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Installing Point Import Wizard for Alibre Design

Point Import Wizard for Alibre Design was build on the Microsoft .Net 2.0 framework. It requires Windows with .Net 2.0, which can be installed with Microsoft Update or by visiting Microsoft and searching for "Installing .Net 2.0". The .Net 2.0 framework is free, and only needs to be installed once.

It was build specifically for Alibre Design, so obviously you need to have that installed and running as well. Fortunately the folks at Alibre are kind enough to offer a free version of their software as well, called Alibre Design Xpress. Download Alibre Design Xpress here.

Finally, the application uses a new technology from Microsoft called "Click Once" -- this makes it easy for you to download and install applications, and make sure you always have the latest version available. If you're using Internet Explorer, simply download Point Import Wizard for Alibre Design, then follow the instructions to install. If you're using Firefox, be sure you have the Firefox Click Once Extension installed, then download Point Import Wizard.

Once the application is installed on your computer, it will be available from your Windows Start menu (whether or not you're online) by browsing to All Programs > plans.theFrankes.com.

So to recap:

1. Ensure you're running Windows.
2. Ensure you have the .Net 2.0 Framework.
3. Ensure you have Alibre Design installed.
4. Start up an Alibre Design session.
5. Download Point Import Wizard for Alibre Design.
6. Start importing points!

CollegeFundware: What is it? Is it Free?

I have a bright little boy who I'm sure will want to go to college. I estimated the cost of this to be about $400,000 by the time he is ready. That's a heck of a lot of cash, so I came up with CollegeFundware to help.

The software is basically shareware with a twist. You're licensed to try it out for a reasonable period of time, but if you want to keep using it after that, you need to contribute to my boy's college fund. =) So it's not really free, but rest assured: You're not helping some billionaire get richer -- you're helping a bright little kid get a decent education.

Getting Started

Start up Alibre Design or Alibre Design Xpress and create a new, empty part. Then from the Windows Start menu, browse to

All Programs > plans.theFrankes.com > Point Import Wizard for Alibre Design

You should see a screen similar to this. (Except if you haven't yet registered, you'll also see a picture of the boy who will benefit from your product registration.)

This window shows you the parts you currently have open in Alibre Design sessions, as well as the design planes and sketches for each part. For this example, select the XY-Plane in the Sketch or Plane box (you may need to expand some of the tree nodes), and enter the five X,Y coordinates shown below. Ensure that Points is selected in Import Points As, and that the Units box shows Centimeters (cm), as show here.

We're using very simple coordinates in these examples, so it's important to note that Point Import Wizard accepts decimal numbers with an approximate range of +/-1.5e-45 to +/-3.4e38. Also you can import hundreds or thousands of points at a time, and if the processor gets bogged down with extremely large imports, you can easily break down the task into smaller batches because the tool can import any number of sets of points, lines, or spline into a single sketch.

Now click Import, and you should see a small window appear that tells you haw many points were imported, as well as what the minimum and maximum X and Y values were. For very large sets of data, this can be used as a sanity check. For example, if I know my part should only be about five centimeters square, then the Max Y value of 19 should raise a red flag.

If you switch over to your Alibre Design session, you'll see that a new sketch has been added that is based on the XY-Plane, and that it not contains the five points you imported (first illustration below). (You may need to edit or activate the sketch in order to see the points.) Similarly, you'll see that Sketch<1> has also been added to the Point Import Wizard Sketch or Plane box, as shown in the second screen shot below.

Working with Units

Point Import Wizard allows you to import points that are based on a wide variety of units of measure, including

• Millimeters (mm)
• Centimeters (cm)
• Decimeters (dm)
• Meters (m)
• Inches (in)
• Feet (ft)
• Yards (yd)
• Links (surveying)
• Chains (ch, surveying)
• Fathoms (nautical)
• Hands (horses)
• Mils (tolerances)
• Points (typography)
• Rod (rd); Pole; Perch

The application will convert points in any of these units to the units of the units you're using in your Alibre Design session.

Lines

Point Import Wizard also allows you to import the same set of points multiple times, to any sketch (new or existing), or to any design plane. In the case of design planes, Point Import Wizard will create a new sketch based on the plane you select, as you say in the example above.

For this example, we'll use the same set of points we entered above, and add them as connected lines to Sketch<1>, which we created above. We'll also cause the lines to be scaled to inches. Select Sketch<1> in the Sketch or Plane box, select Inches (in) from the Units drop-down box, select Lines in the Import Points As section. Leave the same points you entered above in the Points to Add section, and click Import.

