hirscr Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Hi guys, I got FormZ for some architectural type and land use work I am doing. It seems to be a good fit for that. However, I was hoping to also use it for engineering and part design work. I'm not having a great time with this. Example: I want to locate holes relative to other features, not absolute coordinates. While its very possible I am stuck in a solid works paradigm for part design, I am having great difficulty getting this to work with formz Basically I am trying to make a panel that has many holes in it of different sizes. Some of the holes are located with absolute coordinates, but some of them are, for example, three holes located around a center hole. Or four holes in a, 2x2 grid. I feel that once I commit a copy/move type operation, its committed. Moving the holes after that is a complex procedure and error prone because the objects are saved, not the operations. Hence why I don't think this is truly a parametric modeler. Am I missing something? Or is this really not well adapted for engineering work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Hi Hirscr, There should not be any problems moving holes relative to one another, but if you find it easier, you could also delete the holes and re-copy them. If you are having trouble with a specific operation, please post a .FMZ file with a simple object, and a diagram showing how you want to change the model, and we can offer more detailed suggestions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etroxel Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Hi hirscr, Booleans in fZ are not live/parametric, so it's not easy to move them like you're asking, especially if the part they are cutting into is curved. You can select holes specifically by changing the topology in the Pick tool, as well as points, segments, etc. So if the face they are in is flat, they are relatively easy to move. If the face is not flat, do the following: when you do a boolean, formZ saves the original objects that can be later unghosted. As Support says, you can delete the holes, unghost the original hole-cutting object, move it, and re-difference it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hirscr Posted March 16, 2015 Author Share Posted March 16, 2015 Just to clean this thread up. OK, so its confirmed. This isn't a parametric modeler (I could have sworn it said it was somewhere). I don't have a problem moving a hole. The problem is that if a build a model with a hole 5" from an edge and I move the edge, then I would want the hole to move with it. This is how solid works and other engineering CAD software works and I am quite used to that and it make a lot of things easier. I am just going to have to get used to this design methodology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Hirscr, There are many different levels of parametric, and formZ has many of them, but formZ's Booleans are not parametric. If you need to change a hole, many times you can just delete (or fill) it, and create a new one -- or you can use the Ghosted objects to retrieve the state prior to the original cutting of them... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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