Okay, so I've watched videos on aligning to CAD about 100 times, followed the manual step by step many times, and read every thread here on aligning, but they always assume you can pick up your A, B, C datums. I, however, can only pick up the A datum in program mode for some reason with my 2014 version of PC-DMIS importing STEP files.
When aligning CAD, I select Program mode, Manual align, select create plane for my A datum, click points on the CAD for my plane, pick up the points, level and align it, so far so good.
Then for Datum B, in Program Mode, I select Create Line...then I run into problems picking up points on the side of the model. If I rotate the CAD (using either the orientation view boxes, or ctrl R with RMouse) in order to click 2 side points for my line, it says I have not picked up enough points to make a line. Sometimes it won't recognize the line hits as coming from the z+ direction, even after I rotate and transform. Other times it won't recognize the line points, selecting a nearby surface instead. What am I doing wrong please?
I've spent 5 days trying to align CAD to part with no success. I followed the manual step-by-step, the vids, quick align or otherwise--but everyone assumes you can click on the side of the CAD to make your B datum while still maintaining a z+ orientation.
Is this a 2D/3D issue, a problem with CAD model rotation (I have the same problem even when the engineer lays it flat at puts the matching origin on the CAD), or something else? Should I be using another method to rotate my part for the next datum selection?
I used PC-DMIS for 2 years, then took a 5 year break to work on the mills. I didn't expect to be caught on something so simple.