If you get an error message at this point, if may mean that Sketch<1> is activated in an Alibre Design session. When you're working with an activated sketch, Alibre Design essentially "locks" the sketch so that other application cannot access it. Just be sure the sketch is not activated (see the illustration below) and click Import to try again. (Point Import Wizard tries to catch lots of errors like this so that it doesn't just crash when it encounters something unexpected.)

Next, you should see the "Import successful" dialog with information about the lines you just imported. In this case there were four lines described by five points.

Switch back to Alibre Design, and you'll see the lines you added. Note that the points that define the lines are scaled larger than the original points. This is because for this example we assumed the points were in inch units as opposed to centimeters.

You can have Point Import Wizard connect the start point to the end point by simply adding the start point again to the end of the point list.

b-Splines

Next we'll import the same points as the control points for a basis spline (b-spline), except this time on a sketch based on the ZX-Plane. Select ZX-Plane in the Sketch or Plane box, and select Curve (B-Spline) in the Import Points As area. Leave everything else the same and click Import.

Switch back to Alibre Design and turn the part until you see the curve on the ZX-Plane.  

Point Import Wizard allows you to specify the polynomial order of the b-spline it produces, and it uniformly distributes spline knots. The higher the order, the smoother the curve because each knot of the curve is affected by more control points. With an order of 2, the b-spline is essentially a set of connected lines, but with an order of 4 (the default for Alibre Design), the curve is much smoother.

Change the order to 3 as shown below, select the sketch you created with the first b-spline import above, and click Import again. Note that the result is not as smooth as the first. This is because the order is a lower number.  

Loft Using Data From Excel

Now let's create a loft across sketches on two different planes. First Select the YZ-Plane and change the Points to Add to the five points shown in the screen shot below. Note that the first and last points are the same, which means that the lines will create a closed figure (a square in this case).

Click Import to add the lines to a new sketch on the YZ-Plane. The Sketch or Plane portion of the window will be refreshed and the new sketch will be listed.

Next, go back to Alibre Design and insert a new plane that is offset 2 inches from the YZ-Plane.

When you switch back to Point Import Wizard, you'll notice that the change you just made is not automatically reflected in the Sketch or Plane area. (This is due to a technical flaw in the way Alibre Design attempts to inform other applications of what it's doing.)

To see the plane you added, refresh the part list in Point Import Wizard by selecting Refresh Part List from the Tools menu.

Now open up a Microsoft Excel spread sheet that has point data. In this case it's a simple spreadsheet that contains all the coordinates required to draw a 4-by-4 square. Select only the point data (the range B4:C7 in this example) and copy that data to the clipboard (Ctrl-C).

Switch back to Point Import Wizard, delete any text that may already be in the Points to Add text box, and paste the data you copied from Excel (Ctrl-V). Note that the columns are separated by tabs.

Add the first point again to the end of the list so that a line will be drawn from the last point back to the first. You don't need to add a tab between the columns. In fact the Point Import Wizard is fairly forgiving in this respect; it will ignore leading and trailing white space, parentheses, brackets, braces, greater-than and less-than symbols, and forward slashes, and will accept as delimiters a comma, semicolon, colon, space, tab, or pipe (vertical line). It will also ignore empty lines and lines that it cannot parse as a pair of coordinates. For example, the data shown below is perfectly acceptable.

Be sure to select the new plane (Plane<1>) as shown above and click Import. You'll end up with two figures on two different planes separated by two inches.

Next, in Alibre Design, use the Loft Boss to create the loft feature.

Customizing Point Import Wizard

If you usually use a specific unit of measure, a certain spline order, or have gotten tired of all the pop-up help bubbles, there are several properties you can change and save so the next time you use Point Import Wizard, it will be set up the way you want it. You do this by selecting Save Settings As Defaults from the File menu. There are the settings that are saved:

• Import Points As: Either Points, Lines or Curve
• Units: Any one of the units in the list box
• Enable Popup Help: From the Tools menu, this will enable or disable the popup help bubbles.
• Expand Tree by Default: From the Tools menu, this will cause the items in the Sketch or Plane area to be expanded (all visible) or collapsed (only sketch names visible).
• Show Success Dialog: From the Tools menu, this will cause the "Import Successful" dialog box (with the import summary data) to be shown or skipped upon successful import.
• Default B-Spline Order: From the Tools menu, this option sets the polynomial order of the b-splines that Point Import Wizard creates.

And Don't Forget...

Registering this software with even a small contribution will help a bright young boy have an even brighter future.

Known Issues

These are no open issues at this time. If you discover issues or defects, please contact me (Alex Franke) at the address at the bottom of this page (in the footer).