level and what capabilities it should exactly have. (asking for too much is not a good plan...). So what is the min use case? To me a good enough solution would be a Sketch text creator; everything on top of that is simple normal 3D modeling...

In the mean time:
I created several years ago (5 or so) a simple powercopy that doesn't actually convert drawing geometry to polylines, but it had manually drawn letters inside powercopy, that were scaled to size according the need. In that solution we were limited to only one Font type, but letters could be as neatly smooth as one could create with sketcher. If someone wants such a solution, please create sketches of all wanted letters (single sketch per alphabet, located in part origin all in same position) inside a CATIA Part (maybe capitals only?) and we can together start building a solution here. If letters are as sketches, I know the way forward and I can work as volunteer (for free) on this topic.

That's a good idea Lasse- is the idea to have 36 different power copies ? One for each letter and number?

Hi Bryan,

No; actually you can make one powercopy that reads each letter from parameter text and based on that changes each sketch for each letter so that resulting text = parameter text... It's a bit tricky, but can be done. But as an input each letter is needed as separate sketch. I can share here an example if oyu are interested. Then everyone cna continue with own font and interest based on that.

For some reason I couldn't attach my file here, but to other COE forum it was ok. so here you go, just change .txt to .zip and you find R19 CATPart inside this, that makes a three letter text from letters A, B or C. ==> it can be easily expanded to 36 letters.
So see : "How is COE doing?" forum and a topic about new forum:

http://www.coe.org/Collaboration/DiscussionForum/ActiveDiscussions/tabid/210/aff/14/aft/130931/afv/topic/afpgj/3/Default.aspx

Hello All,

I have always noticed one thing and cant get around it when creating curves, splines, etc. It shows a thick black points on the vertices of the curves which makes text look really bad when zoomed out on a large part. As far as I remember it was the case since early V5.

And if you set the visualization to turn of the vertices then it looks OK But it is not desirable for MFG user because you cant select any endpoint or any vertex of any geometry for machining requirements such as machining axis change, selection of points in various machining operation commands especially "Limits" in contouring operations etc.

I would like to know if there is any other trick available to overcome this problem without switching back and forth between visualization modes?

Thanks

hi all

please find in the attached a simple solution from Dassault Systemes.

Thank you RCASPI13 for the files.  This looks like a good, temporary solution based on a PowerCopy. (I'd still like to see Dassault add a tool to the Part Design workbench)

Based on the User Guide, this looks easy to use and provides some advanced capabilities (surface support & line of direction).  Can't tell if the round letters are curved or faceted.

Is there an R18 version of the PowerCopy available? 

Thanks again

 

Very nice idea Lasse. That is brilliant! Actually, this will be more usefull to me than the DS solution, as for NC programming purposes 99% of the time, I just need the sketch so that I can drive the geometry to engrave on the part. I don't actually want to modify the design solid by embossing or pocketing, as good practice, I never modify the design CatPart supplied. One day, when I have time, I will try and generate all the letter/number scripts for you.

Thank you for posting the DS solution. It took a long time to set-up properly, but now that I have, it works very well. It still doesn't help much as far as NC programming goes. Lasse's powercopy idea will help more. We still really need an actual MO (toolpath) just for engraving, as even when we have the proper sketch, it can take too much time creating several (many) toolpaths for each letter in order to get good toolpath motion. I've had to create over 30 paths before, just to engrave a single part number on a part.

During the COE 2010 Academic Poster Sessions one of the students provided information that is on the following link:

http://www.textincatia.com/

Tomorrow I will get specific information about the individual and update this thread.  I liked his work!

Text in CATIA was developed by Drew Mumaw, Kyle Sigo, Stewart Simpson, and Chris Rhodes at Purdue University.  It can utilize any font file installed on the local machine.

I took the opportunity to talk to Dassault at this years COE and mentioned this problem.  He stated that the automotive industry use a different workbench for engraving/embossing.  He is suppose to email some info on that workbench.  Once he does I will posted it up on this thread.  I am from the Airplane Interiors business and we use it to create aluminum placards.  Placards are required by the FAA so I hope Dassault makes it accesible in the mechanical workbench since the aerospace industry will use more and more.

At the show Jason Curtis from Rand North America showed a method of using a power copy tied in with a vba script in session 501 (KBE).  So I believe they stated that after monday April 26th 2010 they will be posting the presentations in the Event Procedding Archive.

The pending issue I have are the existing method makes the part files heavy which become a problem if you want to work it in large assembly and you have many parts with text

FYI
Armando Alvarado
Zodiac Aerospace

Wow. This is very cool!

I love it!

Dear RCASPI13 and all , hello !

the 3D_Text macro are very magic ! Thank you a bunch !

At COE, I was informed that this functionality will not be developed for V5 Part Design.

It is now available in V6.

I hope it is as good as in UG.