Wireframe Design

The wireframe creation has been completely renewed and is now closer to CAD systems' standard drawing workflow. GIFs have been added for easy use and can be visualized by pointing your cursor on the command!

Please read the explanation below and also note that you can watch tutorial videos and practice at the bottom of page.

Presentation

The Wireframe menu is divided in 5 submenus:

	Creation	most of the draft is done thanks to the commands of this submenu.
	Finishing	once the sketch is designed, you can do the finishing actions such as adding fillets, chamfers, etc.
	Holes	standard holes, users holes (HMF) and holes editor.
	Taper	creation of taper shape to be used with the machining cycle 'Taper Cutting'.
	Import Cleaning	commands useful when importing 2D CAD files (DXF, DWG…)

Principle

The principle of wireframe design is to sketch the wireframe geometry and then trace the contours, such as technical drawing. You can mix this method with the creation of predefined shapes (rectangles, oblongs, holes). Finally, use finishing design commands, such as fillets, chamfers, joints etc.

To achieve your draft rapidly and easily, we suggest you to design geometry shape by shape.

For example, if you want to draw several pockets and contours, create unbounded geometry for one pocket, then trace the final contour, then start drawing the second pocket, etc.

Final draft to design

If you create all the unbounded geometry at once, it will be difficult to trace the final contours. On the right side, you can see an example of unbounded geometry for a quite simple drawing.

There are obviously too many unbounded elements on the screen!

Here, we show you the same drawing with the shapes traced one by one.

It is much easier and clearer to finish drawing.

Another advice is to create the shapes with different colors, as we did in the previous example.

It will enable you to sort or hide the geometry by color and this will make the selection of machining much easier.

Another solution is to design with different layers. For more details on layers, click here.

General Use of Commands

The commands are available in the left toolbar of submenus.

Here we wills how you about the circle command.

By clicking on the feature to be drawn, you have to select from the numerous modes of constructions.

You then have to assign the creation points and click on the background or add enter the coordinates to confirm (explained in the next page) to confirm.

You can then set the correct features parameters to complete the design and click on Validate.

Coordinates System

The sketching command no longer exists in the version 6.09. You can use the coordinates system to create the drawings:

You can then manually enter the values in the X,Y values. There is no need to click on the Enter button on your keyboard. You can easily switch from one field to another by using the TAB button. Click on icon [1] to create the point(s).
By clicking icon [2], you can set your coordinates and the grid step.
We can define the Z altitude [3] using the two methods: 1 - Type the value manually in the field. 2 - Use the pipette [4] to pick the altitude. You can watch a video about Design at Z altitude on the right:
	closed: it locks the value inserted in the field.
	Open: value of field or value of selected existing point.
	Select the altitude.

Your Turn!

Below are the layout diagrams of 2 workpieces that we are going to design. You can either watch the videos to see how to design the workpieces or you can try to design it on your own.

Plate Fixture

This video introduces the creation of:

circle, line, drawing, polygon, rectangle, fillet.

Framework

This video introduces the creation of:

rectangle, segment, fillet, standard holes, trim or extend, parallel profile, chamfer.