How to re-define flat pattern alignment axis?

[W.Scott.Dempster]

Hi all -- I am working on a project that involves the re-orientation of our sheet metal components. I wrote iLogic code which seems to work fine, but I encountered an issue. As far as I know, I can only use model geometry to define the alignment axis. If something happens to the geometry, like the user adding a flange on that geometry, then the alignment axis is overridden and no longer exists and has to be redefined.

Is there a good way to redefine the alignment axis within iLogic to something consistent?

[WCrihfield]

Hi @W.Scott.Dempster.  I know the manual process for specifying the orientation of the flat pattern, and I can see the code path for doing so also.  However, knowing 'when' something happens to that originally specified orientation, that causes it to be invalid, or not the way you want it to be, is where one of the main hurtles comes in.  But, if you will always be running this 're-orient' rule manually, then we do not need to figure out how to figure out 'when' by code, so that will not be a problem.  The next major hurtle is 'us' not being familiar enough with 'your' part designs, or how you want/need them to be oriented, to be able to tell you which specific Edge of your part will be the next best one to use for re-orienting your part.  I would agree that it must be an Edge (model geometry), not an origin WorkAxis, because we can not set the orientation of an origin work axis against the model's origin (itself), we must be specifying the orientation of the 'model' in reference to the 'origin', by way of angle from horizontal or vertical, which is defined by the origin.

I know that when in 'edit mode' of the flat pattern, the 'Assign Name' tool is not available in our right-click menu, like it is when we are in 'edit mode' of the folded model, but I believe that we could still assign attributes to specific faces, edged, and vertices, if we wanted to.  It would just need to be done with a custom code based tool, since there is no built-in user interface tool for accessing them.  However, assigning names to geometry within the flat pattern mode, would likely require just as much (or more) effort as simply using the manual process to re-orient the flat pattern, so not really 'great' solution either.  I guess you could assign names to geometry in he folded mode, then there is a way to 'cross-reference' which entities in the flat pattern with the same entity in the folded model, and the other way around.  So that may be an option.  May require more preparation time up front, and that may not be a good option for pre-existing parts, but it is something.  With that idea in mind, you could 'find' a specific 'named' entity in the folded model, then get that same entity in the flat pattern, to use for the orientation reference, if it still exists in the flat pattern.