I'm in the process of evaluating ViaCAD and I quite like it so far for my hobby needs. I'm mainly interested in parametric solid modelling but I like to tinker with a bit of everything.

One thing I've found a bit confusing is the entity tree in the concept explorer. It seems to be a combination of a linear history and a hierarchical tree.

Take the example below, where I created three connected curves and then extruded them into a surface. The top level consists of each operation in the order I performed them, but then the children are a mix of dependencies and reverse dependencies.



This gets especially confusing when I model a more complex part, with multiple sketches, dozens of constraints and various solid operations going on. Even when I try and keep each sketch, body etc in separate layers it becomes very unweildy if I try and make changes to early objects and have the changes propagate through the tree.

To be honest, for my needs it would be more useful with just the dependency tree (ie the last item in the example starting with "Sweep_63".

Any tips for making this thing more understandable for newbies like me?

Extruding the three together - and they don't have to be connected if there's no geometric relationship or necessity - simplifies the tree. I use constrained path sweeps over extrusion because their path length/vector is more accessible, obvious and configurable through variables than ferreting through inspector. Unconstrained path sweeps can be configured through the path data, and that can be got at through inspector, or through the data boxes in the header for point coordinates, or you can even use a group as a path, and edit the path using each group entity's context, ie length of line segments, point coordinates for curves. Admittedly, these methods don't give you a nice panel with all your entities neatly structured and the data accessible through them, like the usually recognised CAD big dogs, I for one don't use it with that in mind. Even FreeCAD's more inclined that way.

Edited by user Sunday, March 1, 2020 7:10:40 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I know and it'll be the same! Ha ha. Tested version 12 and the tree etc is the same. They have added some wrap function, think moved a few other things about. Best fit circle and line is no longer in power pack.

You get used to it. To be honest I work all day in NX and every sketch, linked curve whatever needs to be on a layer so I'm used to doing things that way (customer preference) I use Catia as well and that doesn't need layering at all. Sketches auto hide and all that