GD&T Advisor v2.3.0

What’s New in GD&T Advisor 2.3.0?

Extended Support for Establishing Datums from Targets

Previous versions of GD&T Advisor provided direct support for datums established from point and line targets but not for datums established from area targets or equalizing targets. GD&T Advisor v2.3 includes the ability to establish a ‘user-defined datum’ by identifying any Creo datum plane or datum axis as a datum that is established from targets.

Equalizing datums
Equalizing datums

 

Primary datum plane established by three datum target areas
Primary datum plane established by three datum target areas

 

Datum from Parallel Axis Datum Features

Previous releases of GD&T Advisor did not support the ability to establish a datum from multiple parallel axis datum features (referred to as a common datum in ISO GPS). Establishing datums in this way is common practice and is supported in this release.

Datum BÌ-CÌ established from parallel holes
Datum BÌ-CÌ established from parallel holes

 

Hole Note Improvements

Separate note formats for SI and US customary units

Users working in the ASME standard with both SI (i.e., mm) and US customary (i.e., inch) units may now define separate hole note formats in the application options file for each of those systems of units.

 

Improved Support for Drafted Features

Drafted features may now include an offset dimension from the reference plane. Thus, the gage size may be specified at any location on the feature, not just at one of the feature extents. The figure below shows an example.

Drafted tapered shaft with diameter dimension offset from reference plane
Drafted tapered shaft with diameter dimension offset from reference plane

 

New Advisor Tests for unused Datums and DRFs

GD&T Advisor now tests for the following conditions:

  • A datum that is not referenced by any datum reference frame
  • A datum reference frame that is not referenced by any geometric tolerance

Neither of these are error conditions, but they represent unnecessary objects in the model that may lead to confusion. Each of these conditions results in an informational advisor message.

 

Improved Data Management and Repair

Making changes to the Creo model may adversely affect the GD&T Advisor objects. For example, deleting a CAD feature may cause objects within the GDT_ADVISOR group to fail to regenerate. When you start GD&T Advisor, if there are problems with the Creo objects within the GDT_ADVISOR group, the application now provides an option to automatically repair those objects.

 

Other Enhancements

  • Required entries are more obvious – fields requiring an entry are highlighted in yellow
  • Option to set the TZ modifier default – there is a new user application option to set the default value for the Tolerance Zone Material Condition Modifier (i.e., ?, <RFS>, Ì, or Ë)
  • Control over annotation strings – new administrator application options allow you to control the values of strings that appear in annotations (e.g., N SURFS rather than N SURFACES)
  • Datum planes and axes are sized to fit related datum feature – datum planes and datum axes are automatically resized to match the size of the related datum features (not applicable to patterns, split-draft features, and multi-surface features)
  • Completely redefine patterns – this was not possible in previous releases