Plate surface marking
Thanks for the reply but that is not what I was after. Maybe I was not very clear on my question.
I have had an instance using chequer plate panels in the past where the program found 2 floor plates as identical but one was the correct way up and the other was upside down. For all intents and purposes the plates were identical, however in reality based on the material they weren't. I picked this up before sending the files fortunately.
In the attached screenshot the green panels are polished s.s. and are identical back to back (according to the numbering) but need to be identified as different panels to suit the polished face when folded.
Hope this is easier to understand. If this can't be done I will take it to the Ideas area.
Thanks.
Gary
AS2017
Accepted solution
Hi,
Further to Christian's response.
Checker Plate (or Durbar, Chequer or Bulb Plate or whatever name you want to use) is found in the Variable Grating object. EU, French And USA Checker Plates are all there under Grating Class.
One of the key differences with a grating object compared to a plate is that it has a top side property which can be swapped in the Positioning tab of Advance Properties. AS recognises this and considers it when numbering. Hence for handed parts where the surface is the only difference this is a really good option. Parts that are otherwise identical will be seen as different.
It is not too difficult to add your own grating type to the system so you could add one for "Polished Stainless" or whatever. This FAQ tells you how to do that. Add a Grating FAQ
I hope that helps.
Aleck Giles, Structures Consultant, Graitec
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you get a few ideas, which could be used.
Another idea could be to give these plates another properties which should be used as difference by the numbering.
You could use every property for this: for example the user properities, if you set the checkbox and input an information, the numbering will made a difference between the two plates because of this property:
Sebastian Eiche
Application Engineer @Mensch und Maschine acadGraph
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Thought I would revisit this thread after a near expensive mishap that occurred today. I had sent about 16 tonnes of chequerplates to customer for cutting, most were odd shapes and all were modeled in the same plane, some were folded plates so I was not able to use the variable grating for chequerplates which shows a top side, so I went with regular plates. I created drawings and all were correct and matched the clients design. However, the DXF files created were in the majority of cases upside down. Now on a normal plate that doesn't matter and I have done 10's of thousands of plates, but with chequerplates this is a big problem, (see attached screenshot)
As you can see the DXF was created from the underside, and this was repeated on many other plates, I wasn't concerned about rectangular plates but only the irregular ones.
Fortunately the machine operator picked it up before running and stopped the process, once informed I manually mirrored all the problem DXF files and sent back and all is well.
Like most people we don't double check our DXF files we assume they are correct and they are. This is a warning to anyone who uses any coated material, stainless steel polished sheets, Alpolic or composite sheets or chequerplate, or even painted and unpainted surfaces that you don't want the numbering to view as identical that requires folding or not to be very careful.
I have updated the Ideas station https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/advance-steel-ideas/additional-surface-side-property-of-plates-needed... (thanks Christian Blei) and the addition of a switch to set the top of a plate would be very, very handy.
Gary
