Cylinder orientation Issue?

Thanks for all the insight everyone.  I appreciate it greatly.  I am still having a few issues however.  I have attached a partial of my print and the cylinder issue I'm still having.  

louisd I did your suggestion.  I made two circles in the YPlus plane.  They looked fine.  I then constructed a cylinder out of those two circles and the same thing happened from the first.

I attached another doc, this time with excerpts of the print I'm working off of.  I can reveal more print if need be.  

Datum A is the part underside, Datum B seems to be the hinge centerpoint and Datum C Is a line?  Maybe I have this aligned like garbage?  

I appreciate everyones help and insight.  ThanksDOCX

I'm guessing you are taking two 3-hit circles?  Instead of constructing two separate circles, and then constructing a cylinder from those two (which the demon will only use those circle centroids)...

Create a cylinder with two circle cuts of at least 4 hits per cut.  Adding the extra points, locks down the vector direction. 

The construct cylinder tool is a bit dumb as it doesn't utilize all the hit data of each circle.  it uses the centroids of the circle features.  Collapse-o (Calypso, competitor's software) has a "SHELL" button you can toggle, which forces the circles to be judged by using all hit data, instead of just the centroid.  It would be pretty cool if PCDMIS would someday have such a simple yet powerful option :D

If you are using circle features with the CIR1.HIT[1..8] etc, does that use all hit data or the centroid of the hits?

In my experience that doesn't play nicely with me within the construct tools.  It wants each hit comma separated before it will work.  I figured that would be too advanced for this user as well.

louisd said:

The construct cylinder tool is a bit dumb as it doesn't utilize all the hit data of each circle.  it uses the centroids of the circle features.  Collapse-o (Calypso, competitor's software) has a "SHELL" button you can toggle, which forces the circles to be judged by using all hit data, instead of just the centroid.  It would be pretty cool if PCDMIS would someday have such a simple yet powerful option :D

PC-DMIS has always had the ability to use all of the hit data (instead of the centroids), it's just that you used to have to either select the hits individually from the graphics window or manually type in the .hit syntax into the command.  In 2023.2, we added the "select all hits" button to make things easier.

See: PC-DMIS Help Center - 2023.2 (hexagonmi.com)

Does the select all hits put them in a single bracket of [1..X] number of hits? Or does it separate them as if I were clicking them myself manually in older versions? Like [1..1], [2..2], etc

It has intelligence.  If you just click the "select all hits" button, the edit window syntax will be...

CYL3       =FEAT/CYLINDER,CARTESIAN,OUT,LEAST_SQR,NO
            THEO/<0,0,114.75>,<0,0,-1>,12,7.5
            ACTL/<0,0,114.75>,<0,0,-1>,12,7.5
            CONSTR/CYLINDER,BFRE,CIR1.HIT[..],CIR2.HIT[..],,

If you wanted everything except the first the first or last point of each circle, you would click "select all hits" and then deselect the hits you don't want by clicking them in the graphics window.  If you excluded the first point of CIR1, the syntax would be CIR1.HIT[2..].  If you excluded the last point of CIR1 and there were 6 points in total, the syntax would be CIR1.HIT[..5].

It has intelligence.  If you just click the "select all hits" button, the edit window syntax will be...

CYL3       =FEAT/CYLINDER,CARTESIAN,OUT,LEAST_SQR,NO
            THEO/<0,0,114.75>,<0,0,-1>,12,7.5
            ACTL/<0,0,114.75>,<0,0,-1>,12,7.5
            CONSTR/CYLINDER,BFRE,CIR1.HIT[..],CIR2.HIT[..],,

If you wanted everything except the first the first or last point of each circle, you would click "select all hits" and then deselect the hits you don't want by clicking them in the graphics window.  If you excluded the first point of CIR1, the syntax would be CIR1.HIT[2..].  If you excluded the last point of CIR1 and there were 6 points in total, the syntax would be CIR1.HIT[..5].

It hasn't ever been intuitive, until nearly the LATEST release. 

It's sweet that the improvement is there now, but you must agree that effectively turning circles into a cylinder, using hit data was impossible for a beginner; without relying on training, or an experienced programmer's detailed how-to session.  Measured or Auto Circles won't have visual hit data visible within the graphics window, so simply clicking on the hits as you describe, although might apply with 2023.2... they certainly do not with any older rev.

In the world of FDA and other regulatory compliance, it's impossible for us to use latest revision of PCDMIS.  We have to validate the software each time we implement a change.  Plus, using the latest revision is essentially forcing us to be Beta testers, considering the 8-12 maintenance releases per release.  Regulated organizations cannot tolerate the business risk incurred with that frequency of change and/or SW error corrections.

Amen! Preach it Brother! 

Clicking on the hits works in older versions, but you need to click on the feature first to display the hits on graphic display window.

I stand corrected, thanks!  I never learned that trick.